Correspondence
Correspondence UNHOLY SACRIFICE DAVID GELERNTER writes that the Muslim vision of "heaven as a whorehouse" may be "the most loathsome idea in the history of human thought." It is also one of the...
...A dangerous life for Jews is unfortunately not one of them...
...In 1921 in the month of May alone, Arab mobs killed 90 Jews and injured 289 more, and this is when the Jews didn't have a government to protect them...
...The act may thus also be seen as rebellious liberation from submission to the will of Allah...
...The United States was attacked...
...Almost no one I've talked to thinks that anything has changed, except for the length of the lines...
...LYNN FIELD Monroe Township, NJ DAVID GELERNTER decries Palestinian violence against Israelis as barbarism...
...MATTHEW HARRINGTON Washington, DC IGNORE FRENCH BLATHER TOD LINDBERG's "America Knows Terrorism" (March 25) is a rare but wonderful thing: an article that captures the key elements of an issue clearly and succinctly...
...While it seems that the French population is largely behind the United States in our war on terror, their government relies upon its ability to generate headlines as proof of its significance in world events...
...The same uneducated, rude people are still running the security screening, except now they have even more power to harass and detain passengers...
...How can we not consider this barbarous as well...
...September 11 was not merely a date on which something happened...
...I am only offended if the team doesn't have a winning season...
...The words we use to ourselves and aloud can help us remember what is at stake...
...WALTER M. ANDERSON Bedford, MA CHEAP SHOTS SINCE WHEN does The Weekly Standard traffic in "humor" about illness and physical characteristics ("Janet Reno Rides Again," March 25...
...The Arabs correctly interpret this appeasement as a sign of weakness, one that will incite them to yet further aggression...
...Antitrust law needs to be applied carefully so that an existing enterprise is not humbled in ways that disturb the natural forces of our capitalist economy...
...When IBM was searching for an operating system for its nascent personal computer, it was still under an earlier Justice Department antitrust investigation that had been ongoing for more than a decade...
...mob objects to the term "Indian...
...The blathering of the French government should be ignored— particularly by the media—in the hopes that it will go away...
...Let's talk about that day as the al Qaeda attacks or, perhaps, as the Islamist attack on the United States...
...JOSEPH SHIER Toronto, Canada Microsoft Softy IN DISCUSSING Microsoft's future product development efforts, Einer Elhauge jumps too far into micro-details ("Soft on Microsoft," March 25...
...How nationalism became Islamic has become a question of compelling intellectual interest since September 11, but the practical result is that Palestinian nationalism is now taught as a form of Islamic piety, or more precisely, pious impiety, which absolves the highest criminality in advance...
...TIM HEEKIN Morrow, OH UNFRIENDLY AIRLINES IRWIN M. STELZER's analysis of the problems of the airline industry is fine as far as it goes ("Flying the Bankrupt Skies," Feb...
...Most are innocent victims of the Israeli forces or are armed settlers...
...It is also one of the silliest ("The Suicide of the Palestinians," March 25...
...There was anti-Jewish/Zionist violence in the Middle East throughout the 20 th century...
...This kind of violence (either from mobs, terrorists, or the surrounding countries) is something that Zionists and Israelis have always had to deal with...
...While it might be argued that an antitrust case's resulting in the formation of Microsoft was a positive for the nation and the economy, clearly the blind application of antitrust law can have unanticipated consequences...
...Despite its later success with Windows and other technology, Microsoft owes its existence to MS-DOS...
...Apparently, the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere were given this tag by none other than the politically incorrect Chris Columbus...
...Columbus mistakenly thought he'd landed in the East Indies...
...That evil "other"— Americans, Jews—has taken command of one's very self and must be extirpated...
...Today the P.C...
...Although it appears to be impious, it in fact appeals to a higher piety—the liberation of the nation and the fatherland...
...ROBERT A.LICHT Deerfield, IL IT SEEMS there is a major typo in the title of David Gelernter's article—the title should be "The Suicide of the Israelis," not "The Suicide of the Palestinians...
...We don't talk about December 7, but about Pearl Harbor...
...One way to remember September 11 is to not refer to it as "September 11...
...IBM later went on to settle with the Justice Department without foul, and Microsoft went on to achieve fame and fortune it perhaps would never otherwise have attained...
...This includes, of course, the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere...
...I fear, though, that the motivation behind Palestinian—and Islamic —suicide murderers is far more sinister...
...Religiously, this may be described as ecstatic hatred...
...To avoid prejudicing its continuing litigation by appearing to be a monopolist, IBM elected to license the PC's operating system from Microsoft rather than buy it outright or develop its own...
...How sophomoric of Matt Labash to state that "Reno's hands sometimes shake so much that each one looks as if it's trying to clap itself...
...one's soul must be purged...
...So he called the people he found "Indians...
...The Muslim who does this simultaneously defies two divine commandments: against murder and suicide...
...Murder by suicide simultaneously liberates the self from some evil enemy within and without...
...MICHELLE HARTNER Madison, WI IN HIS "The Suicide of the Palestinians," David Gelernter indicates that Israel has become especially dangerous for Jews in the last few decades, and that before then, life was safer...
...It may be helpful to the hater to believe that Allah loves his hatred and will reward him with "good sex...
...DONNA HUTCHINSON Washington, DC THE TERM NATIVE AMERICAN is charmingly indicative of the politically correct movement...
...I'm not so sure this is true...
...Gelernter observes that "Appeasement doesn't merely fail to prevent catastrophe, it provokes catastrophe...
...Of course, the name "America" was coined by the German cartographer Martin Waldenmuller in 1507 in honor of the Florentine navigator Amerigo vespucci...
...For their part, the U.S...
...it is his goodness, his redemption, and his virtue...
...As recently as a few weeks ago, I spent more time in airport security lines than I did on the plane...
...This isn't journalism, and it certainly isn't funny—at least not by the standards of anyone with common decency...
...It seems no worse to be named as a result of a legitimate geographical error than to be named after a dead Italian...
...In a culture devoid of the idea of constituted political liberty and self-government, this may be the only liberty, the only meaningful rebellion, available...
...Antitrust law can be a sledgehammer in the hands of a ham-handed Justice Department or state attorney general...
...However, in trying to explain decreased passenger loads, he overlooks a significant factor in the reason many travelers are staying away: the chaotic nature of the so-called enhanced security precautions...
...As a result, a short flight from Washington to Boston is now a half-day journey...
...The Israeli armed forces attack unarmed civilians with automatic weapons, tanks, and helicopters...
...As long as this keeps up, I am staying at home...
...Thus the act of impiety takes the form of piety...
...How about: "Reno timbered backwards, uttered 'Damn' on the way down, and provided a disastrous CNN visual: the candidate sprawled on her back, her size-13 gunboats peeping out from behind the rostrum...
...It is clear to any frequent flyer that most of what passes for increased security is merely cosmetic...
...CHRIS SPECK Durham, NC THE WORDS YOU SAY FRED BARNES says the United States should memorialize September 11 in as many ways as possible, at every possible opportunity ("Never Forget," March 25...
...media neglect to report the horrendous circumstances under which the Palestinians live and die, as if they were not as human or as important as the Israelis...
...MADELINE NESSE Silver Spring, MD THE CHOP WON'T STOP CONCERNING the Scrapbook item "Chop Till You Drop" (April 1): As a card-carrying member of the Blackfeet Indian Tribe, I am thankful someone finally discovered that most of us aren't offended by Native American names being used by sports teams...
...media, too...
...Israel has engaged in war only as a last resort, never seriously punishing her enemies, but rather rewarding them with territory, oil fields, and guns, while her citizens endure the catastrophe her appeasement has wrought...
...As a longtime technologist in the field, I recognize that such attempts to make Microsoft share its code and the like are not likely to achieve positive results for consumers and may be deleterious...
...Many aspects of the current intifada are new...
...The higher piety is, of course, nationalism, which originally was not piety at all, but a movement of secularization imported from the West...
...Unable to do the customary hatchet job on Democratic morality, Labash resorts to mocking Janet Reno's rectitude in obeying traffic lights, speed limits, and security sign-in procedures...
...Over 700 Palestinians have died since the current intifada began...
...They now search old ladies and young children, while Saudi nationals breeze through the lines without so much as a glance because we're afraid of "racial profiling...
...I wish, however, that I could share Lindberg's concluding optimism regarding the French...
...We could just say the World Trade Center attacks, but that leaves out the Pentagon and the unknown fourth target...
...He writes...
...Far more important is that the hater loves his hatred...
...But appeasement has been Israel's guiding principle since its inception...
...Not a terribly bad mistake since neither Columbus nor anyone else on the planet knew where he was at the time...
...the memory of Algeria and worse will lead France to forswear sophistication and lend a hand...
...STEPHEN L. CHAMBERS Cypress, TX...
...While I do not condone the actions of the Palestinian suicide bombers who have attacked civilians, I see barbarism on the part of the Israelis and the U.S...
...Microsoft itself is the result of a previous misguided Justice Department antitrust action...
Vol. 7 • April 2002 • No. 29
