Variety of views appreciated
I have not completed the attached questionnaire in its entirety because I do not have strong opinions about some of the columnists. However, I would like to offer my own comments about this questionnaire. The choices of “Like it,” Hate it,” and “Don’t care” do not offer enough flexibility to express one’s opinions. For example, how do I express the thought that I can disagree so often with Charlie Reese that I will not read him for awhile, yet there are times when he can jerk me to attention or make a point so clearly that I wonder why I didn’t think of it myself. I don’t mean to find fault with your method of polling your audience, and I don’t know if I could do better, but I am not sure that the answers you receive will give a true picture of what it is that moves your readers. I hope that I am wrong.
I sincerely hope the results of your poll don’t lead you to fall to the level of the lowest common denominator. Given the choice between any columnist and the comics, or between any columnist and the political cartoon, there are those who would choose the easiest to absorb, no matter what the content.
I realize that you need to do things in order to compete for readership and to keep the interest of your audience. My fear is that you might remove an important columnist, one that has something to say that we all need to hear, even though a majority might not read him or her, just because the reader will have to engage the brain to a level higher than that required for immediate understanding. Having to read something more than once to gain its substance is not necessarily a bad thing.
Nat Hentoff and Bill Maxwell come quickly to mind. They should be required reading for all adults of voting age because they make us look deeply into subjects that are substantive, and they offer perspectives that many of us do not have. And they do it with regularity. It would be a shame to lose them just because a majority of readers don’t read them (and I don’t know that to be the case). Hentoff discusses subjects of utmost importance to a democracy, and Maxwell brings a perspective and a deliberate calmness to his subjects that I don’t see elsewhere.
Obviously these are two of the columnists I enjoy, and there are others as well. However, my point is not that I want you to save these columnists just for my gratification. I think it is necessary for the wellbeing of us all that we be exposed to intelligent and useful opinions, whether or not they are the most popular, in order to keep from sinking into the world of popularity and away from substance. We are offered enough pop culture of little or no value from our TVs daily. Please consider giving us something necessary and useful and stimulating and valuable. And thanks for listening.
Paul Whipkey
Connellsville
Gun tracking infringes rights
In reply to the article tracking crimes through guns, the ballistic database will track the crime to an individual gun. What about weapons already manufactured and owned by private citizens for years? Also, what about imported weapons?
I am sure that someone in our Congress will propose to “fingerprint” these weapons at a cost to the longtime owners. Also they will deduce that if the weapon were registered to the owner – a national registration database – then the crime would be more easily solved. Then for everyone’s safety the registered weapons ought to be confiscated. Check the record of England (U.K.), Australia and California (semi-automatic rifles).
The National Rifle Association is composed of citizens, your neighbors, many of whom have served their country and all believe in the Second Amendment – the right to bear arms.
Robert Roy
Vanderbilt