I ♥ Humphrey
Thanks for picking up Steven Humphrey's column `"I ♥ Television"` from The Stranger. I'm from Seattle, and it's wonderful to see it in print again. You should also "borrow" one of their great column ideas, where readers send in unsigned complaints about relationships, etc.
Matthew A. Brinegar, Orlando
Thanks for nothing
I write in response to a letter previously submitted by Thomas Bowden, published in the June 30 edition. Mr. Bowden writes that Native Americans "should thank us." Bowden makes the argument that Europeans lifted Native Americans from abject poverty and brought them the ability to "generate health, wealth, and happiness … ."
The United States Senate should apologize to the several Native American nations victimized by this country's aggression throughout the 16th through the 20th centuries. I suppose Mr. Bowden believes that Native Americans should thank this country for the genocide campaigns, marked by such events as the Sand Creek Massacre, the Washita River Massacre and Wounded Knee. I suppose Mr. Bowden believes that Native Americans should thank this country for the Trail of Tears, and the inhuman suffering of their confinement to desolate lands such as the Bosque Redondo. I suppose that Mr. Bowden believes that Native Americans should kiss the feet of those who violated nearly every single treaty signed between Native Americans and the U.S. government. I suppose that Mr. Bowden believes that Native Americans should thank the FBI and its COINTELPRO operation for undermining the American Indian Movement's (AIM) drive for better political and economic freedoms. I suppose that Mr. Bowden believes that Native Americans should be dancing for joy over the record numbers of poverty, alcoholism and lack of educational opportunity afflicting their population as a direct result of these past injustices.
European and American imperialism of the past (and the present?) and its notion of "civilizing the uncivilized" does not legitimize or justify its actions. Imperialism was, and continues to be, about exploiting people and resources for the sake of profit. Imperialism, you see, is decidedly amoral. I prefer to believe that Mr. Bowden is simply misled, rather than purposefully ignorant of reality.
Derek Brett, Orlando
Bush's folly
`On June 27`, Deborah Dawn Klecker, from Oregon, along with eight more very young Americans, became the latest U.S. citizen killed in Iraq. Her employer, DynCorp, sent her there. She was killed when a bomb, detonated near her vehicle, ripped out her pelvis.
Most of the other 1,744 Stars and Stripes dead are just kids. Their faces have come and gone too soon.
Yet, as sad as their growing numbers are, they are a small percentage compared with the toll of "enemy" dead, whose innocent women and children and elders don't show up in the sums at all. In fact, the true number of Iraqi casualties remains a secret, closely held to the much-thumped chest of George W. Bush.
July 2 `was` the anniversary of GW's smug-mouthed "Bring 'em on!" Profoundly stupid words for a guy with no plan, save one for other folks' children. Not that we should be surprised by the no-plan problem, since Bush and his administration lied their way to war.
Interestingly, while George was spewing his stale BS, another event was taking place in Fayetteville, N.C. Military Families Speak Out, together with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Veterans for Peace and others held a press conference "... protesting President Bush's captive-audience photo opportunity and challenging the false picture of the war being portrayed by the White House."
George, read the lips. In Fayetteville, a military town, over 40 percent of residents do not favor this war; nationally, 52 percent of us want troop withdrawal; 60 percent of us believe you are squandering lives and billions. Soon, if you continue to invite more harm, citizens of this grand Republic will rise – God bless our historical right to do so – in loud and precious protest. We have done it before. We will remind you: You do not own this country. It is ours.
Dee Rivers-Yowell, Winter Park
