“In my experience, no one is dismissed more readily by our society than a middle-aged woman.”
Finishing Thanksgiving
Destroying the country, one tradition at a time
Editor, The Times:
Regarding “A most American holiday” [Times, editorial, Nov. 22]: No doubt the Seattle School Board folk and the regrettable Dr. Caprice Hollins are all basking in self-superior triumph, having fulfilled their perceived duty to soil America with yet another liberal revisionist assault on the American tradition of Thanksgiving [by suggesting it may be an occasion to mourn].
Politically bigoted academia hasn’t had an original thought in decades due to the leftist intellectual corruption stunting its every product and rendering its research automatically suspect for the warp of political correctness.
But I thought I’d still attempt to send its members a message from the world of reality they obviously sought refuge from decades ago: Whatever your politically bigoted professors taught you from the “Little Blue Book of Politically Correct Thought,” it is actually not the mandate of teachers to destroy America, one tradition at a time. It will come as a shock to you educators to learn that your duty is to present balanced, apolitical truths to students in a manner they can best learn - not to indoctrinate them in the anti-American self-loathing with which liberals have become so hopelessly contaminated.
Take a break, people. America has enough enemies.
- William Slusher, Okanogan
More traditional fare
What’s next on the chopping block, the Easter bunny?
Everyone I know and meet at this time of year tells me “Happy Thanksgiving” and is excited about going home to spend time with friends and loved ones. To most, it’s a day off from work, a time to watch football, eat turkey and pie, a reason to travel to Grandma’s house to visit.
Never do my words, “Happy Thanksgiving,” come with a lecture of how brutal the white man was or how bad those first winters must have been back in the ol’ days.
For the Seattle School District to start to look for negatives in a holiday and then publish its agenda to go home with the children is appalling and beyond the scope of what I feel a school should teach.
This kind of information is, at best, left for the history classroom during discussion of the early settlement of America.
The great people of Seattle need to let this school district know that its opinion on this subject went to far when it decided to send it home. It leaves the door open for ripping other holidays and events shared by most Americans.
What’s next? A letter sent home telling parents their children should not celebrate Easter because it’s not really about the Easter bunny, but a bunch of evil white men who beat this guy and then drove nails through his hands and feet just to watch him die?
They totally miss the importance of giving thanks for whatever reason. Me, I give thanks when I wake every day.
- Bill Leone, Jeannette, Pa.No treat for military
I find it ironic and sad that our tradition of the president pardoning a turkey for Thanksgiving has evolved to giving them a police escort, VIP treatment at the airport and first-class seats [”Bush pardons 2 turkeys,” Odds and Ends, Nov. 21].
Maybe if we weren’t at war, I would just consider it stupid and a waste of taxpayer money, but especially now, it is a disgrace.
I have often wondered why our soldiers have to stand in the regular lines at the airport and get no special treatment.
I was at the airport one day when one of these young men, weighed down by his pack, asked if the airline gave free upgrades to soldiers. He was told that they didn’t and I regret to this day that I didn’t think quicker and offer to pay for the upgrade myself.
Shouldn’t our soldiers be treated as well as a couple of turkeys? How many upgrades could have been given to soldiers with the money we spent on this photo op with the president?
At least the turkeys don’t have to worry about being killed when they reach their destination.
Too bad we can’t say the same thing about our brave men and women in the airports.
- Andrea Liggett, RedmondThe Pilgrims’ lesson
In “Class project’s use of prayer irks parent” [page one, Nov. 22], we learned that one parent of a student at Shoreline’s Ridgecrest Elementary has protested a prayer as the learning tool used by the Pilgrims.
I am passionate about keeping our public schools secular and not permitting religion in the daily school activities. But the complaining parents have missed the historical context in which the prayer was shown.
The children learned about churning butter, food and clothing of the period, and how the Pilgrims wrote and learned reading. When Pilgrim children learned to read, the text was indeed usually religious. In middle-class homes during the first years of the Pilgrims in America, the Bible was the only book they owned.
Ridgecrest didn’t require the students to memorize the prayer, nor did it teach Christian doctrine that day. It demonstrated what children the same age would have been doing at school in the 1620s in Massachusetts.
- Jennifer Moon, KingstonFoul mouthful
Why so disrespectful?
I appreciated Leonard Pitts’ insightful column regarding Hillary Clinton [”If Hillary’s a (rhymes with rich), what does that make us?” syndicated column, Nov. 18].
In my experience, no one is dismissed more readily by our society than a middle-aged woman. They get little respect, and apparently, Hillary is no exception. This even extends to her peer in the Senate, presidential candidate John McCain, R-Ariz.
As Pitts rightly points out, this kind of discrimination (McCain’s laugh and tacit agreement when Hillary was referred to as “the bitch”) would not be tolerated if directed at a male candidate, but no one seems to mind too much when it’s used against a mature female, despite her lifelong work as a wife, mother and political activist.
Even in liberal Seattle, there seems to be little support for Hillary. When I press my Democratic friends about their lack of support, their objections are vague. Not one of them has been able to give a definitive answer that actually relates to Hillary’s opinions, political platform or campaign issues.
It’s starting to look like being smart, articulate, experienced, ambitious, tough and informed are not enough for the American voter; you must also be male to be taken seriously as a candidate.
Perhaps the most definitive thing this campaign has shown us so far is that sexism is alive and well in America, among voters of all stripes.
- Ann Morgan, EverettEveryone’s demeaned
I’m not one for using profanity, but here goes. Bastard. There, I said it. Leonard Pitts is right when he asked “If that woman can call Hillary Clinton a bitch, then what’s that say about us?”
If the former first lady and now a leading contender for the White House is a bitch, then all the other presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, must be - you guessed it - bastards.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, here’s my question: Where is the religious outrage over this slur? Privately, I assume many evangelicals, who’ve made it clear they believe Hillary Clinton is the anti-Christ, chuckled like Sen. John McCain did when they heard that woman ask, “How do we beat the bitch?” But publicly, on Sunday, in full view of their parishioners, I wonder, what did the nation’s spiritual leaders tell their flocks?
Say what you want, laugh when you want - bitch, bastard, hebe, spic, coon - such words are all cut from the same hateful cloth. I doubt the Founding Fathers had these slurs in mind when they created the true moral fabric of this country.
- Denny Freidenrich, Laguna Beach, Calif.Read all about it
Credibility omitted
Editorial Page Editor James Vesely says: “Media companies, especially newspapers, are by default nearly the lone agents of the democratic form of government.” [”The handoff,” editorial column, Nov. 18.] Actually, a lot of us have concluded that, not only are you not agents of democracy, but you are in fact lying to us. We believe that you are not reporting to us as much as propagandizing us. Certainly you have your right to your views, as we all do. But the sanctimonious pretense of objectivity in your reporting, when it is so clearly slanted to the left (Murdoch aside), rather fails to arouse in us any admiration. Try “disgust.”
Sorry. Nice try at a member of the journalistic trade patting the journalistic trade on the back, but it doesn’t come off well. That trade has poisoned its domain, and its credibility is gone as a result.
- Paul DuBois, Madison, Wis.Free with every paper
James Vesely, thank you so much for your fine column.
Yes, we need a “robust life in a democratic state” with a truly free press to keep us informed of our choices. That’s certainly not what we are seeing in the Middle East with the so-called new democracies (in name only) formed by U.S. armed might.
Right now The Seattle Times is still able to help make our state a true democracy. Keep up the good work!!
Also, thank you for putting Don Sly’s letter first last Sunday [”Disorder in the court,” Northwest Voices, Nov. 18]. It was truly the best letter and points out the unreasonable concern about a small raise in our taxes to keep up with inflation. Obviously, with yearly inflation a fact of life, the cost of providing social services rises for the government too - just as it does for all individuals in our state. And, continuing to lower taxes for the wealthy is just wrong!!
- Cecilia Saari, SeattleJilted by an ideal
The “defensive and moribund medium” that James Vesely so articulately and passionately defends is a victim, not only of delivery systems and transformation, but of an inbred sort of erosion of the great profession he so ardently champions - journalism.
This systemic and burgeoning disorder undercuts the very touchstones of “contradiction and accuracy” that he points to as hallmarks of his noble trade.
As a former bicycle transporter for the Seattle Star myself, and as a weekly newspaper publisher in the ’60s, and a decades-long subscriber to Seattle’s second daily until a week ago, I’ve had my own love affair with the press. But I’ve been jilted.
Mr. Vesely accuses a trio of information impostors - the World Wide Web of wobbly integrity, the ubiquity of televised trivia and the angst-driven deluge of radio talk shows - as being critical competitors with his venerated newspaper, for revenue, ratings and reverence.
But news gathering’s steady slide of authenticity is, for many, a deal breaker, with or without these other external competitive threats.
Mr. Vesely’s viewpoint is, naturally, that of an editor of the editorial pages of a great newspaper, where opinion is encouraged and prejudices are bylined - as they should be … where they should be.
But on the news page, the slight slant of a story’s headline, the continual (intentional?) omission of a preferred subject’s clay feet and the unnecessary re-reporting of a favorite target’s negative nuances - these are not the proudest examples of the journalistic checks and counterchecks Mr. Vesely holds so dear.
And the North Carolina Weekly’s Hal Crowther fears the collapse of the First Amendment, along with the imminent passage of professional journalism. At least some aspects of “professional journalism” may have gotten a head start.
- Jerauld Miller, Mill Creek