NO MARINE
Re: George Neumayr’s
Richard Blumenthal’s Recovered Memory:
Having proudly served in peace and war with the U.S. Marines (as
a sailor in the Fleet Marine Force), I can safely say Marines are
not prone to bragging. They let their actions and integrity speak
for themselves. So, Mr. Blumenthal, I will say to you, I served
with marines, I knew marines, marines were friends of mine. Dick,
you’re no Marine.
— I.M. Kessel
Your article brought to mind Admiral Jeremy Boorda, Chief of
Naval Operations during the Clinton Administration. It is widely
believed that he committed suicide because he had been accused of
wearing a “V” device (V for Valor in Combat) that he was not
entitled to wear on two of his medals. By all measures it was an
honest mistake, but so strong was his sense of honor that he
killed himself to atone for his error.
This past Tuesday I had an in-person meeting with the income
beneficiary of a trust account that I manage. I noticed that he
had difficulty with his left hand. I asked him why, and he
explained that he was in the invasion force on Iwo Jima in 1945.
One Japanese bullet grazed his right arm, another one his legs,
but a third one went through the two bones in his left forearm,
severing the nerve. During our conversation he asked about my
time in the Air Force, after which he expressed his deep
disappointment with one of his sons who is close to my age and
had fled to Canada during the Vietnam war.
Who would have thought 35 years ago that serving in Vietnam would
be so deservedly hailed the way it is today?
— Paul M. DeSisto
QUESTION TIME
Re: Aaron Goldstein’s Miss
PC-USA:
A more appropriate question for the Muslim girl might have been
if she, unlike members of Obama’s cabinet, can call those who
brought down the Trade Towers in an ultimate act of hatred
“radical muslims”??
— R. Mandraccia
TOO COZY TO FAIL
Re: Peter Ferrara’s Liberals
Gone Wild:
There are 3 types of U.S banks: (1) too big to fail; (2) too cozy
with the White House to fail; and (3) all others. It’s clear the
Chicago thugs who run everything in our country forced Goldman,
Citi, GE Capital, et al to put up this money or else.
— Jim
Mr. Ferrara states that the amount of man-caused CO2 in the
atmosphere is .12 percent. However, my understanding is that .038
percent is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and that human
activity accounts for only about 3 percent of all CO2 released
annually. If so, .12 percent considerably overstates human
impact.
Very good article.
— Steve
JUNK AND STORAGE SPACE
Re: Eric Peters’s
Democrat Double Taxers:
While I have mixed emotions on converting highways to toll roads
(it’s similar to a home equity loan — better be careful or you
will blow it on something useless) with either a public or
private partner, I get exercised about the effectiveness of
HOV/HOT lanes.
After you deduct the extra costs to segregate these lanes, the
annual electronics and patrolling costs, and account for the
safety in those lanes “semi-segregated”, the value begins to
seriously wane. Also, if those lanes were open to all traffic,
the average speed on the entire roadway section would rise. [and
lots of fuel saved!]
This is just a typical use of public infrastructure to obtain
social engineering to get folks out of their cars, not energy
efficiency. Usually, the marketplace will handle the commute
misery. With the exception of the emergency services, driving is
a privilege, not a right. In Texas, we the citizens made an
enormous error by allowing the Transportation Department to stand
separate from legislative control — it sounded like a good idea
to get politics out of the road industry, but now we have no
leverage over the Department, and they are dropping billions.
Sure, more lanes are nice, but it’s like storage space at home —
“junk expands to exceed the storage space available.”
— Scott H. Johnson
A BUNCH OF THUGS
Re: RiShawn Biddle’s Broken
Promises:
Late in the 1970s and early 1980 we lived at Ft. Huachuca,
Arizona. The post was next to the town of Sierra Vista. One fall
the local teachers wanted to strike. Their reason was their
desire for collective bargaining to be a part of any decision
concerning wage increases. The entire idea was to encumber local
taxes with the national union’s desire to impose whatever they
wanted upon local taxpayers, or in other terms … taxation
without representation. What followed was a scene none of us
expected to see.
First off, the Commander of the Post allowed his wife to call all
officer’s wives and also among enlisted wives to seek university
graduates. And we were called upon to go in and substitute and
keep the local schools going, not allowing local students, mostly
from military families, to have their education shortchanged. As
a Texas girl in schools where striking was not allowed (the state
of Texas makes teacher’s strikes against the law), I found myself
teaching a 5th grade class. And I also found myself crossing
strike lines to get to school each day.
The local teachers’ heckles were quite disturbing but by about
the end of the first week of the strike everything changed. NEA
brought in union thugs, who looked more like they belonged on a
dock working forklifts, than like teachers. Then things got
really ugly. From simple cat calls the protest became
increasingly more complex, with names of substitutes being
obtained from schoolchildren, then the teachers would call our
homes to harass us (or whomever answered the phone). From there
crossing the line each day felt more like being under fire from
live ammo. The union thugs used profanities and obscenities, and
compelled the local teachers to do the same….and those local
teachers also campaigned their own students by planting ideas and
messages. Many students were told by their own homeroom teacher
to cause havoc and trouble for the substitute, with the
implication that we didn’t deserve to teach them.
One day however, one of the students in my classroom came in
rather quietly, and he had usually been a real behavior problem.
When I asked him what was wrong he replied that his “teacher” out
on the strike line told him she knew I was really teaching
subject matter, not just holding a seat and she had told him to
“mind” me. I was pretty flabbergasted. And before the 3 week
strike was over, several of us were asked to stay on and teach
for the district.
The teachers and union thugs failed in their efforts of
collective bargaining as they were shown that school COULD go on
without them and it might even be beneficial to students. But I
have never forgotten my experience of seeing what the NEA really
was, a bunch of lousy, hot tempered, power grabbing fools. The
taxpayers of Sierra Vista might still be rejoicing that
collective bargaining did not get imposed on their local
taxes.
— Beverly Gunn
East Texas Rancher
WRECKAGE
Re: Jeffrey Lord’s
Newsweek: The Canary In The Liberal Coal Mine:
Mr. Lord begins his piece noting the consequences of the failure
of Newsweek to the staff and their families. I wonder
though, to use his metaphor, about the miners who refuse to run
when the canary passes. Most liberals I know are staunch
Darwinians, so “refusing to run from the mine” is not terribly
surprising and fits their world view. If there is anything to
lament about the failure of Newsweek, it is that it’s
wreckage could not have been limited to owners and staff.
— Reid Bogie
IVY TO WASHINGTON
Re: Ken Blackwell’s
Elena Kagan: Estranged From America:
I regard this as a serious flaw in the theory and practice of
government in the United States. Can’t anybody — conservative or
liberal — find someone to sit on the Supreme Court whose job
resume doesn’t involve going from the Ivy League to Washington to
the Ivy League to Washington to the Ivy League and then back to
Washington?
— Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida
SMIRKING
Re: Patrick O’Hannigan’s
The Governor, the President, and the Race Card:
Nail-on-head observation about Obama’s reflexive smirking. That
exposes, I think, an attitude that allows him, as he wears one of
his many egotistical hats, Lecturer-in-Chief, to chastise all of
America about its incivility while he points fingers, demonizes
critics, dismisses public opinion and, generally, depreciates
anything outside of his ideological and morally agnostic
bounds.
— C. Kenna Amos Jr.
