THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer's name, city, and state.
*1* The mere mention of the Rheingold jingle in Larry Miller's latest piece instantly brought me back to my transistor radio, and "Hello everybody, I'm Lindsey Nelson, on a beautiful day at Shea Stadium, where Jerry Koosman will take on Ferguson Jenkins and the Chicago Cubs--but first, a word from Rheingold!" It's Almost as good as hearing Bob Murphy saying "Ed KRANE-poool!"
--Mike Huggins
*2* I really enjoyed Larry Miller's most recent article. Like Larry, when I was young and poor--as opposed to slightly past middle age and deeply in debt, which is what I am now--I used to cut my wife's hair. She was a brave and patient woman then; now she's just brave, and no longer suffused in spirit with the blind and foolish radiance of new love.
She allowed this experiment in spousal abuse and household economy for about a year, until one day I became over-confident in my abilities. I'll never forget the expression on her face when she looked in the mirror. Now we look back at that time in our lives and chuckle (well I chuckle). She has never once allowed me anywhere near the children with tonsorial implements. They don't know how lucky they are. Wahl razors work great on dogs, by the way. Cats too; but that's another story.
--James Krieger
*3* Just wonderful. I hope Larry Miller doesn't stop writing any time soon!
His Get Smart reference made the piece for me. "Not craw! CRAW!" I thought I was the only one who still remembered that line. It still makes me laugh, too!
--Hiawatha Bray
*4* Great! Not craw, CRAW! It's from Get Smart. I still use that once in a while, but no one knows what I mean. My speech contains too many very funny TV bits. Will I ever be able to use the names Bermuda Schwartz or Goggles Paisano in daily conversation?
My Dad gave me haircuts at home when I was a kid getting my own 7-year old buzz cut. I hated it, just as your kids do, I suspect. Why in the world would a crewcut take forty-five minutes of my Dad's sound effects in my ear? Groaning, whistling, sighing, smacking his lips, licking his chops. Good grief!
--Scott Schuler
*5* I am perplexed by Irwin M. Stelzer's statement that "Gasoline prices are on the rise, with no energy policy in sight that can relieve the plight of America's motorists as they head into the driving season." That Americans have "driving seasons," that they also own SUVs and fly coast-to-coast on an hourly basis, all seems to indicate that the American people don't want government interference with this very American pleasure of burning fossil fuels. As I drive my Cadillac home tonight, I will pay $3.03 per gallon to fill up the tank and I don't care, because I am driving a Cadillac. I, and most Americans, do not want a policy that stops us from driving what we want, when want, and where we want. If we did want such a policy, we would all be driving hybrids.
--J.M. Sawyers
*6* Jonathan V. Last's view that transsexuals who have transitioned are living a lie is incorrect. No transsexual who has transitioned feels as though they are lying, on the contrary they feel as though they are finally able to live the truth. The other life was the lie, hiding how one really feels is no way to live. I understand the author is somewhat sympathetic, but to say transsexuals are trying to deceive people is wrong. These individuals are not males trying to be females or females trying to be males, they are females trying to be females and males trying to be males. When your gender does not match your physical sex it can be very hard if not impossible to stay within the lines set out by society--so we try to become what we know ourselves to be. When a transsexual or transgendered person says "I am male" or "I am female," even though the genetics say otherwise, they are not lying.
--Jamey
*7* James Thayer should have noted that the University of Washington does support honoring former-students who have served in combat, just as long as they did not fight for the United States. In 1998 it erected a block of granite just west of the Husky Union Building with a sculpted bronze plaque to honor eleven University of Washington students who fought with the Communist International-sponsored International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.
--John Haynes
*8* I teach American History at a high school in Ohio. After an eighteen-day unit on the Second World War, 40 percent of my students answered an essay question by saying that American involvement in the war was not justified. I am afraid it is a sign of the times we live in, and absolutely frightening.
--J. Cullen
*9* It is a bit discouraging to read an essay which, while I agree with it, comes so late in the "democratization project." Numerous "realist" experts have been pointing this out since the efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East began. Recall that in this country, only one hundred years ago women still couldn't vote, religious classes were held in public schools, and Blacks were second-class citizens.
In 1933, Hitler democratically attained political power. Only historical ignorance that could sustain the belief that democracy alone equals liberty and justice. Even without studying the cultures of the various locales we have decided to civilize, one could have learned of the inevitable problems we'd face simply by reading the Federalist Papers.
--S.G. Briggs
*10* The technology Victorino Matus reports on has been around for some time. A Google search of "magnetic suspensions" will produce any number of articles on the subject. For instance, using electromagnetic devices to replace springs and shock absorbers on vehicles has been worked on and demonstrated for at least a decade. In fact, you can see the underlying technology demonstrated on any flight where someone is wearing a set of Bose Noise Cancellation headphones. The noise cancellation is achieved by sensing repetitive noise signals and producing a counter-noise that is 180 degrees out-of-phase, thereby effectively canceling the noise while allowing speech and music to continue unaffected at their normal volume levels. This again shows that there is little new that is being done, only things that are under-reported.
--Gerard Muller