CORRESPONDENCE
CORRESPONDENCE A Scary Situation I read the magazine at the local library, often with much interest, as in the article "The Atheist Foxhole" (by Angelo M. Codevilla, TAS, February 2006). As...
...I was the young duty officer and he was there for some publicity shots for his forthcoming Ice Brothers...
...The French were not stupid, and they knew that respecting culture in the Muslim world is a one-way street...
...Where would TB get the idea that "teachers and their unions" would "put their own welfare ahead of the[ir] students...
...However, assuming that Mr...
...Instead jihad came to Europe...
...What Riots...
...But I'm sure the typical argument against this is "but they were neglected as children, so they don't know any better...
...white asserts TB's statement that "Step by step, the teachers and their unions learned that they could put their own welfare ahead of the students...
...took an anti-Israel stance in foreign policy...
...To support this ambition-formalized in treaties and at conferencesAPRIL 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 7 CORRESPONDENCE France also rewrote her textbooks to mitigate Islamic brutality throughout history...
...that is, I am I," is how Shakespeare put it...
...The French were not stupid, but they were unreasonably ambitious to regain at least a part of their former glory and be taken as serious competitors to the United States...
...French culture did not spread to its former colonies nor were the nations across the Mediterranean exemplars of French culture...
...Not to say that teachers in private schools don't bring their political beliefs into the classroom...
...Going back to my brother, he came home one day with a note in his backpack from his teacher saying his hair needed to be washed more often...
...Richard loves Richard...
...Tolkien: Author of the Century...
...Over coffee in the wardroom he said to me, with great intensity, "Of all the things I have done in my life, there is nothing that compares with the accomplishment of having commanded that cutter...
...Unified his whole life, and came home during the 2004 election saying "John Kerry's my president...
...We loose sleep over them...
...Although this seems modest compared with the cost of living here in Los Angles, all public sector employers (the school system included) are required to give their employees an annual 3 percent "living wage increase" and the number does not include benefits and pension monies...
...A quarter of a century later I would leave active duty...
...This, France realized, would have to be done in concert with other European nations and with Arab monies...
...When Lord Acton coined his celebrated aphorism, he really was injecting a brand new idea into the world...
...We both come from a very red family (even myvery"progressive" and "modern" older sister voted for Bush in '04), but Kevin's disabilities inhibit him from comprehending the issues my parents do...
...White's compassion for his pupils, I wonder why he's doing jobs and playing roles traditionally delegated to parents...
...My brother picking up the "John Kerry for a Stronger America" line, since it certainly didn't come from anyone in my family, must have come from school, where the only people he comes into contact in everyday life who would know anything about politics besides his familywouldbe his teachers...
...That said, one thing has always puzzled me: how do you distinguish faith from superstition...
...According to the Los Angeles Unified School website, a teacher can make upwards of $40,000 a year to begin with...
...While I respect Mr...
...With Europe afraid to name much less fight the Islamic menace within its borders, this time will the Gates of Vienna hold...
...And the crisis continues, as RET would say...
...My younger brother Kevin, a special needs child, has gone through L.A...
...Londonderry, New Hampshire Power Trips In the February issue, Alfred S. Regnery ("Corruption DeLayed") states that "The fact that power corrupts is a concept that has been around since the dawn of civilization...
...Coast Guard (Bet...
...Provided money spent per student actually determined their quality of education (which study after study proves isn't the case, according to the Wall Street Journal), wouldn't you think that such concerned teachers would take a pay cut and let that money go to the kids...
...Not that fairies can't be real, of course...
...I believe this is an anachronism...
...Does this statement strike anyone as odd coming from a teacher...
...helped create the fiction of a Palestinian people, and extended every diplomatic courtesy to Yassir Ararat instead of treating him like the criminal that he was...
...As for his meaning, the phrase "grasping at straws" comes to mind...
...Unless you can enlighten me, I shall have to conclude both are one and the same, since I can see no evidence that said beings and creatures are real--any more so than, say, fairies...
...I'm not sure what gives today's educators the idea that they have the right to play parent...
...The theme that power corrupts has received its finest literary treatment in Tolkien...
...RAYMOND I. BROWN Captain, US...
...Invariably I meet two types of men--those who are so proud to have at one time worn the uniform of their country, and those who regret not having done so...
...During California's fiasco special election last November, one of the ballot measures called for parental notification before girls as young as 12 got an abortion...
...White (Correspondence, TAS, February 2006...
...I was surprised and impressed...
...Maybe the difference is that they are not scary enough to believe in--whereas a God can be very scary indeed...
...If you answered teachers, you're absolutely right...
...Tom Shippey analyses the issue in Chapter Three of his magisterial J.B.B...
...but I am 88 and have yet to see one...
...It could be due to the fact that many parents neglect their children...
...Regnery is projecting today's unconscious assumptions into the past...
...Therefore, I concluded that the saying must have been thought up by the clergy--probably a chaplain, one most unlikely ever to be in a foxhole...
...Communication being what it was in that century, the Western world learned of this over a period of time, and the victory cry was "The Gates of Vienna have held...
...There were plenty of wicked kings before Acton's time, but it was taken for granted that those particular kings had been wicked from the cradle...
...STUART C. BURDICK North Bend, Oregon Wisdom of Youth While I applaud Mr...
...The teachers unions are always asking for money, but the schools and fields are dilapidated, 6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 2006 CORRESPONDENCE the students' performance is ever declining, and the salaries and benefits of teachers and administrators go up...
...So one must assume that his teachers "pimped" Kerry as the better choice, and Kevin just regurgitated it unknowingly...
...There were not a large number of French Jews and Christians standing in line to become citizens of Arab Muslim nations...
...GLORIA M. STEWART Thousand Oaks, California Walk This Way I met Sloan Wilson ("Walk a Mile in My Briefcase," by Paul Beston, TAS, December 2005/January 2006) in the mid-1970s on a Sunday afternoon on board a Coast Guard cutter...
...The answer is obvious...
...For brevity, I will deal with France only and with her political dealings with the Arab world since the 1960s...
...The other comment of Mr...
...Further, they would be able, without French interference, to reproduce their country of origin and live in such an enclave, isolated from Western values...
...Mussolini provides a somewhat better example...
...by Joseph A. Harriss (TAS, February 2006): What the media in general have failed to indicate is that Muslim immigrants came to France with the explicit understanding that they would not be expected or required to assimilate into French society, nor would their descendants...
...PIERRE H. BERUBE St...
...Both entail belief in imaginary beings and creatures...
...While I can certainly understand the former (his addenda to the library catalogue speaks to this), the latter is not what I believe the reality to be...
...Of course, none of the dazzling hopes and ambitions of that decade materialized...
...Who was arranging for these young girls to get abortions without parental consent or even notification...
...White is correct, and TB is incorrect, and everything that I have just stated is incorrect, where did these notions come from...
...I see something fundamentally wrong with teachers telling parents how to raise their children...
...White's, this one I fear may be all too true, is "We spend our money on other people's kids...
...White forcing his school's library to subscribe to TAS and National Beview, something even my private, Catholic high school doesn't, I agree with Tom Bethell over Mr...
...Sincerely, TAS's youngest reader, MICHAEL PALETTA Los Angeles, California, age 17 The Grand Illusion Re: "Riots...
...The contrary idea, that power per se will turn a good man into a bad one, is quite recent and there is not much evidence for it...
...You would think, but what's logical and reality are often at odds with each other...
...They do frequently, as I well know...
...As aveteran of World War II, when the saying arose, "There are no atheists in foxholes," it struck me: What young soldier in a foxhole, scared nearly out of his wits, is in any state to ponder whether there's a God or not...
...In return for virtually unlimited immigration (needed to pay taxes in support of France's welfare programs), and a preferred position for raw materials and petroleum products, France agreed to accept whatever culture the immigrants brought with them...
...In that decade, under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle, France and other members of the European Community (EC) as it was then called, entered into treaties with members of the Arab League in what would be known as the EuroArab Dialogue (EAD...
...Mao, Stalin, and Hitler were all thoroughly corrupt long before they achieved power...
...So too, was the matter of unlimited immigration...
...Johnsbury, Vermont 8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 2006...
...And get away with it," is both hurtful and inaccurate...
...On September 11, 1683, in what came to be known as the Gates of Vienna, the Western forces turned back the third attempt by the Muslim world to take over Europe...
...In the five years since I have been a security consultant traveling the length and breadth of this great country...
...Indeed, they came with the explicit understanding that they would be permitted to retain loyalty only to the Muslim ummah and to the culture of their country of origin...
...The language of the agreements was, of course, much more delicate and spoke of the need to respect each party's culture...
Vol. 39 • April 2006 • No. 3
