Dear Terry Gross,
I am a huge fan of Fresh Air. I listen to every episode. I greatly admire your interviewing skill and your obvious in-depth preparation for every interview.
Having said that, I was extremely disappointed by your interview with Lawrence Wright. (more…)
According to Margery Eagan in today’s Herald, both Deval Patrick and Charlie Baker support “some type of road testing for the elderly.” Independent gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill? Not so much:
“I don’t want to take away licenses from able-bodied people or force them to go through a driver’s test,” he said. What the Legislature did, he said, is “fine.”
Hey Tim… The point of road tests for the elderly people would be to figure out which people are not “able-bodied.” Anybody who can look at the string of completely avoidable accidents involving elderly drivers and think that this isn’t necessary is a moron. I don’t vote for morons.
Here’s what they printed:
The condition of our economy proves the absurdity of John Stossel’s argument that gambling should be legal because, “People are responsible for the consequences of their bad habits” (“Is it your choice to gamble? You betcha!” May 14). We’re digging ourselves out of the worst recession since 1929 because people took out mortgages they couldn’t afford. It’s costing us trillions of dollars to clean up from their “bad habits.”
Whether it’s Keno, a slots hall or a casino, any gambling establishment is a blight on the community, one that hurts those who patronize it and everyone else.
- Jonathan Kamens, Brighton
Here’s what I sent them: (more…)
Yet another chapter in the saga of the political spam I can’t seem to put a stop to, courtesy of ex-Congressman Robert Wexler. I’ve just been spammed by Scott Maddox, who is running for Florida Commissioner of Agriculture & Consumer Services. Like I care!
In a February 10 column printed in the Boston Herald, Jonah Goldberg repeats the anti-global-warming canard that severe snowstorms are evidence against global warming. In response, I sent the following letter to the editor:
To the editor:
Jonah Goldberg’s recent suggestion that severe winter weather disproves global warning shows an alarming ignorance of basic science. In particular:
- When the air is warmer, more water evaporates into it.
- When there is more water in the air, it snows more.
- Once you get below freezing, colder temperatures actually decrease snowfall.
In short, the simple truth is that global warming causes more snow, not less.
Of course, ideologues like Goldberg rarely let something as inconvenient as the truth stand in the way of their agenda.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Kamens
Brighton
Not only did the Herald not print my letter or any other letter or opinion piece making a similar point, they have run at least two idiotic editorial cartoons mocking the idea that more snow supports global warming theories. (more…)
To: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com
To the editor:
I enjoyed Joe Fitzgerald’s recent satire of the pro-life movement. I laughed so hard coffee came out my nose when I read that “the only choice [the pro-choice movement] will tolerate is its own.” It was obvious that he was joking, since it’s so patently absurd to suggest that people protecting a woman’s right to choose are trying to deny her a choice.
Wait, what’s that? He was serious? Are you sure? Oh, in that case, never mind.
Fitzgerald is right that pro-choice extremists sometimes say stupid things, but I’ll take them over the extremists on the other side who think it’s God’s work to assassinate doctors performing legal medical procedures.
Jonathan Kamens, Brighton
Last November, I posted on my blog a copy of a letter which I faxed to Congressman Robert Wexler, in which I chastised him for giving my email address (which I gave him when I made a donation to his campaign, so that he could send me a receipt) to another politician’s campaign and demanded that he remove my address from all lists and databases under his control.
A friend, Michael Burstein, commented on that blog entry, “Wexler is a good guy, so I can’t I imagine that he and his staff won’t take steps to fix this. Let us know once he has.”
Alas, my friend was incorrect. I received no response from Wexler or anyone on his staff, and today, I received another piece of spam at the email address I had given to Wexler, from the campaign of yet another politician, Ted Deutch. Although the spam came from “campaign@tedforcongress.com”, the letter in it was signed by Congressman Wexler, making it all the more clear that he provided the mailing list to Deutch.
Many are saying that one of the reasons why the Democrats lost yesterday’s special election in Massachusetts is because they are acting like elitist snobs. I’m not fan of the Republicans and I voted for Coakley yesterday, but I can absolutely understand why people feel that way. I think there’s a lot of truth to it, and I think that this unrepentant spamming from Wexler is a symptom of it.
Congressman Wexler: What you have to say to me is not so important that you get to say it when I’ve told you to leave me alone. Your fellow Democratic politicians are not so critical to the future of this country that you get to share my email address with them when I’ve never given you permission and indeed asked you not to. You are not so high and mighty that you get to ignore my letters to you with impunity. You, sir, have lost my trust, and you will not soon regain it.
Monday, January 11, 2010
The Israelis do not use racial profiling for airport security (“European response mixed to new U.S. security demands,” Jan. 4). They use profiling, which includes patterns of behavior, coordination of intelligence and sophisticated modeling of which country of origin as but one factor. Interviews at the airport are by trained army personnel and they are watching and listening to everyone, even Florida snowbirds. They are just doing it right.
Of course the U.S. should be profiling instead of harassing passengers and crippling the industry, but our technique of rounding up suspicious black men won’t catch Nigerian bombers, and it certainly won’t catch British ones.
- A… Kamens, Brighton
I’ve just sent the following letter, with minor variations, to Sen. Kerry, Rep. Capuano, State Sen. Tolman, State Rep. Honan, and Martha Coakley (who will almost certainly soon be Sen. Coakley). If you’re as fed up as I am with this state of affairs (the incident described below is not the first time we’ve been charged a large ER copayment for something which really, truly, required an ER visit), please contact your elected representatives and ask them to do something about it.
Dear Senator Kerry,
Recently, my wife was woken in the middle of the night by persistent abdominal pain so intense (she described it as much worse than natural childbirth) that it caused her to vomit and prevented her from sitting up. Of course, I drove her straight to the emergency room of our local hospital.
Thirteen hours later, she was diagnosed with a kidney stone and discharged. This diagnosis was confirmed by her primary care physician in a followup visit several days later. Both the ER staff and my wife’s PCP confirmed that going to the ER was both necessary and appropriate.
Several days later, I received a bill from the hospital for the $100 ER copayment required by my insurance company. Herein lies the crux of the issue about which I am writing.
Last week, I received, via email sent to one of my synagogue’s contact email addresses, a flyer from someone at the Westboro Baptist Church, announcing the protests they were planning on holding this week in front of Jewish institutions in Boston.
I was appalled, and my initial reaction was to make a big deal out of it. I emailed the institutions listed on the flyer to warn them about the protest, made phone calls to personal contacts I had at some of those institutions, posted about it on my blog and on UniversalHub.com, and sent tips to the news media.
Some people commented in response that the WBC thrives on publicity, and the best strategy for dealing with them is to essentially pretend they don’t exist. I argued that things had gotten so bad in this country that the WBC was no longer completely on the lunatic fringe, and a response was therefore called for. My argument was legitimate; it’s not at all a clear-cut issue. However, as Bob Sutton says, one should always argue as if he is right and listen as if he is wrong. That’s what I did, and I’ve decided that I was wrong.
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