Correspondence: Pin-striped Andy, Rudy, Reagan, &c.
CORRESPONDENCE What Was Lost Grover Norquist may have been more prescient than even he realized concerning the 1998 elections when he opined that "the depth of disappointment reflects the size of...
...Maybe Dave Shiflett doesn't owe an apology to Will, but he should get his names straight...
...I make RET's column and Mr...
...So far, so good...
...Cramer is correct that gravitational "force" is the operative concept (after all, that's what the "g" stands for...
...The Reverend William Conwell Spong, 0.D./ LS is professor of pastoral theology and director of the family counseling center at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas...
...The "4g" specification, of course, means a GPS receiver subject to a force of four times that exerted by gravitational attraction...
...Yes, Mr...
...Cramer's point about gravitational force...
...Because the GOP gained no Senate seats in '98 and will be defending several more seats than the Democrats in 2000, the '98 elections all but assure that Republicans will lack the 6o senators necessary to prevent a Democratic filibuster in the 1o7th Congress, even if the GOP reclaims the White House late next year...
...I enjoy nearly every section, article, column, and feature to be found in the boldest, best conservative publication on the market...
...Timmerman nearly grasps it when he says something about "[measurement] as a multiple of the earth's gravity," but then makes an inaccurate and irrelevant statement about velocity...
...You are a bunch of level-headed independents (neither Repugs nor Demos) who enjoy exaggerating extremes to show us all our folly...
...Macdonald says the Genesis account coincides with twentieth century science on the "order" of creation...
...The tax burden is still the highest of any American city and the bureaucracy just as big and onerous...
...These caricatures help to reinforce negative images of Italian Americans and perpetuate harmful generalizations about our community...
...It is in refuting the second of Dunn's points that he turns snotty...
...sided with the obnoxious George Steinbrenner against city taxpayers to support the Yankee owner's extortionate demands for a new stadium...
...Knowing that Dylan wears his joy, his heart, his inmost thoughts on his sleeve—refreshingly real and humorous—in aworld that is prepackaged, conformist, and oppressive, I realized that the "invective" against him was just one more of your playful acts of self-deprecation, poking fun at the fundamentalist, up-tight right...
...outspoken proponent of same-sex unions and the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals and liberal revisionist author of the Koinonia Statement in support of the aforementioned subjects...
...BARBARA HOFFMAN New York, New York Rudy Giuliani a "Big Apple Reaganite...
...Bishop Jack and Fr...
...After thirty days of life in a Clintonesque society, a monthly dose of Ben Stein's diary renews our faith and hope and prepares us for another thirty days of putting up with an adolescent, self-indulgent society that regards family as a commodity to be used rather than an institution to be cherished...
...Timmerman isn't technically competent to handle his topic...
...That, however, does not make him a "Reaganite...
...pushed local "domestic partner" legislation giving homosexual couples equal status with married couples...
...One of the actresses, playing Mya's rival, has frizzy blonde hair and looks remarkably like Jennifer from her Ferris days...
...Will are brothers, Jack being the older of the two...
...Lucky for passengers, the recordings are rotated every few months...
...JIM DRAKE via the Internet Kenneth R. Timmerman replies: I take Mr...
...far from it...
...Tim-merman's use of it in his response reinforces Mr...
...Timmerman evinces mere irritation...
...Dunn's main purpose was to defend Boeing's public image, not the facts...
...Now I can laugh with you at the folly of what we do and the caricature of what we often are, left and right...
...Certainly, the city has improved in many ways (following a national trend) during Giuliani's tenure, and credit must be given to the mayor for much of it...
...I applaud Mr...
...conspired with City Council Speaker Peter Vallone in a failed effort to overturn voter-approved legislation mandating term limits for city officials, including (surprise) the mayor...
...Although you have the right to agree or disagree with the positions and policies proposed or actions taken by Secretary Cuomo, you do not have the right to color your readership's opinion by the use of negative and degrading stereotypes...
...Perhaps Messrs...
...BRANDON HALEAMAU Hilo, Hawaii I just received my latest issue of TAS and, as always, read it from cover to cover...
...Cramer's point about civility...
...Writers for The American Spectator might better strive for Joseph Addison's gentle gravity than satire...
...In these Genesis contradicts modern science and human reason...
...GWEN KRAFT via the Internet Life With Ben Please spare us any more letters from pro-abortion "conservatives" who feel obligated to condemn Ben Stein for his pro-life principles (Correspondence, TAS, January 1999...
...Writing for technical publications also made me take the vow to avoid technical jargon as much as possible...
...Genesis 2:4-25 recaps the creation, then focuses on man and the garden God planted for man to keep...
...The guy must be a liberal in drag to find anything Ben Stein writes to be anything but informative or entertaining, or nostalgic...
...ERIC C. MAYFORTH Houston, Texas An Offer We Can't Refuse Your cartoon depiction of Secretary [Andrew] Cuomo in your January 1999 article was a denigrating representation of a prominent Italian American political figure...
...As for the defining Reagan issues of taxes and spending, New York City has a $32 billion budget—bigger than that of most states —which Giuliani has done little to shrink...
...I felt that Mr...
...Dunn never disputed that...
...the units of that force are expressed in "pound feet per second per second," or poundals...
...We standready to work with your magazine to ensure your future publications will be in keeping with the high level of professionalism we expect from our mass media...
...Dunn's fear that Mr...
...REV, DR...
...Moviephone imploring the use of seatbelts...
...Timmerman's response to the first of Mr...
...NORA PERALTA Lakewood, Ohio In his January Diary Ben Stein bemoans Jennifer Grey's extensive plastic surgery...
...Dunn regarding the shipment of GPS receivers to China by a California firm called Trimble Navigation ("California Takeout," TAS, October 1998...
...My wife and I have seven children and nine grandchildren, and his diary and devotion to family is stunning in our current culture...
...Dunn and Timmerman are both confused as to the significance of "4g" in the limitations imposed by the commodity control specifications...
...However, I was stopped dead by a letter sent you from someone complaining about my favorite feature and its author, one Ben Stein...
...He might be cheered up by the recent Mya video, "Movin' On...
...The National Italian American Foundation is a national organization of Italian Americans dedicated to promoting a positive image of our community...
...CORRESPONDENCE What Was Lost Grover Norquist may have been more prescient than even he realized concerning the 1998 elections when he opined that "the depth of disappointment reflects the size of the opportunity lost" for Republicans ("Stalemate," TAS, January 1999...
...Over here in Allentown, Pennsylvania, we hear that violent crime is supposed to be going down...
...Genesis r says light was created three days before the sun, moon, and stars, and that birds were created before land creatures...
...However, after the third prickly letter about Boeing from a Boeing employee regarding stories that only mentioned Boeing peripherally (in this case, Mr...
...Jack will be remembered for stating that the Holy Bible is not the word of God, and that it needs to be rewritten and reinterpreted in view of our modern experiences in today's world...
...Quite the opposite, Mr...
...Dunn's concerns is straightforward enough, marred only by the tone of his advice concerning how Dunn might himself have verified the accuracy of the writer's assertions...
...caved in to anti-reform proponents of socialized housing (formally called rent control) against private property owners...
...Corry, of Ronald Reagan...
...Burkburnett, Texas Inside My Shoes I used to be indignant about The American Spectator, falsely judging you, then when I read your editor's February 1998 Dylan tirade I woke up (like I woke up watching Archie Bunker...
...While I realize that controversy is here to stay as a prime mover of any news source, I do believe that you could afford to not soil your fine magazine by printing what must be one negative letter out of thousands which compliment and praise Ben...
...Satire unfounded in fact lacks punch, and Mr...
...Nevertheless, he seems to understand that it is never okay to sugarcoat the ugly reality of what happens in each and every abortion procedure...
...Remind those careless riders in meddling Nanny State fashion to buckle up, despite the fact that most NYC cabs are so filthy that one would want as little of the cab touching him as possible...
...Stein for having the courage to defend the unborn...
...Most natives blame Giuliani: Yeah, he threw 425,000 people off welfare, but he also bought too many of them bus tickets to places like Allentown...
...MARK G. BRENNAN New York, New York Poundaling Timmerman The snotty response is another increasingly common sign of civility's decline...
...I also take Mr...
...Genesis Genius George W. Macdonald (Correspondence, TAS, January 1999) has a too-low view of Scripture and the Hebrews who received and preserved it...
...Tough luck for the drivers who must put up with this obnoxious cacophony for their entire 12-hour shifts...
...But Rudy had a solution...
...Our self-proclaimed Rockefeller-Republican mayor is an unprincipled, ideologically opportunistic, finger-in-the-wind politician whose projected rise within the Republican party will continue to alienate conservatives and further muddy the party's philosophical waters...
...DEUEL C. SMITH, JR...
...Rudy Giuliani for senator...
...Consider his claim that he reduced the welfare rolls...
...Our local welfare office acquired 20,000 more clients (Allentown's 1990 population: 105,301), and they brought their boyfriends with them...
...So where would Giuliani propose that we ship our welfare clients if he became senator...
...In the British measurement system, the value of g is approximately 32 feet per second per second...
...Most people think of gravity as the pressure pushing them back in their seats when they take off in an airplane or accelerate abruptly in their car, which is why I chose that vernacular...
...Which is the greater blasphemy—to accept the preserved word at The American Spectator • March 1999 77 face value, or to modify it according to the fads of human thought...
...Get ready for a Dylan revival...
...I am sure his pro-life sentiments do not increase his popularity in Hollywood...
...Our Anglican embarrassment is John Shelby Spong...
...Macdonald's claim of two contradictory creation accounts in Genesis is mistaken...
...By "order" he cannot mean sequence...
...Ruth's fingernails-on-the-blackboard voice and Joan Rivers's insults...
...Timmerman says, "If Mr...
...JOHN F. CALVELLI Chairman, Public Policy Institute The National Italian American Foundation Washington, D.C...
...All such texts I've seen state that acceleration of mass produces—or "creates," in Mr...
...As the Iran-Iraq war progressed during the 1980's, I covered the arms trade for publications such as Military Technology and Defense 6 Armament, and toured a number of Third World defense plants, where I could see first-hand how "older" Western production technologies allowed countries such as Iraq to achieve some independence from their arms suppliers by fostering a home-grown weapons industry...
...True, they are down, due mostly to his playing the shell game of moving many recipients to other city payrolls...
...The new GOP president would face the same circumstances that Bill Clinton faced in 1993 and '94—his party would have an insufficient majority to pass more than incremental changes in non-budgetary matters...
...WILCOXEN Racine, Ohio The Spong Brothers In TAS's January 1999 Correspondence, R.J...
...No human author writing so sober an account would think of such counter-intuitive details...
...Well...
...Big Apple Reagan Lite John Corry's calling Mayor Rudy Giuliani a "Reaganite" is so absurd it leaves me breathless ("Big Apple Reaganite," TAS, January 1999...
...Just as other pages ridicule the lack of realism in leftist radicalism...
...A. CRAMER Eagle Rock, Virginia Encourage your readers to campaign for a Pulitzer prize for Kenneth Timmerman for his articles on military technology transfer to China...
...I could go on...
...Dunn compliments Timmerman on choosing Chinese intrigue in the American arms market as a topic, cites two instances of what he considers small factual inaccuracies in the writer's piece, and concludes with the worry that they may detract from the importance of the writer's message...
...Dunn's mistaken assertion that I had misidentified Boeing as the subject of an ongoing grand jury investigation), I concluded that Mr...
...and gave a lukewarm, eleventh-hour endorsement of the 1996 Dole-Kemp presidential ticket, then backtracked by saying he could also support Bill Clinton and calling him a "decent and honorable man...
...The pin-striped gangster with a pinky ring and suggestive hand motions was another example of a negative stereotype...
...OMER ABNER McClellanville, South Carolina The American Spectator • March 1999 79...
...So now, every time one enters a cab he is audibly assaulted by, among others, the recorded screaming of Mr...
...Dylan, our incredible and exquisite national treasure, our "Court Jester...
...Powers of Shreveport, Louisiana, writes: "Don't know who William Spong is, but Dave Shiflett owes him an apology...
...This refers back to another technical point raised by Mr...
...Besides the obvious temperamental difference, Giuliani sued the federal government to continue welfare benefits to illegal aliens...
...capitulated to the teachers unions and other educrat groups opposed to the other "choice"—school choice...
...Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a matter-of-fact, chronological account of the creation of the heavens and the earth, including man...
...writer Kenneth R. Timmerman's to reader Michael Dunn's letter in your January Correspondence is an example...
...and most recently author of Twelve Theses posted on the Internet (in imitation of Martin Luther) which challenge the validity of all Christian doctrine and belief from the Incarnation to the Resurrection...
...Dunn's objection to Timmerman's allusion to "pressures greater than 4g" is correct, as is his pointing out that "g" in elementary, or Newtonian, physics symbolizes acceleration due to gravity...
...Without even mentioning that this regulation was passed in response to attacks on gypsy cab drivers and not yellow cabs, the dividers are a safety hazard as detailed by several reports (in the New York Times) from emergency room doctors who have seen massive head, neck, and mouth injuries to people thrown into the divider during accidents...
...I don't know that God could not employ some form of evolution in creation, but it is very unlikely that He used evolution as it is currently conceived and taught...
...Maybe...
...It is the acceleration imparted by the earth's gravitational force to a freely falling mass of one pound...
...Ask poor Chelsea...
...Journalists frequently deal with corporate PR representatives, but most times they announce their colors...
...Navy ships in the Persian Gulf...
...Maybe outside of eastern Pennsylvania: We have more murders every year, and in the last ten years Allentown has changed from a fairly crime-free city into one that sees shoot-outs on weekday afternoons...
...Dylan for National Poet Laureate...
...Dunn had studied elementary physics he would know that acceleration creates pressure...," I'd be interested in knowing the name ofany elementary physics text supporting his assertion...
...kowtowed to pro-abortion and feminist groups, going so far as to air campaign ads in which he obsequiously defended his "pro-choice" position...
...L.A...
...I have been covering defense issues since 1983, writing critiques of new weapons systems for a trade publication, Defense Electronics...
...The Right Reverend John Shelby Spong, D.D., Episcopal Diocese of Newark, is the infamous author of numerous heretical and apostate books...
...Other parts are just as clearly written as literal, factual accounts...
...he carped about my choice of words for expressing the technical specifications of the guidance systems...
...The Republicans' feckless performance in the io5th Congress and pusillanimous reluctance to campaign vigorously on a Reaganite platform in 1998 may well doom a Republican president's chances of passing a sweeping Reaganite agenda in 2001...
...Dunn had crossed the line...
...The omnipotent God is capable of communicating and preserving His word to human understanding...
...However, if I started talking about "poundals" and Newtonian physics, I fear I would lose most of my readers...
...Parts of the Bible clearly are (Continued on page 77) 12 March 1999 • The American Spectator Correspondence (Continued fro mpage 12) parabolic or otherwise non-literal...
...Timmerman's term — force...
...In the article, I stated that commercial grade GPS systems were being used by the Chinese for their latest generation cruise missiles, which they have exported to Iran where they now threaten U.S...
...Until recently we were blessed with Dr...
...DON SCHENK Allentown, Pennsylvania As though his attack on the housing market were not sufficient to continue the middle class exodus from New York, Giuliani has also seen to it that no one ever should enjoy a cab ride again as long as he is mayor...
...Under the Giuliani administration, leased yellow cabs (the great majority) are now required to have a Plexiglas 10 March /999 • The American Spectator divider separating the driver from the passengers...
...Stein's 78 March 1999 • The American Spectator diary my first two stops as I settle down for a wonderful hour or two with TAS...
...So said the New York Times some years ago in a story called "The Latinization of Allentown, PA...
Vol. 32 • March 1999 • No. 3
