AGENBITES AGAIN

AS A YOUNG MAN, I fell in love with the English language and have never gotten over the crush. So, for me, Joseph Bottum's "Agenbites" (May 19) was like an aphrodisiac administered to a love-besotted man, increasing the ardor to a level I haven't felt in years. And it made me ponder a question I've puzzled over for years: Why do so many words that allude to the flawed or debased or problematic use of language begin with bl?

Why, for example, do we have bluster and blowhard, blurt and blarney, blather and bleat? Why do gossips blab and heretics blaspheme and windbags bloviate? Why do con men bluff and blandish and blindside us? Why does jabberwocky strike us as blah-blah-blah? Why are idiots always blithering? Why do bleeding-hearts blubber? Why is blankety-blank a euphemism for otherwise "unspeakable" words, and why, on TV, are such words bleeped? Why are our verbal gaffes bloopers? Why are our solecisms blunders?

Bottum's allusion to "Agenbite of Inwit" gives me hope that one of these days he'll grace us with an essay on dead English words--such long-buried gems as spuddle and widdershins and gundygut. For those of us who are head-over-heels in love, no aphrodisiac can be too strong.

MANNIE SHERBERG
Olivette, Mo.

VOTING UNDER FIRE

CHALLENGES TO ABSENTEE voting faced by uniformed service members and overseas citizens living abroad discussed in the article "Disenfranchised Over There" by Hans A. von Spakovsky & Roman Buhler (May 12) are issues of which the Department of Defense (DoD) is acutely aware. The Department has had many successes addressing these issues and continues to work diligently to mitigate remaining obstacles.

The authors infer high disenfranchisement rates from the number of absentee ballots determined "undeliverable." Under current federal law, once citizens covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act request an absentee ballot, their local election official must send ballots for the following two general elections to the address specified on the application form. Despite the Department's intensive education effort, many voters do not provide their local election officials with a current mailing address.

The article suggested using fax and email as an alternative to the mail. In fact, the Department provides for and encourages the use of fax and email for absentee voting, and has achieved great success advancing state legislation to allow electronic transmission of voting materials. As in years past, the DoD will provide citizens with a variety of electronic and web-based mechanisms for accessing voting materials. In accordance with federal law, a full scale Internet based voting system for military and overseas citizens will be undertaken when the Election Assistance Commission in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology provides electronic voting guidelines.

The Department has worked for years with the U.S. Postal Service and Military Postal Service Agency to expedite movement of ballots destined for military addresses. Contract carriers, while theoretically appealing, cannot deliver to military addresses, or P.O. boxes which are used by many election officials. Further, some states may not accept voted ballots returned by contract carriers.

Our electoral process is complex, with each of the 55 states and territories individually responsible for their election laws and procedures which cover voter registration, ballot provision and acceptance. The Department works with all stakeholders to support the absentee voting rights for the nearly 6 million eligible U.S. citizens overseas and military serving worldwide. We will continue to innovate, collaborate with stakeholders, and educate our citizens about their absentee voting rights and opportunities.

POLLI BRUNELLI
Director
Federal Voting Assistance Program
Washington, D.C.

HANS A. VON SPAKOVSKY AND ROMAN BUHLER RESPOND: We appreciate the good intentions of the Federal Voting Assistance Program. However, the basic issue raised in Rep. McCarthy's Military Voting Protection Act and in our article is quite simple: Should delivery of ballots from overseas military voters home to U.S. election officials continue to take up to three weeks, as it does today?

Or through the use of the appropriate public and private express mail services, should that delivery time be shortened to four days?

Three weeks? Or four days? Hopefully the Department of Defense and Congress will answer that question correctly.

THE CABBAGE CRUSADE

WESLEY J. SMITH's report on the Swiss government's declaration of "plant rights" is actually very good news ("The Silent Scream of the Asparagus," May 12). If leftists adopt plant rights as their newest egalitarian crusade, there will be little--excepting, maybe, pocket lint--that they can eat without guilt. We can only hope that progressives will have the courage of their convictions to maintain their purity by avoiding the food chain entirely, for the benefit of Comrade Cabbage. Let the next self-descriptive radical rallying cry be: "Vegetables of the world, unite!"

RONALD WEISSMAN
Menlo Park, Calif.