Some Thoughts on Civility
Now clearly the kids in this case are not angels, nor is it a great idea to butt into the Decatur school board's business, but I guess it's been slow lately for Jesse and this is the best he can do. He looks foolish talking about prayer "to see us through." But like many of these so-called reverends, that's the only line he knows. He probably says that when he can't find matching socks in the morning.
Incidentally, has Jackson ever taken any black person to task over anything? Has he ever said, "You guys better shape up or ship out"? I don't follow his antics, so I don't know. But I suspect not. I'm surprised MUGGER was so easy on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I checked it out after seeing it mentioned in the papers every day, and I lasted 15 minutes. The questions were a real disappointment: they were either easy general-knowledge questions (which most of the contestants still managed to miss), or trivia questions about current tv shows that only a couch potato would know. Is this their idea of useful knowledge? Any normal person would be embarrassed to win. What a joke compared to the quiz shows of the 1950s (which I wouldn't watch either).
Millionaire is also a grim reminder of the state of basic education in America. People were flubbing questions about basic geography of the U.S. that would have been considered insultingly easy 40 years ago.
God knows what these people could be good for in the workforce. My advice to potential Millionaire contestants would be to put down the remote control once in a while and read something written before 1960, when at least people could find Chicago on the map. (Though I know it's a lost cause.)
A couple of things about Adam Heimlich's "Seven Days in Israel" last week: He mentioned a laptop left behind on a city bus that was subsequently blown up by police. That's because all abandoned packages in Israel, and especially in cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, are considered potential bombs. Anybody that had been there more than a week would know that. Hardly a month goes by in Israel without some kind of terrorist attack somewhere, and being suspicious of abandoned packages is second nature to Israelis. I remember passing a backpack on a bench in Tel Aviv; a few minutes later, as I was leaving a store, I heard the explosion as the police blew it up.
And it is true that Israeli men are unusually aggressive?especially after they finish compulsory military service. They don't want pussies in the army. But they are also extremely nice people, especially toward Americans, and that was missing from Heimlich's account. The story about the driver who ran over somebody's suitcase?that is pretty atypical behavior in Israel. As for the market vendors, some are quite pushy and impatient, but that's the Middle East. The ones in the Jerusalem market I found to be very nice.
Joe Rodrigue, New Haven
Most American voters really don't give a shit whether McCain gets along with his Republican governor and the Arizona Republic, or if Bush gets along with The New York Times. They care whether their president can answer basic questions from Boston tv journalists about leaders in strategic hot spots. (Yes, there are parts of the world outside of the Middle East.) Did you see how angry Bush got at that one? Since anger's a bad thing, maybe Bush shouldn't be president.
I understand why some folks don't like McCain. He champions campaign finance reform, yet he still runs a political campaign. I can't fault you in taking note of that. Nevertheless, though he isn't perfect, he runs his campaign with far more honesty than Bush does, and you know it.
So keep on writing your articles and twisting your facts. But stop whining about The New York Times when you know that you're no better than they are. You guys are no longer journalists, but just politicians in sheep's clothing, and with very defined political agendas. At least admit that to yourself.
Anil D'Souza, Chicago
I agree with you that George W. Bush is no lightweight. His victory over the repulsive Ann Richards in 1994 was truly impressive, as has been his tenure as governor. I was pleased to vote for him in 1998 when we lived in Dallas.
However, I'm hardly ready to agree that Bush has it in the bag. This is liberal America now, after all, and it is now the Democrats who have a lock on the electoral college due to the radicalization of huge numbers of women, the brainwashing of Generations X and Y and the import of millions of Third World types known in the trade as "Democrats on Arrival," most of whom have settled in the large electoral vote states of New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas and California.
Howard Hirsch, Carson City, NV
At another forum, a Gore supporter stated that Gore wasn't afraid to "get his hands dirty." Like we needed to be reminded. When will the Clinton/Gore supporters get it? Can't they get it through their heads that the general public is sick and tired of the dirt, games, lies and gridlock? That we're tired of paying the wages of public officials (and those of their inflated office staffs) who continue to work to promote one another and their agendas instead working on behalf of their constituents?
If the Republicans win next November's election, they can thank the Democrats who seem to never get it.
Flora L. Ramonowski, Manhattan
A few weeks later someone broke into my locker at the club, took my credit cards and went on a two thousand dollar shopping and eating spree in the hour and a half it took me to discover and report the theft.
A few months after that incident, I accidentally left my waist pouch hanging on a treadmill at the club. When I came back the next day the waist pouch was there, but my walkman was gone.
Last week I accidentally left my lock (with key) hanging on a locker for less than an hour. When I returned it was nowhere to be seen.
In the four preceding years, I had not had one negative experience at the club (granted, it wasn't under management of a cost-conscious corporation then, but that's another diatribe). Now the locker room is plastered with bright signs from the 6th Precinct instructing me how to take care of my valuables. The advice boils down to this: don't bring them. More bright municipal notices are plastered in the steam room, which has been inexplicably shuttered for months for unnamed health violations.
I realize my story is paltry compared to things that appear in the news on a daily basis. But as former police commissioner William Bratton recognized, our small quality of life experiences are symptoms of a greater malaise.
For several years I looked down on my own native country as dull and overly socialized. I am now starting to see the appeal of a country that takes care of its citizens. A country where the social pressures that drive people to take an edge whenever they can, at the expense of their fellow human beings, at the expense of their souls, are monitored by the government with the same care and attention that this country spends monitoring interest rates, bond liquidity and the GDP.
Every time I visit Canada, the thing I look forward to the most is its quiet civility. A kind and helping hand is never further than the nearest stranger. I realize this sounds trite and sentimental, but it's also fucking true.
Rob Tymchyshyn, Manhattan
What an earth is an effete Englishman doing ("The Sound of Old Eton," 11/24) singing the praises of one of the most elite and most expensive fee-paying schools in the United Kingdom on the front page of a weekly paper in New York City?
I don't really give a shit that the author's father was "Baron George von und zu Franckenstein, one of the most distinguished diplomats Austria ever produced," but I do give a shit about this writer's boorish pronouncements on the class system and state of the nation in which he was born.
It's like this, Baron: I've met a few of your Eton old boys and yes, like most people, I found what you describe as the Eton confidence to be much more like arrogance. Did it ever occur to you that if most people think you are arrogant you probably are?
You say that you "hope this verbal class distinction will soon be antique." If you mean to say that England would be a better country without the snobbery and class distinctions that have dogged it throughout history, then I agree with you. But realize this: the only way this is going to happen is if the minority start sounding more like the majority. It's not going to happen the other way around.
Max Schuelein, Brooklyn