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Cautionary Tale
James Bowman’s aversion to “trash culture” (TAS,
September 2008) brought to mind something that Hilaire Belloc
(1870–1953), a French writer and naturalized British subject, wrote
not long before his death: “We sit by and watch the barbarian. We
tolerate him. In the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We
are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversions of our old
certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we
laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond; and on
these faces there is no smile.”
VIC STECYK
Richmond Hill, Ontario
An Amateur’s Hour
I enjoyed Alan B. Somers’s review of the 1960 Olympics book
(TAS, October 2008). I was in Austria that summer and my
only memory was of Rafer Johnson’s great decathlon. In part this
was because my Austrian summer family and friends only cared about
skiing and winter sports. I went back to see my Austrian friends
the winter of 1964 and the first Innsbruck Olympics. I remember
West and East Germany participated as one team, at least in hockey,
whatever its political significance. In that pre-PETA time the
Russians were swathed in luxurious sealskins. You could get close
to the athletes and I helped unload bobsleds and was offered rides
in several nations’ VW buses. I also remember the police had shiny
silver badges with the names of the languages they spoke and one
officious guy had a chestful, an harbinger for anyone who realized
the powder keg of the Balkans had not ended with the 1919 Paris
treaty, in spite of the coming 1976 Sarajevo festivities. I
certainly didn’t. If you are still with me, there was one truly
amateur feat and that was Terry McDermott’s 500 meter speed skating
gold medal. He had competed at Squaw Valley, but was now a barber
and recently married in Michigan. Officials begged him to join the
team and he came over to Milwaukee on weekends to practice on the
only Olympic-scale oval. He made the team, was in the last pairing
to skate (a real disadvantage), and set a new Olympic record. I had
my father’s 16mm camera and was close enough and at an angle to
film his performance as he swept by the finish line and the
excitement of the crowd looking back to the electric timing board
and exploding into pre-fist-pumping cheers, especially one American
in a bright red woolen cap. It was Olympian. It was innocent,
amateur triumph in those Cold War times. I like swimming (I went to
Bob Kiphuth’s Yale), but I do feel McDermott beats the ballyhooed
multi-medaled performances of Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps.
BERT CULVER
St. Louis, Missouri
Ben Stein’s Traitors
Mr. Stein makes excellent points, per usual, in his Diary
(“Heroes and Traitors,” TAS, November 2008). Looting is
exactly what has taken place. I am in shock that the citizens of
the United States of America haven’t taken up cudgels and axe
handles and marched on Washington to imprint on the tiny,
self-absorbed minds of the criminals in Congress responsible for
this looting the true meaning of We, the People.
GARY STEVENSEN
Shakopee, Minnesota
Alan Brooks| 3.2.09 @ 3:57PM
re Godless capitalism.
the most famous biblical quote is "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"
however to be a promoter of the obvious, there is a difference between Calvin Coolidge and Robert Taft on one hand,
and Tip O'Neill and Jimmy Carter on the other.
Alan Brooks| 3.2.09 @ 3:59PM
um, meant to write the most famous biblical quote regarding govt and finances.
Alan Brooks| 3.5.09 @ 10:54AM
...however separation of church and state CAN work, if the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright are kept from too much political involvement.
Lingerie| 8.19.09 @ 8:35PM
however separation of church and state CAN work, if the Reverends Jesse Jackson and Jeremiah Wright are kept from too much political involvement
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