Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Winston-Salem Journal LTE's WE 09/28/11

Good AM, folks!

A run of the mill set of LTE's today, with the final LTE showing that imitation is indeed a sincere form or flattery, as that aged wisecrack occurred very quickly after Gov. Perry made his unflattering comment about NC's signature dish.

Upbeat coverage
Kudos to the Journal for your upbeat and thorough coverage of the Winston-Salem Open. Your positive articles allowed readers a sense of the vision and hard work that brought that event to our city, and allowed us to follow the matches daily. Thank you for promoting something that is so energizing and encouraging to the community, particularly in such a challenging economic climate.

Spectators and volunteers alike shared a tremendous amount of excitement and pride — something our community has needed. I looked forward to reading the Journal every day.


MOLLY LINEBERGER
Winston-Salem

George W. Bush II
The "Bush tax cuts" have cost America almost $3 trillion, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to cost $1.3 trillion (not to mention the loss of American lives). Neither expenditure appears to have translated into a lower unemployment rate.

I have applauded President Obama's desire to "work with" the Republican Party, but it's long past time to recognize that this has devolved into something of a George W. Bush II administration. Obama's policy of "working with" Republicans is the most failed policy of all. It's obvious that pandering to the wealthy is the only goal of the Republicans. We can't continue to follow this course while the so-called middle class sinks deeper into decline.


WENDY SCOTT
Winston-Salem

Ironic
I wonder if anyone else found it ironic that the two headlines that were "above the fold" on the front page of the Sept. 22 Journal were: "Winston-Salem on best-city list" and "Survey: Incomes fall in area."


KATHRYN G. MOTSINGER
Winston-Salem

A disservice
The Journal does our country and its readers a disservice by publishing letters such as "Terms" on Sept 23, opining that only members of one political party, who think as the writer does, have integrity. This kind of hyper-political partisanship is exactly what is wrong with our country today. By giving it a public platform the Journal encourages and tacitly approves such unhelpful behavior.

Neither political party has a monopoly on integrity, right beliefs or right behavior. We would make far more progress finding solutions to the problems we face by recognizing this fact and acting toward one another as we ourselves would like to be treated.


MARGARET LEINBACH
Winston-Salem

Reported
It has been reported that Texas Gov. Rick Perry said that North Carolina pork barbecue tastes worse than "road kill." Can you please report how he knows what road kill tastes like?


PAUL D. WHITSON
Advance

21 comments:

  1. LTE1: The WS Open was indeed good for the city. Those involved with it should indeed be thanked.

    LTE2: This TB rant implies that the tax cuts actually gave America's money away. She has it backwards. The tax cuts let people keep THEIR money. What cost America was spending money that wasn't being collected in revenues. Now whether people should have been able to retain as much as they did or whether should have spent as we did is open to debate, but actually wastes time.

    The combination of spending borrowed money while cutting revenues put us where we are. What we do about where we are now, not what we did back then, is what should be our focus.

    LTE3: I doubt many if any "best places" are free from the economic malaise. The two headlines reflect the times. Locally, things might just be starting to improve.

    LTE4: An even-handed LTE. I note that one party seems to have become a 1-trick pony in its responses to the needs of the time while the other remains committed to collectivism, a counterproductive response to the needs of the time.

    LTE5: Perhaps because he has eaten in a few TX greasy spoons? Actually, NC BBQ can vary in quality. When it is good, as served by a number of local restaurants, it is great. But, I have encountered some godawful hillbilly slop that I suspect came close to meeting the Gov's definition of road kill.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good afternoon folks!
    LTE 1: It was indeed very good coverage of the Open including pictures of the lovely Brooklyn Decker. (Awesome job getting Andy Roddick to play :) )
    LTE 2: In the past, wars were subsidized by some tax increase or bond sales, but W. not only cut taxes, he added a couple of large expenditure programs on top of it. With a divided Congress, there is no choice but to work with the R's. Neither side has a monopoly on good ideas or bad ideas. Unfortunately, there are too many TB's on both sides who refuse recognize that fact.
    LTE 3: I don't see the irony as much as I just see further evidence of deflationary forces at work which affect every community.
    LTE 4: I could do without the combative TB rants from both sides myself, but I believe the Journal does have an obligation to print the views of the local populace even if some of those views are patently absurd. Personally, I'd like to see some sort of fact check included to correct claims such as "homosexuality causes HIV\AIDS".
    LTE 5: lol, well..Perry has spent his whole life in Texas.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr. Whitson has clearly never been to Texas. Ricky boy would be familiar with road kill because the first step in having a barbecue in Texas is going out and scraping the ingredients off the road. Armadillo is particularly plentiful and popular.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Boy, this place is dead. Wonder why? Hee Hee...you gotta love it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. If it is dead, it is the host's fault for not managing the obsessions indulged here. If it has outlived its usefulness, so be it. I note the Reader' Forum is pretty active now.

    ReplyDelete
  6. FWIW, I apologize Stab for being snappish the other day about unions...discuss away. LG's gay obsession gets pretty tiresome.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Arthur..your whining gets tiresome too.

    I'm thinking of leaving, so you guys can turn this place into a liberal love fest if you want.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Arthur. I detected no snappishness, but realized you were correct that I have been overly thorough in pushing my case. So, I'm on a union-free diet for a few days, not going to comment on the RJR election upcoming. I can't really complain: it's secret ballot.

    Bucky: you are welcome to come or go as you wish. Ideally, you can live with the diversity of this site, and add to it with cogent comments from your side of the spectrum. As with my stand on various aspects of organized labor, your stands on a number of issues are equally well known, and can remain unvoiced here.

    I will still dispense my opinions in the Readers' Forum, under my own name. Why don't you do that, Bucky?

    ReplyDelete
  9. dotnet: IMO, the reason that the JournalNow opinion editors publish letters such as the one you've mentioned is because of the readership they know it will bring in. Can you say CHA-CHING?

    *** LaSombra ***

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hello LaSombra!

    CHA-CHING! :D

    Hi, WW. Reading you 5 x 5.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thar be aliens in my computer.......

    ReplyDelete
  12. Same here, WW. Hola, Stab. Still having trouble posting. Success when I switched over to Firefox. Don't know what the prob is.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The Journal editors publish pretty much what they get. Unfortunately, as you can see, most of what they get is pretty poor stuff.

    There was a time when the letters were better, or at least, more entertaining. When I was a teenager a redneck lawyer from Carthage, NC, Chub Sewell, ran for governor and got more votes than any other Republican in the 20th century.

    For years he wrote LTEs to the Journal. I don't remember ever agreeing with anything he said, but I always read them because they were well written, with a sense of humor, something that has gone with the wind. And they always ended with the same phrase: "Call your next case."

    BTW, he was the author of a funny line that is always incorrectly attributed to Jesse Helms. There was discussion in Raleigh of creating a state zoo. Chub allowed that he knew how to save a lot of money on that project: "Just build a fence around Chapel Hill," he said.

    ReplyDelete
  14. LaSombra...I got an IE problem flash and lost 3 more posts.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I can't even post unless I do it on Firefox.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Buenos noches, LaSombra et al. There must be a problem in one of Google's data centers.

    OT, I remember Chub Sewell, if vaguely. His comment about CH reminds me about a remark a college friend of mine made about his hometown, Pageland SC. He said, put a tent over the place and you'd have the biggest whorehouse in the world. Went thru the town once, didn't notice anyone resembling a lady of the night. Bangkok's hold on the title remained secure.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Very odd re the the posting. I use IE, have no idea what version--the computer is a couple months old, with Windows 7. I use several computers, depending on where I am, including an iPhone, with several versions of IE. It appears to me that some operating systems don't get along with various browsers, but appeal to dotnet for comment. Depending on which computer I'm on, the operating systems range from XP, to accursed Vista, to Windows 7.

    ReplyDelete
  18. IE reminds me of the Formula One and sports car racing driver Baron Wolfgang von Trips, called "Von Crash" by his colleagues for his many spectacular wrecks.

    In 1961 he was leading the point standings when, at Monza, his Ferarri collided with Jim Clark's Lotus and went airborne, killing von Trips and over a dozen spectators. His Ferarri teammate Phil Hill soldiered on to become the only American born driver to win the Grand Prix title.

    I use three browsers: my native Safari for business, Firefox for everyday non-business and Google Chrome for quick lookups. Have posted successfully here with all three.

    ReplyDelete