The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 2 of 2)

" ... unfortunately with technology, parents are able to use sonograms to determine the sex of a baby, and to abort girl children simply because they'd rather have a boy. And those are deeply set attitudes."

Unfortunately? Ultrasonography is a great medical advance. Ignorant peasant women in China and India, with no access to such modern healthcare, are reduced to postpartum abortion of their female issue. How else can these women exercise choice?

Maybe abortion clinics should require women to view their sonograms prior to the procedure. Perhaps we ethnocentric self-righteous Americans should try it here before imposing our values on other cultures. Sell it to the sisterhood as "informed choice." Let us know how that goes, Madame Secretary.

Did those "deeply set attitudes" afflicting the ignorant masses of the world ever hold sway in Western thought? And if so, how did the West overcome the notion that women and children were chattel?

Madame Secretary, do not let your heart be troubled.Remember that "a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."
Just substitute girl for boy -- all are mammals. And if it's any consolation, you gals aren't alone -- African-American fetuses have no civil rights either.
-- Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

CLOSE SHAVE
Re: Roger Scruton's Dealing With Iran:

Dear sir, I must protest at an element of "beardism" in Scruton's otherwise perceptive essay. Personally I choose not to scrape the stubble off my chin every morning, but this does not make me a mad Mullah or any other kind of ranting hypocrite. There are smooth faced Mullahs, mad and otherwise, but often paranoid, who are just as dangerous. I agree about paranoia, the drive behind it is that one is superior therefore hated and bedevilled by the inferior, in other words, an inferiority complex. Paranoids are always victims no matter how much damage they wreak, cf Hitler.
-- Fred Middleton
UK

QUIBBLING
Re: Christopher Orlet's Beautiful Freaks:

What a great surprise to read about my favorite singer's autobiography on The American Spectator. There are a few factual problems with the review, however. One is that E's mother died two years after the album in question; it's his sister that died close to its release. In addition, Linklater's view of Many Worlds is the pop-culture one (a human-centric version, which states that we ultimately make every decision we consider), not the actual one (which states that anything that is quantum-dynamically possible occurs). Thus it is not truly a "good ... introduction to the theory." Also, the Star Trek episode aired over a decade prior to Hugh's death. Finally, the final paragraph shouldn't be indented.

Still, minor quibbles aside, great to see it (and to see that mention of the Bush campaign's dunderheaded decision to vilify one of his albums didn't deter or even warrant mention in the review).
-- Michael

KEEPING THEM ON LIFE SUPPORT
Re: Eric Peters's Government Could Save Detroit:

Mr. Peters offers the correct prescription for healing Detroit. And if it is good enough for Government Motors, it is good enough the American public, or more specifically, the American health care system, but the problem is one of diagnosis. Peters' medicine would cure the patient if money were the true the problem. The problem is not one of pure economics, but one of economics as a political tool. The Left is only concerned with power and how to keep it. No, as long as the Left is in charge, this patient is staying on long term life support.
-- I.M. Kessel

"YOU PEOPLE" IN AMERICA
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Is Sarah Palin the Next Ted Kennedy?:

Sarah Palin and Ted Kennedy do not belong in the same sentence. Sarah is a joke to us here in Canada, while Kennedy was a statesman. You people are very scary.
-- Maggie Laird