Don't Care How, I Want It Now

To the Editor:

Your May 1 cartoon by Tom Toles of the Washington Post was your umpteenth use of one of that anti-American's sketch artist's works depicting our country's supposed wrongdoings.

Add this frequent twisted pictorial satire to your almost daily attacks on our government through the use of biased, savage, anti-American columns by left-wingers, and you have the reason Bill O'Reilly labeled your paper as a "leftist" organization.

Your paper also manipulates the Readers' Page to give the impression the majority of readers agree with your ideology.

Richard

To the Editor:

If you are planning to make any changes in comics, I would suggest you remove "Chickweed Lane" altogether. I don't read it, but it's above WordWarp, which I do, and any time I've even glanced at it, it's certainly not comical by any stretch of the imagination.

Perhaps a reader survey that might lead to some revamping of the comics would be a good idea.

Shirley

These two letters are both from the Sunday edition of the Post-Standard. Both of them irritated me, though in both cases, I had trouble figuring out exactly what it was that got under my skin. In piecing it together, I admit that I made a bit of an assumption about Shirley; while she doesn't make her issues with "9 Chickweed Lane" clear, I assume her problem lies in the progressive content of the strip. There are multiple gay characters, a divorced and dating mother, and a priest and nun who question their lives after falling in love. Yes, I know, I am jumping to a conclusion, but I have to assume that "not comical" means something more than not funny, as Shirley doesn't complain about "Rex Morgan", "Gil Thorp", or "Family Circle".

I have never heard anyone from the center or left call for the removal of regular newspaper features for political reasons. It seems to be exclusive to the social conservative movement to have such an overblown sense of self-importance and entitlement that they assume everything in the paper should be custom tailored to maximize their enjoyment. Richard starts out by attacking Tom Toles' piece from Monday, which while certainly not complementary of the current administration, is in no way anti-American, nor does it have anything to do with the "country's supposed wrongdoings." Richard also has an issue with all the "biased, savage, anti-American columns" the paper runs... of course, everything on the opinions page is supposed to be biased, the paper doesn't run anything that would qualify as savage on either side of the political arena, and anti-American is, as is usual with the fanatical right, just Richard's euphemism for anti-Richard. Regardless, while the paper does run moderate left-wing columns, they also run moderate right-wing columns as well. Today, for instance, you have the liberal pundit Paul Krugman and the conservative academic Suzanne Fields. The paper always runs two opinion columns, and they are always on opposite sides of, though a comparable distance from, center. Maureen Dowd may run next to Cal Thomas, while Ellen Goodman might appear opposite of David Brooks. It's actually a very fair system, and a valuable one. While I generally disagree with the likes of Suzanne Fields and Cal Thomas, I would never call for them to be removed from the paper, as I appreciate the opportunity to hear multiple takes on the issues. This seems to be the way most in the center and on the right feel, and it has not always been the case that the right did not see the value in diverse viewpoints. Richard, however, wants the paper to make him feel good more than he wants to be informed. His self-delusion is evident in his final sentence... "Your paper also manipulates the Readers' Page to give the impression the majority of readers agree with your ideology." Not only is this statement a gross, baseless accusation of manipulation, but it's based on a patently false thesis; that the majority of the paper's readers are social conservatives and therefore "disagree" with the paper's "ideology." Syracuse is a solidly blue city, and Central New York is predominantly light blue. The majority of people disagree with Richard, not the newspaper. Richard obviously likes to maintain a make-believe existence where everyone else shares his ignorance, and the newspaper doesn't support him in doing so. Richard, the answer is simple. Stop reading the paper, turn on Fox News, sit back, and wallow in your ignorance as much as you like. Fox News exists for that very reason. The Post-Standard does not.

Shirley is less vitriolic, but just as self-important. She doesn't find "9 Chickweed Lane" funny, so it should be removed from the paper. I read "9 Chickweed Lane" along with "Get Fuzzy", "Non-Sequitur", and "The Boondocks". I would like to be able to read my favorite comics, even if Shirley doesn't particularly care for them. I'm sure there are people who like "Family Circus", "B.C.", "Marmaduke", and even, God bless 'em, "Mallard Fillmore". I think those comics are lame, unfunny, and in some cases, offensive. I don't begrudge those who enjoy them, however. I simply, and this is key, don't read them. I frankly don't feel too sympathetic that poor Shirley has to read a comic she doesn't enjoy if she happens to look up from her Word Warp. Sometimes, in a restaurant, I'll look up and see a baseball game on a television, or even Fox News. I don't get up and walk out. I finish my meal and ignore the television. It's not that hard. I can do it. I know you can too, Shirley.

As support for the neo-cons withers away, those who bought into the ignorance of the far right are stuck. They're being mocked openly not because their opponents are mean, unfair, or biased, but because every day it becomes more and more obvious that they've supported crooks, criminals, and liars, but the prideful few still refuse to budge and admit the mistake. As reality becomes more and more difficult to ignore, they wrap themselves in a security blanket of disinformation, profitably provided to them by Fox News and the rest of the far-right media. When holes appear, say, in the pages of their local newspaper, their protective fantasy is jeopardized. What amazes me is that they've buried themselves so deeply in their mythology that they can't even hear how ridiculous they sound.

Again, this kind of thing was a huge factor in my decision to leave the Republican Party. They have aligned themselves far too closely with the social conservatives, and the social conservatives have turned into a pack of whiney, selfish, petulant brats. I learned to stop acting like these people before I was ten. I'm certainly not going to suffer it from adults.