LEO welcomes letters that are brief (250 words max) and thoughtful. Ad hominem attacks will be ignored, and we need your name and a daytime phone number. Send snail mail to EROSIA, 640 S. Fourth St., Louisville, Ky. 40202. Fax to 895-9779 or e-mail to [email protected]. We may edit for length, grammar and clarity.
Not Offended
Ricky L. Jones is genuinely liked by this reader, and I begin by apologizing for not writing in the past to applaud him. Yet, here goes digression. This Imus thing. His actions were and probably still are full of bigot-infused soul vomit. But, this racial “in-group language … not appropriate for others to use,” as Ricky calls it (LEO, April 25), is ignorant at best. “All ethnicities have this,” he says. That equates to a child asserting that all the other kids cursed, too. I am a Caucasian by birth and a Hebrew by choice. I can’t think of one word or phrase that offends me, that if used by an Israelite or fellow Caucasian, would not offend me. Maybe I am in the minority. Either way, using someone’s race as your deciding cue to either smile and say hi or fume hotly in anger after hearing the “n word” is undeniably a racist action.
Brian Rogers
Bumper Sticker Logic
There is a bumper sticker that says: “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” Yes and amen. Lucinda Marshall put pen to paper and asked what many of us Louisvillians have been asking for years now (LEO, April 18): Why exactly are weapons of mass destruction hot-dogging through our air space? And I’ll ask: What sick thing within us has morphed these delivery systems of mayhem into fun-fest, family entertainment? And here’s another puzzler: What kind of cognitive disconnect goes on in the brains of our light-up Louisville leadership types that enables them to promote a hyped day of killing machines performing slightly above our skyline while locking down a whole West End community on Derby week because of a violent shooting that occurred within their midst several years ago? So with their right hand, “leaders of Louisville” will promote violence, and with their left hand they’ll smack down a community with a collective punishment rap!? There’s another bumper sticker that says: “If you’re not outraged, then you haven’t been paying attention!”
Marcia Schneider
Not So Universal
It seems as though all of the candidates for political office in Kentucky or nationally are touting universal healthcare. None of these candidates have any idea how this would work, who would pay for it or how it would be administered. I have a few questions for the Kentucky candidates for governor.
1) Would you insure people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol?
2) Would you insure drug dealers/prostitutes?
3) Would you insure people who can already afford health insurance?
4) Would you insure people who are obese?
5) Would you insure people who engage in promiscuous sex?
If any of the candidates cannot answer the above questions in a straightforward manner, they should stop promising universal healthcare. Our current system is not perfect, but those who continue to advocate the same healthcare system for everyone are dreaming. Healthcare is and should always be a “personal” issue. Currently Americans are the most obese people in the world. Solution: Change your eating habits and/or exercise. Drugs/alcohol abuse: Americans are the largest consumers of illegal drugs and legal alcohol. Solution: Get help to change your behavior. Should I have to pay for Michael Jordan’s kids or U of L President Ramsey’s healthcare? Absolutely not! If the current crop of candidates continues advocating universal healthcare, we will find ourselves being controlled by an “invisible” health administrator who could pick and choose who’ll be first in line at the doctor’s office. I hope I’ll never see that day.
Keith E. Lewis
Open For Interpretation
Periodically, some of your readers offer an interpretation of Old Testament passages that attempts to diffuse what the Bible says about some topic (e.g., homosexuality). Unfortunately, these interpretations often fail to convey any understanding of context, literary style, the distinctions between moral, civil and ceremonial law, and so on. I’m constantly surprised to find such sophisticated minds failing on such a basic point. One might as well read a phonebook like a novel, interpret Revelation-like prose, build an argument on a phrase in a sentence, or believe that Jesus is a (literal) door or a lamb. Moreover, these interpretations are delivered without the tolerance or empathy one would expect from those who are so enlightened. Can’t we do better?
D. Eric Schansberg
Fight the Urge
In reading a number of letters regarding gays and recent comments by Albert Mohler, I would like to say I wish more of the people on both sides were a little more knowledgeable about scripture, theology and Christian philosophy. Then maybe so many of them would not make asinine statements. First, as I read the verse from Leviticus, it does not say gays are immoral, it says homosexual acts are, and there is a big difference. Just because one has urges of one sort or another that may be considered immoral or sinful does not make the person a sinner or immoral unless one acts on those urges. It is the act that is wrong regardless of what sort of act it is, and this applies to many things, not just homosexual acts.
The other thing I find annoying from the Gay Rights side is the argument that God made me this way. If you are going to use that argument, then carry it to its logical end. Go to Kosair Children’s Hospital and tell the parents of children born with catastrophic birth defects that God made them that way. I doubt you have the guts. The fact is, we are as we are because we are born into a fallen world where things are not as God wanted them but as humanity caused them by turning from God. Plus, there is the old material world being an imperfect representation of the perfect world as God conceived it. The laws God made for the operation of the universe got messed up by us, and things do not happen as God intended.
Kent Sublett
