From our Mailbag 08/31/01 - 09/23/01
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From Jonathan W., London, ENGLAND:
SUBJECT: Lolitas and Old Hags
Bravo D.A.
Another fine article. You know what they say: Once a pussy hound, always a
pussy hound. Now, are you aware of the varietal fragrance of the human
female as she progresses through her biological term on this planet? No, I
didn't think so. You may want to pass this on to your readers. London misses
you.
1. Piss Pussy (usually to the age of 16 or so)
2. Potato Pussy (usually to the age of 24 or so)
3. Fish Pussy (usually to the age of 43 or so)
4. Cheese Pussy (usually to the age of 71 or so)
5. Powdered Ammonia Pussy (usually to the age of 131 or so)
Warmest Regards,
Engelhard Pinkhand
London, England
From Steve S., (No City Provided,) USA:
Subject: 7 habits of sensitive celibate males
Thanks. I'll try to remember to pass this on to my sons when they are the
right age.
Steve S.
www.iSteve.com
President, Human Biodiversity Institute
From Margaret W. (No City or Country Provided):
SUBJECT: Article on Serbia Media
My only comment to the above article, which obfuscates the issues in a
typical liberal fashion, is that U.S. media critics of Western hegemony die slow deaths in obscurity, after they've been marginalized and harassed (Amy Goodman, FI). That they are shot dead in Serbia is evidence that the war of ideas has reached a more critical stage there, brought to this stage in large measure by the very same forces that seek to bring their advanced ideas of democracy and free markets prior to a more military intervention. That they are NOT shot dead here in the U.S. is merely reflective of the absolute control elite interests have over the media, eliminating the necessity to resort to direct and more distasteful means of quelling dissent, though, of course, such means are eagerly meted out in less developed countries such as Nicaragua, when U.S. corporate business interests are threatened. No doubt the same fate would befall opposition leaders in the U.S. media, should they actually pose a threat to the established order.
Certainly, however, the U.S. government would not allow the intrusion of money and propaganda from an enemy state as the Serbian government did when they allowed various well financed NGOs to instruct the poor enslaved masses in the benefits of "open and free media." Imagine them response here to "Soviet" backed NGOs taking to the airwaves and broadcasting the benefits of collectivity. I imagine not a few "disappeared" among the beneficiaries of such a "communist" infiltration.
Margaret W.
ROD RESPONDS: Ms. W.,
Thanks for visiting G21 and for writing. We very much appreciate feedback from readers.
I do take exception to your opening statements as the article is a direct result of consultations with professional Serbian journalists, in both print and television. I think it's minimalist to believe that only "Western media" would come away with some of the impressions this article tries to convey.
AND I must say, this is the first and probably only time that I've been accused, at least by inference, of being a part of the "elite interests" of American media. I'm nonplussed.
Regards,
Rod Amis
From Steve V., New York, NY, USA:
SUBJECT: Lord Russell
Rod!
Way to go!
Your piece, "Lord Russell", is right on the money.
Russell really does clean out the bullshit, doesn't he? And his refusal to do what most "intellectuals" do -- stand on the sidelines, trying to strike a more righteous or pious pose than the next "intellectual" -- makes him especially valuable.
Russell was right in the thick of various popular struggles (e.g., protests against US involvement in Viet Nam on humanitarian grounds). Of course, as you note, his reputation was trashed for daring voice that opinion.
Now, of course, it's easy to say that the Viet Nam war was a wrong-headed, appalling disaster. In Russell's time, it wasn't so easy -- and he did more than talk.Ý He acted.
Best wishes to you, buddy.
Your (very) occasional contributor and regular reader,
Steve V.
From Ed C., Bloomfield, MI, USA:
SUBJECT: Q) What Would A Man Do?
Dear Charlie the Tuna:
It's me, Ed Cantarella, the flamer from the Great Lakes State - LOVED YOUR ARTICLE! Unlike the usual CTT article, you dropped the guard a little bit near the end ... you almost got misty on us. Are you in love?
Women are like the merchants that hawk wares to tourists: you have to bargain hard with them to get some respect and not be taken.
For you and those other writers and readers who might be wondering about my "disappearance", my wife has been ill with a primary brain tumor for the last 10 months, and is currently doing radiation AND chemotherapy AND cleaning the hell out of our house(since bald headed ladys can't work or drive).
Ed-ios, Tuna Man(just funnin ya :) ,
EC
P.S. A) He'd STAY HARD!
CHARLIE THE TUNA RESPONDS: Hey, Mr. Ed! Believe me you have been missed. Who else would dare cross swords with the best damned columnist this rag has? Most of the other folks here are afraid I'd give them the same beat-down I gave the punk-ass white boys at pimpit.com
But, on to more important stuff: Sorry to hear about the illness of your spouse, my man. I hope your family is doing well and that one day, once again, you'll return to these pages to keep me on my toes.
C the T.
From Lloyd M. Waratah, AUSTRALIA:
SUBJECT: The attack
Hi Rod
To give readers a sense of how far this tragedy reaches, if current missing persons are not found alive, it will be the worst peacetime loss of life in Australia's history - ninety Australians were missing in the World Trade attack at last count.
There are many ramifications of September the 11th's attack. I'm sure the security problem on aircraft will be quickly solved. Perhaps Bin Laden will be found, or whoever was responsible and is not already dead.
The biggest hope I have is that something will be done to address the level of despair and frustration among the marginalised that is the soil in which this evil grows.
Because things can get a whole lot worse, friends. We are teetering on the brink of a precipice, which could bring our civilisation itself down. Sound alarmist? Maybe, but I saw something yesterday that was so frightening that I was at first reluctant to make it more public, the implications being so dire.
One of our local universities here in Australia wants to build a robotic research facility in my district, and I went along to their public forum hoping to drum up some work for my exhibit business.
The first tenants of their facility have a pilotless aircraft they've developed, using readily available technology, that can deliver a five kilogram payload across the Atlantic on six (6) litres of fuel, on a programmed route. This thing is tiny, and cheap. Have a look at it here: http://www.aerosonde.com/aerora_home.htm, and then think about germ warfare.
We stand on the brink of a time when terror weapons with huge destructive power are going to be available quite cheaply, and there is going to be little risk to their users.
Lloyd
From Yona R., Oakland, CA, USA:
SUBJECT: [Fwd: Thought's from an Afghan-American (fwd)]
rod,
i read the letters from your readers... i thought the viewpoint expressed in this one was missing. you will probably have to retype
since it's been forwarded alot...
yo
___________
This was sent to a friend of a friend, who says that Tamim Ansary is
an Afghan-American writer.
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to
the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban?
The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering.
A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan -- a country with no economy, no food.
There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already.
Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their
houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs.
But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban -- by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling.
The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops.
When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand.
What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any
troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let
us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first.
Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's
probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary
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