Letters for November 11, 2004

In one section of Gary Webb’s article, “The killing game,” he describes a member ditching practice to take his girlfriend to a concert as, “Muramoto skipped the game to attend a concert “with a girl,” which did not sit well.”

If the story was about a garage band, and a member ditched practice, the author would not phrase the incident as if the other members were dweeboids who preferred jamming to womanizing. Keeping up with practice, which will make the team enough [money] to quit their day jobs and date better looking women, is not the act of losers.

Kevin Johnson
via e-mail

Practice makes money
Re “The killing game,” (RN&R, cover story, Nov. 4):

I want to thank the public that supports, downloads, purchases and plays these ridiculous violent video games. This includes the users, the parents of young users and the general buyers. Thanks to you, we have software companies that continue to manufacture increasingly violent, realistic video games. Has our society gone mad? It’s a shame we have a society that supports the manufacture and sales of these violent video games. I know it’s a First Amendment right, but does that make it right? Unless you’re training to be Rambo for the U.S. Army, or you’re a capitalist out to make money, what’s the purpose? Here’s a great program for our youth: Get fat sitting on your butt for five hours a day playing video games, then go straight to boot camp. Get real, people.

Brad Peters
via e-mail

Don’t call me mean
Re “Liberals are mean people,” (RN&R, Letters, Oct. 28):

I’m a nice liberal, so here’s some polite advice to Kelly Parker.

1. First of all, you need to stop listening to Republican commercials and talk radio. Formulate your own opinions by seeking to understand others first, then seek to be understood.

2. Second, don’t believe everything you hear.

3. Let go of the Michael Moore incident. In the big picture, it doesn’t matter.

4. Read some world history. Pol Pot, the Cambodian dictator, Adolf Hitler, the German dictator, and Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator, all executed professors, teachers, artists and scientists first to gain control. During the Tiananmen Square revolts in China, professors and students were suppressed.

5. Read some more history about liberal believers. This should include readings about Martin Luther King, Gandhi, the Dali Lama, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein and Abe Lincoln. Lincoln was the first Republican president so you’d probably like it right away. He freed the slaves and, because of his liberal beliefs, he was assassinated.

6. Don’t suggest that liberals apologize for America’s shortcomings. Liberals are outspoken about our leaders’ selfish or foolish actions. It’s a democracy; protest is a beautiful and patriotic right.

7. Don’t group people into categories or write sophomoric letters to the editor about goose-stepping liberals without doing your research. Trust me, if you open your mind, you’ll discover that it’s the liberals and progressives that made America what it is today and what it will become in the future.

Bradley Parker
Verdi

Thank goodness, it’s over
With Halloween and the elections behind us, the season for thanks is here. We should all be thankful for what we have, especially our health. We should be thankful for medicine for those who are not as fortunate as we. We take many things for granted.

Mike Arp
Reno

It’s only just begun
George Walker Bush is vindicated. He says the people have spoken.

Why, yes, Mr. President, last time I checked (on Nov. 3) they have—and 56 million American voters said they oppose you and your policies.

That’s nearly half the “speaking” you cite which took place that day. There is immense social opposition to the Republican right.

You have no mandate when your agenda sufficiently nauseates half of the nation’s voters that they grasp for the other guy like a handrail—any other guy save the smirking ex-drunk-born-again zealot-preppy from Crawford, Texas.

Your “mandate” is about as substantial as a half-inch of ice that shimmers on a black watery chasm on an unusually warm day.

You’re on thin ice, Mr. President. The nation is divided.

Would you like some advice? Two words, then.

Richard Nixon.

Craig Ayres-Sevier
via e-mail