I've created this board so Forum lurkers can comment on recent Letters to the Editor and submitted op-eds in the Herald.

Have at it!

And, fittingly, I'll offer the first comment:

As a radical free-marketer, I want to applaud a few excellent opinion pieces that appeared in the 6/6 Herald. Charles Webster's letter on gas prices, Debi Turpin's 6/6 op-ed on Washington County house prices, and Gary Harding's letter on union mischief all show acute understanding of market forces. If only our elected leaders had such understanding; we might be able to solve some problems!

Okay, I'll play. I say "thumbs down" to every letter written by ultra-liberal Allan Powell over the last year. That guy writes more illogical and often downright wrong stuff than any regular writer I can think of.

I used to enjoy reading Powell because he would present thoughtful opposing views to my own. But the last couple of years, he seems only able to formulate screeds. It's quite disappointing....

I'm glad I never had Powell as a professor. I have doubts he would be able to overcome his extreme liberal bias and grade me fairly. It's a shame that so many college professors are liberals, many of whom can't seem to avoid injecting their bias into their teaching.

I once heard Allan tell his story about how he went from being a seminarian to being an atheist. (He may classify himself as an agnostic, perhaps I shouldn't brand him an atheist.) It seems like he's still working out a lot of personal issues, and that often spills out in his political opinions.

It seems to me, based solely on his writing, that he is a very angry and unhappy person.

I'll add a thumbs down to Randy Breeden who writes anti-hunting articles and chastizes drivers who hit groundhogs on the road. He thinks animals have "little chance" to survive in our world.

Have you seen how many groundhogs are around these days? They get hit because they're everywhere! Wonder how mixed-up he must feel about the horse who breaks its leg and perhaps needs to be killed because of a groundhog hole in the farmers field?

Yeah, Breeden has me snickering....

As for the groundhogs, I guess they had a very romantic past year.

There was a letter in last night's Op Ed (forgot the name) from a guy whining about VP Cheney apparently using the "f-word" recently and Bush using the "a-hole" word 4 years ago. Appaprently this guy doesn't follow Kerry's foul-mouthed quotes.

I think Presidents and such should abstain from public use of cursing, but this guy was so hypocritical...

My theory on this has always been college professors tend to be liberal because those who are actually educated beyond the run-of-the-mill bumwipe Bachelor's degree have a thinking, questioning and critical brain in their skulls, and have learned to examine multiple informational sources with a critical eye before forming their own opinions. Having a breadth of knowledge and well-informed opinions, they still comes out on the "liberal" side.

Whether or not there is a correlation or not, I don't know. It's just my theory. An OPINION, if you will. (In other words, Snoopy... don't go digging up bogus "studies" to try to show my "facts" are incorrect.)

To distill your "theory", the smartest, most informed and educated people are liberals. Is that it? Gee, since I'm just "bumwipe" (or worse) educated, I dunno, but let me go ask my conservative Ph. D. buddies if their degrees are bogus!

Sorry Mel, I disagree with your theory. I don't have a BA much less something more, and I'm fully capable of examining all sides of an issue, forming an opinion, and making decisions.

It's funny, when I was in my early 20's, I was pretty conservative. Now, 20+ years later, I find I'm a conservative liberal. I can't point to an event that caused the transformation, except maybe life. Oh, well!

You must be mistaken, Sheash. Probably due to your lack of post-grad studies among the non-bumwipe elite.

I think college/university professors/ PHd's tend to the liberal side because they've spent most of their time with their noses in books, theses, studies, white papers and of course the lab (what their "lab" is).

I think that these folks don't have much "real world" experience. They're not "streetwise". They can relate academically, but not practically.

I think I use too many quotation marks.

I can understand how that would be the prevailing thought on academics. (I know that is has been numerous times in my own experiences.) As with anything though, that certainly isn't universal.

I just think that they tend to be much more cognizant of underlying structures, social and political dynamics, etc. than the lay person, and see those systems playing out for the worse in everyday observations in a "cause and effect" manner; whereas the lay person only sees effects but is ill-informed as to the underlying roots of societal ills.

Would they by any chance be from Liberty University? No? Oral Roberts maybe?

Is that why so many liberal professors seem to embrace socialism? We all know how successful socialism has been!

Last I checked, Norway seemed to be doing just fine.

That's your perception, not mine.

None of mine advocated for it.

Let me offer a different interpretation:

Many of the people who self-select into getting graduate degrees and teaching at universities (I did both) cannot stand the thought of a world where public policies and societal decisions -- and private choices -- are made routinely by ordinary people instead of the intelligensia. The notion that a free market could aggregate and apply information in ways better than committees of the elite is frightening. The little people are incapable--or worse!--of making most of life's decisions and instead need to have most of their decisions made for them, or at least have their freedom of choice severely limited so they will make the right choices. To allow the little people such broad individual liberty would bring disaster.

Indeed, how can a run-of-the-mill bumwipe have a thinking, questioning, critical brain in his or her skull? How can he or she examine multiple information sources with a critical eye before forming opinions? How can he or she have a breadth of knowledge or well-formed opinions? It's all so horrifying....

When such professors look for a political ideology that embraces that view, they find support by some on the right, but much stronger support by most on the left. For the left, the only choice that can safely be left to the bumwipes is whether to have an abortion -- pretty much everything else needs tight control or else the bumwipes could buy the wrong washing machine, or say something controversial in public, or make decisions about how to provide for their own health care and retirement. Freedom of speech and freedom of conscience and economic freedom -- oh my!

Oh yeah? Well it's always the low-life bumwipe that saves the world from nuclear disaster, giant insect, snake, bee, roach attacks, alien invasion and Mothra and Godzilla attacks!

The same disasters that the highly educated PHD created in the first place!

mlt - Norway is very oil rich -- what will happen when the oil starts to run out is questionable. And not my idea of highly socialistic -- think more like the former Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, East Germany, Poland. Why is it that very few if any socialist countries decide to stay that way if given any choice?

Mel -- Have heard lots of stories of liberal professors promoting socialism. Why is it primarily only professors and their students who seem to promote it? Or is my perception wrong (no facts at hand to support it).

Tom,

Well said...but it would have come off better if you were a bumwipe, too!

Yoss -

Your alternate interpretation seems to have misread mine.

You seem to suggest that individuals who place themselves on a higher rung of the educational ladder -- PhDs, university professors, etc. -- do so because they obtain an elitist credential that gives them a means to pass into the highest levels of government and/or policy-making groups in order to control the "little people" into carrying out their own self-serving interests.

While that may be the case for a minority of these folks, I think your presumptions, specifically that university professors and other scholars are distrustful of bumwipes to make decisions for themselves, is entirely off-base. In fact, I find that the exact opposite is true; and that most are distrustful instead of the power elite of this country -- a quite different set of characters than the educational elite -- than they are of the lay person. There is at least a recognition of the fact that a layman -- even the most intelligent and critical -- is not afforded the types of resources necessary to affect any sort of meaningful change for himself or the similarly-situated, because structures are already in place to limit that individual's ascension into a position of power.

That seems to be where the two "elitist" groups -- the education elite and the power elite -- diverge. An average person can always achieve some measure of upward mobility through education; leftist academics recognize that. However, it is the ascension into the power elite that is impermeable and, I think, that this is one of the primary reasons that many professors/scholars turn out to be leftist. (I don't necessarily buy the argument that they're leftist first and then achieve elitist status second; rather I think that it is chronologically the other way around.)

You see, my impression here is very different.

I see leftist professors constantly looking for and endorsing ways to contract individuals' liberties and resources -- specifically their ability to accrue and utilize wealth. From the individual freedom to have control over Social Security and health care, to tax and bureacratic barriers on the opening and expansion of private business, to barriers and prohibitions on businesses that provide affordable products to lower-income people, the left (and leftist professors) work hard to keep individuals from having control over their lives and growing assets that would enable individuals to better secure their positions in life and even develop political power. Individuals have many resources with which to improve themselves--at least, until the left expropriates those resources.

Indeed, the great class warfare in the United States isn't the battle between rich and poor, but the battle between the upper middle class and everyone else. The upper middle class works hard to pull the rich down and push the lower-middle and lower classes further down. In both cases, the money sucked out of the rich AND the poor are redirected to the upper middle class -- including upper middle class professors at public universities whose paychecks are heavily subsidized by the other classes.

The left supporting individual liberties? Please. They are humanity's benefactors just about as much as they are truly liberal.

Well, that's because the left is inherently suspicious of wealth, which is basically synonymous with the power elite. I don't view the left as attempting to restrict individual liberties at upward economic mobility, as you suggest, but rather to prevent the powerful from allowing only the few from the underclass who are capable of "passing" into their rungs -- coincidentally, those are the ones who have the correct race and sex (or, in certain limited cases when they need a puppet token, such as Condy Rice and Clarence Thomas).

So, even when there are opportunities for upward mobility, the access to such opportunities is unequal. The tensions between and among the classes goes far, far beyond simple classist delineations and spills over into the arenas of race and gender. The left recognizes this, and the right's approach is tantamount to a denial of it.

The middle and upper-middle classes in this country are far more concerned not with trying to pull down the wealthy, but in trying to reach them, which essentially props them up. That's why we're a country of middle-managers. The consumer culture created by and for the benefit of the wealthy (not the upper-middle class) keeps the unreachable carrot dangled in front of the middle and upper-middle classes, and encourages so much intraclass competition that there cannot be a realization of class awareness, organization and mobilization to overcome the structural barriers in place.

You and I are never going to agree on this, and at this point it's all just been boiled down to socio-economic theory anyway.

Bumwipes unite..or maybe "My name is Gman and I a Bumwipe" I often wonder if the cave dwellers that invented fire / the wheel / stone implements were just some bumwipes or by todays standards all were bumwipes... think about it. As my Grand father used too say boy don't get above your raising.

Hello, my name is Sam and I am also a bumwipe

I'm not actually a bumwipe.

But, I've played one on TV!

I'm a capable, equally smart bumwipe, and without bumwipes like me to get them the things they want and need, those PhD's would be lost!

Oh no, oh no -- not that easily.

Let's look at the American Left's alleged efforts to equalize opportunities at upward mobility:

SOCIAL SECURITY -- Under the guise of providing support for retirement, Social Security takes more money -- in nominal amounts, not even considering real amounts -- from black men than they receive in SS benefits over the course of their lives. Analysis shows that the lost money then gets redistributed to upper-income SS recipients, because they're the ones who live longer. Of course, all social classes in the future will be losers under SS because it mainly will redistribute money from today's younger generations to the baby boomers. And they're also losers because their payroll taxes could accrue tremendous interest if invested in anything reasonable (and probably would be much safer in the private markets than in the hands of Congress). Still, the poor and minorities are the biggest losers under SS because what money they would have to build savings and wealth is taxed away and redistributed to upper-income recipients. Yet when anyone points out those inequities or offers a redesign of SS that will keep it from (1) going broke and (2) actually benefiting people, the Left rises up in ardent opposition. Why? Perhaps because they like how SS redistributes wealth to the upper middle class.

HEALTH CARE -- The current American health care system is largely the construction of the Left, with individuals having little control over prices or quality. State boards decide how many doctors and other health professionals there will be in a marketplace, how many hospitals, what sort of medical services, how much medical equipment, etc., etc. Federal laws require so much paperwork that there literally are four paper-pushers for each doctor. State laws mandate what insurance must cover, which prompts a lot of employers to not provide health insurance to their employees at all rather than to provide "basic" coverage that they can afford, because the government doesn't allow basic coverage.

Meanwhile, tort lawyers have experienced an increase of between 1,000 and 1,400% in real income per hour over the past four decades, depending on which academic study you read. And the only sector of the medical system that currently is producing measurable improvements to longevity and vitality -- pharmaceuticals -- is under constant attack from the Left. The result is state-managed undersupply of health care at higher prices. Who benefits from this Leftist creation? The upper middle class non-medical professionals who are well compensated for their work in health care -- the lawyers, the insurance administrators, the health management administrators, and the lobbyists. Oh, and one other thing -- miraculously, the upper middle class seems to not be as limited as the rest of us by the barriers to access that government places on health care.

LAND-USE LAWS AND HOUSING -- The Left is constantly fomenting for increased planning and land-use restrictions, which usually means "keep the riff-raff out." Montgomery County, that great bastion of planning, has successfully instituted economic apartheid through zoning, pushing lower and middle-class people out of the county -- and especially far away from Potomac, where the zoning is tightest and the income (and Leftist politics) are heaviest.

LABOR -- For decades, Leftist politicians worked closely with labor unions and old-guard businesses to establish cartels and oligopolies that forced normal people to pay ridiculously high prices for products -- the money of which was distributed between ridiculously well paying union jobs and the managers of corporations that were as fossilized as they were entrenched. Meanwhile, dynamic upstarts with innovative, cost-cutting ideas were held out of the market. From airlines to food transport to banking to communications to automaking, these Left-established cartels pushed prices higher, quality lower, and forced most lower income people to do without goods and services -- making those products the domain of the upper middle class.

Meanwhile, the Left continues to push for increases in the minimum wage and expansion of the "living wage" -- even though they know well that research shows such laws do not benefit "working families" but instead increase the income for upper-middle class families that derive second-, third-, or fourth-incomes from jobs that qualify for those perks. Meanwhile, more and more low-skilled, low-income individuals are priced out of the marketplace by the rising wage requirements, and are thus left destitute rather than having jobs that they can leverage for more skills and promotions. Who does this cartelization of high-skill workers and pushing out of low-skill workers benefit other than the upper class over everyone else?

TRADE -- The Left has once again been vilifying trade for providing Americans (especially low-income Americans) with goods that they can afford. Tarriffs, taxes, and "social justice" pressures have all been applied to keep low-income people in foreign nations and low-income people here from mutually benefitting from trade. The beneficiaries from barriers to trade, again, are the upper middle class because they are better positioned to flourish in a captured market.

WELFARE REFORM -- In the wake of the 1996 welfare reform legislation, the percentage of the US population living at or below the poverty rate has fallen. In fact, in the worst part of the recent recession, the percentage of people living below the poverty rate was just slightly more than the lowest percentage in the whole pre-welfare reform era. In other words, the economic incentives installed during welfare reform have lowered the percentage of people living in poverty beyond what LBJ welfare ever did. And yet the Left wants those reforms rolled back. Why? Perhaps one reason is because they liked the "job creation" of the original welfare system -- not creation of jobs for the unemployed, but creation of jobs for government administrators and employees of the welfare system. As with so many domestic programs in the U.S., welfare appears to have primarily been about creating jobs for people with masters degrees, not helping the poor.

EDUCATION -- The quality of public education in lower income areas continues to flounder as politics, and not sound pedagogy, operates schools. Parents need alternative, affordable options for their kids, yet the Left opposes anything that would give those parents choices or money for anything beyond the politically powerful, unionized public schools. Meanwhile, many upper middle class Lefties send their kids to private schools, knowing that this bifurcated education system means their children will have a strong competitive advantage over many of their public-schooled peers.

Shall I go on?

Of course, there are many criticisms that I can hurl against the Right as well. But it's well past time to knock the gleam off the halo that the American Left tries to award itself. Some members of the American Left may believe that they are working to help the "disadvantaged." But the leaders of the American Left know full well what they're doing, and who they're advantaging...

Really which show?

From the 7/19/04 edition of the Herald-Mail:

http://www.herald-mail.com/?module=display...639&format=html


To the editor:


I would like for it to be known that all people are not the same. Recently I was walking toward Rocky's New York Pizza in the Public Square and as I was approaching the shop, one of the employees that work at the Western Maryland Consortium was sitting there having lunch.


All of a sudden she noticed me and got her pocketbook and closed it and put it in her lap. I approached her and I told her that all African-Americans are not the same. I am presently walking with a cane and I have never had the idea of robbing anyone in my 49 years of life.


My parents always taught me that whatever you want you have to get honestly, or else you don't need it. I have been a resident of Hagerstown for the past 14 years and I have not seen people place labels on anyone else before knowing the person or talking to the person.


I have come to the conclusion that everyone is judged by their color, not their personality. I have a good heart and if I could take it out and help someone I would. I sit on various boards in the community of Washington County and I would like to be seen as a human being, not by my skin color.


I would like for an apology to be sent to me by that individual because it really has upset me and made me afraid to walk the street freely without being judged. It is not my fault that I was born an African-American. I treat everyone with respect and I feel that I should get the same respect back from others.


Eugene Smith

Hagerstown

------------------------------------------------

Sounds to me like Mr. Smith has a huge chip on his shoulder. Perhaps that's why he walks with a cane.

How dare he demand an apology from someone who was being careful. There is no indication, other than Mr. Smith's perception, that the person was being disrespectful. If I was sitting at a table in downtown I would surely take care to watch my property. I'm afraid if I were approached by Mr. Smith I would not handle the situation at all diplomatically.

I wonder how often, while sitting on "various boards in the community of Washington County" Mr. Smith has pulled out and played the race card.

Just a tad overreacting, Mr. Smith? Or do you normally use the color of your skin to gain attention?

I tend to agree with you, Yoss, but without being there maybe we're not getting the whole story. For example, if this person sat there eating and made no move even though 10 seedy-looking white guys passed by, but as soon as Mr. Smith came by in the same manner she reacted like he must be a homicidal maniac maybe he has a right to be a tad upset. But even then to demand an apology and make a huge deal out of it is probably counter-productive and there are better ways to handle it.

You're absolutely right Snoopy. Unfortunately we don't have the whole story. But, if the woman did indeed work for the Consortium, she deals with a lot of not so savory characters all the time. And to work in the Consortium she can't exhibit any hint of racism and I doubt that she is a racist.

I think it was perhaps a matter of realizing how vulnerable her purse was, and coincidentally took care to properly secure it.

But, as you say, without knowing the whole story, I guess we'll never know.

After all, she didn't say anything to Mr. Smith, apparently did not behave badly or anything else to exhibit any anti-social behavior. I wonder how Mr. Smith knew she even worked for the Consortium? Perhaps he has another agenda having dealt with the Consortium.

Not having been there is indeed a HUGE disadvantage in this case.

Did he simply say "All African-Americans are not the same", or did he subject her to the entire tirade?

In any event, were I that woman, I would most likely want an apology from HIM for intruding on my peace and privacy by coming at me with this "not all African-Americans are the same" business.

I sincerely doubt that the experience left her feeling the slightest bit more comfortable around people of color. Most likely she's more frightened than ever before.

Yeah, I think in the end Smith made a fool of himself.

I think it's curious that Mr. Smith has been



but then, after one incident, he comes



One incident convinces him to adopt a belief contrary to 14 years of previous experience? Could that be a tad prejudicial?

Yep, Tom, and he's also suddenly afraid to walk the street w/o being "judged", too.

Fron the July 20 Letters to the Editor:



-----------------------------------------------------------------
Was this written in seriousness or is Mr. Thompson on another "wavelength"? Guess how cancers are detected? X-Rays and MRIs which use...radio waves.

Or are we now going to have to go back to smoke signals. No, that causes air pollution. Tom-toms? Nosie pollution. What are we to do?

Wow. That sounds more like a Mail Call wacko than a L2E.

Mr. Thompson hasn't got a clue. Not aything even resembling a clue.

SARCASTICALLY speaking, he's clearly a well-spoken, intelligent person who has studied the field of Health Physics for many many years. I'm blown away by his wisdom and clear, in-depth knowledge of the biological effects of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation.

"Nothing more needs to be said."

Let's hope he remembers that, before he goes and makes a fool of himself publicly again.

THAT'S precisely the reason that I protect myself and particularly my head in an outer layer of aluminum foil.

Instructions here:
http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

I'll bet you could sell one to Mr. Thompson!

As soon as I read that I had to share it with the family as it was funnier than the sitcom on TV at the time. Wow. I can picture this guy running around with a metal colander on his head and chicken-wire over his underwear to protect him from the "radioactivity" from all those communications devices. Whew!

So, what do y'all think of this guy's opinion from yesterday's paper. I'm especially anxious to see the opinions of some "indecently fully exposed" females!
_______________
Cartoons were hurtful to Muslims

To the editor:

Bismillah, ar-rahman ar-rahim. In the name of Allah, the most merciful the most compassionate. May peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah (saws), his family, companions, and all of those who follow the straight path.

On the second and third of this month, I was appalled to find stereotypical, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim cartoons, in this newspaper. The first cartoon had a unkempt, bug-eyed, caricature of an Iraqi resistance fighter. His left forefinger was inserted into his left nostril. His right hand held a sign reading "vote for death, vote for Zarqawi." Beside this man was a smiling female with her face indecently fully exposed holding up her ink-stained finger.

The third cartoon showed another unkempt, bug-eyed Arab male holding a newspaper reading "8 million votes, 44 dead" in one hand and an AK-47 in his other hand, yelling "I demand a recount."

These vile images are just as unacceptable, as the "drunken Irish fireman" is to the Irish, or Amos 'n' Andy are to people of color.

As one who knows the pain of Zionist occupation, I can relate to my Muslim brothers in Iraq. Not all of the resistance are Baathists or non-Iraqi. They are men who tread the straight path and fear Allah. Men who resist any foreign occupation - American, Syrian or Iranian. Men who know that the only true freedom lies in the mercy of Allah which is his Quran.

Men who know that western secular democracy only strengthens the Shaitan (Satan) by teaching man's knowledge is greater than that of his creator, and that anything is permissible including alcohol, gambling, fornication, homosexuality and so forth.

Faisal al-Husseini
Hagerstown

The person needs to be deported back to his beloved country, where he can worship allah without fear or retaliation.

Yeah, I agree with Yossarian. This person is so blatantly against Western civilization and culture, so why is he living here?

We value our freedom of speech here in America, Fival - I mean Faisal.