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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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The Un-Amusement Park
To the editor: SMU could avoid the rancor growing over the George W. Bush Presidential library (On Second Thought, Feb. 7, 2007) if they just combined it with an amusement park. “Eight Years Under W” could be a huge draw if it included things like:
• The Karl Rove Magic Show, where Rove reveals the tricks he used to make our constitutional freedoms disappear and convince voters that good Christians lie, spy, and torture.
• The Mammoth Environmental Slide. Here visitors would slide down melting glaciers, past decimated forests, dying coral reefs, drying wetlands, and vanishing plant and animal species to splash into a pond of toxic waste and dead fish.
• The Billionaire Arcade, where you could play “Dick Cheney Shoot-’Em-Up,” “Abu Ghraib Pyramid,” and “Rummy’s Tilted Worldview.”
• The President’s Wild Ride, which starts up on Surplus Mountain, passes over voter fraud, loops around the Medicare Donut, and spirals down past fake intelligence, pre-emptive war, Katrina, GOP scandals, secret prisons, failed diplomacy, and troop escalation and ends in deficit dump.
And although most Americans would happily exit “Eight Years Under W,” I can’t imagine that any Christian would ever go through it again.
Sharon Austry
Fort Worth
History’s Not on Our Side
To the editor: I’m writing in response to the guest column, “Surgin’ General’s Warning,” by Jim Fine (Jan. 10, 2007). While I support his position against the ongoing “surge” in Iraq, I question his assumptions about the United States’ role in the “new” Iraq following our departure. He said, “the U.S. should ... implement a diplomatic plan to quell the internal violence and assist Iraq with reconciliation and reconstruction.”
Now that is a chaw to chew. “Quell the internal violence,” he said. Like we did when we supported the South (the losing side) in Viet Nam. From 1968 to 1970 when American bombs were exploding on Cambodia, the American public was told, “We can’t just pull out now.” For seven long years that murderous assault dragged on. The death count continued while we insisted on our political solution to another nation’s struggle. We never quelled the violence in Viet Nam, but the Communist government accomplished a peace process that has established that nation as a prosperous and culturally rich country.
Let the Iraqis settle their disputes without American interference. Let them quell their own violence. Let the people create their own government as they have in Viet Nam.
As far as reconciliation, that, too, appears to be an Iraqi and a regional concern. Let all the regional leaders, from Syria and Iran and Jordan, Israel and Palestine, seek their own solutions.
Finally, rebuilding Afghanistan and Iraq is not America’s responsibility — not when construction workers are bombed on the job, not while well-paid, privately hired workers police the streets of both countries. Not when billions of dollars of oil profits are stolen and squandered.
In the 1960s, I marched with millions, chanting “Out of Viet Nam Now.” In 2003 and 2004 and 2005 and 2006 I marched with thousands, demanding “Out of Iraq NOW,” as the bumper sticker I placed on my truck in 2004 still proclaims.
As we said in the ’60s about Viet Nam, leaving war is easier by far than going in. Face the solders and planes and boats heading west toward home. Let the National Guard and the private contractors descend on New Orleans. Rebuild the 9th Ward. Bring our citizen soldiers home. Now — before one more American dies in the Middle East. Out of Iraq, now!
Kendall McCook
Fort Worth
Inoculate Perry
To the editor: Thanks for the “Perry Exposé” by Dave McNeely (“Off the Top of His Head,” Feb. 14, 2007). Dave clearly has expertise about the Austin political arena and the Perry administration.
With the big bucks of Merck and their lobbyists who advocated the governor’s mandate to vaccinate all 11- and 12-year-old girls against HPV, it shows that Perry is abusing his bully pulpit. Most young girls aren’t even at puberty stage at that age. This unilateral executive order makes about as much sense as setting a milk bucket under a bull, and State Sen. Jane Nelson is to be commended for challenging Perry’s mandate. The legislature needs to address this, posthaste, and override this executive order. Besides, the cost to implement this program will mean that other state programs would be sacrificed to pay for it.
Perhaps the public ought to mandate that Perry get inoculated against a transmittable disease — called rabies!
Edna Maskell
Fort Worth
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