The American Spectator

Reader Mail

She's Still Toast

3.6.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 3)

It was preordained: When the Seattle SuperSonics began NBA play in 1967, Boeing had won the design competition to build the SST: A Mach 3 airliner demonstrating America's aerospace world wide supremacy. By 1971, Congress had killed the SST for a variety of reasons, including the undesirability of sonic booms hitting populated areas. Ironically, testing the effects of repeated sonic booms on population centers had been done earlier over Oklahoma City! Results of these tests contributed to the SST's cancellation.

The moral: Never keep a team name after its namesake has been cancelled.
-- Glen Leinbach
Fort Collins, Colorado

When Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago it perhaps became inevitable that the Sonics would also leave the city of their birth. With the demise and/or retirement of the old guard civic leaders, i.e. Bill Boeing, the Nordstroms, Don James et al., there are few left with the vision, pride and political pull that it takes to support such entertainment enterprises. I suspect it won't be long before the Seahawks leave also. It is hard to imagine that Bill Gates could get involved in sports promotion: the Seattle Softies? Or that the Starbucks people could field a team of any sort -- perhaps they could replace the Sonics with the Seattle Beans?
-- Rose Storey
Portland, Oregon

THROW THE LIONS TO THE CHRISTIANS
Re: Michael Tomlinson's letter (under "By God or Oprah") in Reader Mail's Obama's Mess:

Michael Tomlinson incorrectly claims that Christianity Today "christened Obama" as a "public theologian." Actually, we quoted Sojourners head Jim Wallis saying Obama is "almost a public theologian."
-- Ted Olsen
Managing Editor, News & Online Journalism
Christianity Today

OBAMA FROM HEAVEN
Re: Lisa Fabrizio's Sermon on the Campaign Trail:

Yep, he's a pistol, Lisa. I don't have the TAS citations, but not long ago, we had a word study in the Reader Mail amidst an ongoing discussion about whether homosexuality even was a sin. Personally, I
always found Matt. 19:4 settled the question, and too, was "more central than an obscure passage in Romans." But then, what do I know. Just today, I found this. When you read reports like that, it's difficult to offer even Israel unflinching support, much less some idiot American politician. I think it's about time for that second visit, Lord.
-- Mike Showalter
Austin, Texas

THE MILD WEST
Re: Bill Croke's Cody Coda:

You article hit home with me. My mother was born in Greybull and grew up in Powell and Cody where my grandfather (Robert Gleeson) managed the Cody Trading Company. Good friends of my mother (Marge and Ray Markovich) spent years in Cody before retiring and moving to Longview, Washington.

My last visit to Cody was in 1961 and I was really impressed. I had planned on returning for a visit in a year or two -- but after reading your article I think memories are best left the way they are. But a visit to Greybull and Powell might be appropriate.
-- Robbie Ground
Klamath Falls, Oregon

I discovered Cody, and Bill Croke, when I read his "Rocky Mountain Bohemia" six years ago. Since then, I read everything Cody's self-described curmudgeon wrote, especially about Cody, and I wondered when the best kept secret would no longer be a secret. I'm real sorry that time has come, and I haven't even had the chance to see it for myself.
-- Kitty Myers
Painted Post, New York

Letter to the Editor

topics:
John McCain, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Business, Sports, Law, Iraq, Iran, Israel, NATO, Africa, North Korea