The Letters Top Five
October 20, 2008 | 2:57
pm
Each week, your letters maven receives thousands of e-mails, dozens of letters through the good old U.S. postal service, and even a few faxes here and there.
After she cuts out spam, obscene mail, letters addressed to more than one recipient, letters that seem to be the fruit of letter-writing campaigns and letters with attachments (which gum up our computer systems,) she is usually left with several hundred eligible items, from which she selects the somewhere around 100 that get published in the newspaper.
Last week The Times received 777 usable letters, 628 of which were in our Top Five Topics:
- Presidential election: 408 letters, responding to Times stories about the final presidential debate, the polarized electorate and more (most Joe the Plumber letters will go in next week's tally);
- Gay marriage: 87 letters;
- Economy: 80 letters, as stock market gyrations continued;
- "Religulous" and atheism: 33 letters, reacting to this Op-Ed and this Gregory Rodriguez column about Bill Maher's documentary "Religulous" and atheists; and
- Rail safety and funding: 20 letters, reacting to this Op-Ed calling for the end of Metrolink and other Times stories about rail transport and mass transit.
I just read Maggie Gallagher's stirring homily in support of marriage now-and-forever in the form she wishes it. I could not help thinking as I felt her words wash over me how I would feel about her staunch backing of human marriage unmodifiable if I were: a typical 22 year old American or an intelligent toad.
I doubt that most young folks today consider her viewpoint one that should be writ in stone on the tablets of our Constitution for Ages Hence. In fact, they might resent the part her aging albeit chubby fingers may have played in putting it on that immutable tablet.
The frog (and other amphibians?) probably would see the sanctity of human marriage in a different light. I suspect they would be strongly in favor of caring unions in any form not focused on adding to the 6 plus billion homo sapiens rapidly eliminating other forms of life on the planet. Human long-term sexual relationships ie marriage in traditional form is unexcelled at reproduction to the point of extinction.
I applaud Ms. Gallagher for being a powerful advocate for marriage as "man plus woman for babies" and a pox on all other forms or goals for long-term, committed unions. I am a typical middle-aged privileged white male indoctrinated in certain "correct forms", like Ms. Gallagher. We would have it no other way! And that we will try to ensure long after we are rotting in the grave.
Young Americans, who may have to live on a planet in its own death throes, may resent the legacy Ms. Gallagher and our ilk have bequeathed them. Intelligent frogs will certainly lay the the hairy eyeball on both us and our arguments. They probably would consider them specious, self-serving and short-sighted. Probably their opinion could be more simply stated? We are just eat up with dumb.
Posted by: Jeffrey Jones | November 01, 2008 at 04:32 PM