| Occupy
what?
I wanted to write in regarding the recent article
by Amber Williams (“The Occupiers,” Dec. 8).
While the piece was even handed, it failed to
note one salient point: notably is just how
void of intellectual inspiration this “movement”
truly is. In real terms, the so called Occupy-Whatever
group has proven itself to be neither effective
nor grounded by any set of laudable principles.
Since this rudderless mass of malcontents launched
their moronic mission, it has become all too
obvious that their pointless message of discontent
is more of a painfully public bitch session,
a non-stop self-absorbed exercise in didactic
caterwauling. To say that they are misguided
gives them credit for having a goal or objective,
an end game by which they could claim some type
of moral or political victory. This kind of
logical thinking is beyond the scope of cognitive
reasoning for these mindless peons.
Far too much ink has been spilled giving life
to this Occupy-My-Eye group, and I have been
guilty of this given my own efforts to dispel
the notion that this is some kind of noble cause.
Like a drunken uncle at a Bar Mitzvah, this
tiny group should be ignored, laughed at, ostracized
and ultimately forgotten.
James Bradley Robinson III
Des Moines
Picking on history
While the Columbus history may need demythologizing
(and that indeed has been happening for decades),
the teachers interviewed for your story (“Hero
or Heathen,” Nov. 24), seem bent on falling
prey to another myth. That Columbus was “worse
than Hitler,” a “flunky,” “liar,” “idiot,” “scum
of the earth,” who “manipulated” the Sovereigns
of Spain simply promulgates the opposite myth
— that Columbus was altogether evil. Thus the
last state of our students is worse than the
first. One of the teachers, Ms. Dibbit I believe,
wants to give her students the facts and let
them make up their own minds as to the character
of Columbus and the value of his explorations.
A noble thought.
However, Mr. Plowman and Mr. Fedders have let
it be known that the subject is closed: Columbus
was bad. Their opinions make me wonder if either
of them has ever read anything BUT Lowen when
it comes to the vast literature available regarding
Columbus’ life and exploits.
Yes, the Columbus who “In fourteen hundred and
ninety-two, sailed the ocean blue” needs to
be exposed as truly a man of his times. But
to dismiss him as a nefarious flunky exposes
their knowledge of history as shallow in the
extreme and does no serious service to what
passes as education in our schools, even education
by a “school improvement leader” and an associate
history professor at a university. And, by the
way, what is “conquership?”
James Brammeier
Johnston |
