Hey, You with the Tim Ear!
On the subject of Ear to the Ground [Oct. 18]: Recently I was checking a neighborhood Dempster Dumpster for aluminum cans (with aluminum hovering around 42 cents a pound, who can resist, right?), when I ran across an article describing my alleged frugality.
The article went on to describe the "toe ring" I had found in the parking lot of my favorite Mexican restaurant (You can buy two tacos, a Sprite and all the chips and salsa you can eat for $5, tip included) and its apparent silver-plate flaking off. I just wanted to correct one part of your article—the flakes in question were not silver—they were aluminum.
I know I shouldn't pick my fights with a woman who buys her ink by the barrel, but I could not let this literary travesty go uncorrected. A retraction is obviously in order. And, by the way, I do like the price of your newspaper.
Tim Burchett, state senator
Knoxville
Choice Choices
Truth is the first casualty of war they say, but we must try to find it amongst the angry rhetoric and bizarre "adjustments."
Not a single Afghan was among the hijackers who made the terrorist attack. The Afghans are held hostage by one of the most repressive regimes in history, one which is in power largely because of the past policy of our government. The billions of dollars that have been spent bombing and rebombing old abandoned Soviet military outposts, to most of which there are no existing roads, are having zero effect on [Osama] bin Laden, but are bombing the U.S. economy back to the Stone Age.
O yes, we are bombing the cities too, and creating another future generation of adults who will remember a hideous childhood when "the Americans are coming" meant death, terror, fleeing and refugee camps. And future generations of Americans will wonder why they don't like us.
We know into which mosques the Taliban pack on every Sabbath, but we don't bomb them because it might offend our "allies." But we want to bring bin Laden's head home on a stick.
What would be the effect of killing bin Laden? He has more followers than any other living human being on earth. They are not just Arabs. Indonesia has the largest Islamic population. Recently, a demonstration of 20,000 in Jakharta rampaged, carrying photos of bin Laden and burning churches, cinemas that show Western movies and businesses owned by non-Muslims. His followers are fundamentalists for whom education consists of group recitation of the Koran for hours every day, for years.
These simple repetitive verses state in unmistakable terms that the believer in Islam has the duty to fight and kill those who do not believe, that Christians and Jews are to be killed, that those who use their wealth, go into exile and dedicate their lives to the fight will go to heaven, and those who lag back in the fight will go to hell.
So the effect of killing bin Laden would be the unleashing of the most hideous holy war in history. He has far more followers than Christ did at his death.
What inspired me to write this letter was the twisted logic behind "scarf day." Of course the scarf and veil are symbols of the oppression of women. No, they are not a matter of choice in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, where not wearing a scarf is considered an act of lewdness punishable by death on the spot. Even in the more moderate Egypt, where women are not obligated to cover their faces, you won't see an adult woman on the street with her head uncovered. If a married woman did so, her husband would be obligated to beat her. Now in the hated (as of today that is, before they were our allies) Iraq, women are free to and do have uncovered heads and high ranking jobs.
Wouldn't it make more of a statement if the Islamic women students (since for them, as they have said, the scarf is a matter of choice) went bareheaded to show their solidarity with R.A.W.A.?
Leslie Connolly
Knoxville
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