ash requests that you read this post and this post before tackling the one below. They are sequential. Whose Turf comprises a series of letters about religion and Just an Arbitrary is her year end’s roundup. They’re seemingly unrelated but both are referenced throughout the email messages, particularly in the first piece she wrote to preclude being taken surprise by possible responses to her then just-published essays:
Now that much has been written about the appropriateness of beseeching good Christians to pray for one single member of the State Journal-Register community, I would like to add a few remarks. Beginning with the controversy over a prominent reverend’s concern for the disposition of an individual soul, I will turn to the lack of clarity on the shorthand for a suggestion I made and finally to the fact that so much of what happened in 2006 was unacknowledged on December 30.
To be fair, the salient complaint may be a matter not so much of content but forum. When readers turn to the editorial page, are they pleased, dismayed, or indifferent to find discussions more appropriately suited for the Protestant version of the Catholic Times? This reader tends to ignore the religious battling dogma among themselves; when the topic encroaches on secular territory is when I become alarmed.
“Alarmed” is no hyperbole. The notion of creeping theocracy is a threat not only to the non-religious and, to invent a self-explanatory term, the a-religious, but to ministers such as Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State who is equally concerned that, with nothing to safeguard religion merging with government from one direction, the government might feel equally emboldened to intrude from the other on his own jurisdiction.
Concerning my previous letter, “God must exist or who am I?” (not borrowed from some profound philosophical treatise but plucked directly from my brain) refers to the role of the invested believer. It is encapsulated in the French expression “raison d’etre” or “reason for being.” In the case of the reverend who wrote, as in the case of any clergyperson, it alludes not only to the nature of life but to the purpose of one’s livelihood as a conduit between God and other humans. “God must exist, or how do I reconcile what I have chosen to do with my life with the contradicting reality?” Who would deny that in the absence of God’s evidence a minister’s job becomes moot? That’s what I was addressing with “who am I?” If there is no God, there is no rationale for a profession closely merging into one’s identity. Thus the minister’s motivation for defending God extends beyond God to justifying himself.
As for the op ed, I could have written twice as much. I could have included events such as our gun-happy vice president; the deaths of Peter Boyle (of whom I was a tremendous fan), feminist heroine Betty Friedan, ex-President Ford, Ed Bradley, Robert Altman, Don Knotts, Ken Lay, Pinochet, and others; history-making first female speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi; liar-for-profit James Frey, celebrities giving birth reaching near epidemic levels; Paul McCartney’s pending divorce; the administration admitting global warming exists; a cynical attempt to attach raising the minimum wage to an extension of the estate tax exemption; and other matters both consequential and trivial exceeding the word allotment of this essay.
I could have mentioned everything I could think of from the realms of politics, entertainment, local issues, miscellaneous, and then what? With a hard-and-fast no-exceptions-granted word limitation, there would have been no words to spare for commentary. As it was, do you remember reading that Donald Rumsfeld promised Mr. Bush he’d never reveal that had the Republicans salvaged the mid-terms he’d still be Secretary of Defense? That Ugly Betty is actually pretty cute? That the “timid” handwriting conveying the message “What if you’re wrong” was also in “tiny” handwriting? No? They were all in the original copy I submitted; once that copy is out of my hands it is no longer under my control.
So this In My Opinion is shorter than the New Year’s Eve editorial. That’s my only protection against beholding the finished product and exclaiming, “Here we go again. Someone had no idea which sentence was my favorite, which point my most biting, which alliteration (“tiny, timid”) quite deliberate; which observation intended to be humorous.” There’s finite space in a printed format. Lay people are understandably unaware of the tension between journalists and editors. (I write that wry remark with no guarantee it will survive editorial inspection.) I myself am not a journalist. I am – mais bien sur – a creative writer.
Meanwhile, a controversy was brewing. ash was shocked to read this letter on January 2nd:
Anger seems to be typical atheist trait
After reading ash’s latest column one cannot help but feel that the underlying tone of her manifesto is that of anger.
This woman seems angry at everyone and everything who disagrees with her spiritual belief system and that seems typical of the atheist mindset. Perhaps the reason these atheists are always angry is because they don’t have the love of Christ dwelling within them and so they want everyone else to be as unhappy as they are with their lives.
Nothing else explains why any rational person would become angry when someone else offers to pray for them. It is almost as if something dark dwells within them that causes them to feel offended when others want to pray for them.
Contrary to her, a Christian is comforted and pleased when they are told that prayers are being offered for them, irrespective of whether the person offering the prayers is Christian, Jewish or Muslim.
It must be especially difficult for an atheist at the holiday season when they see other God-fearing people laughing and enjoying their families and looking forward with happiness to the New Year. It is almost as if the atheists refuse to be happy and are not satisfied unless everyone else is as unhappy as they are … and this is exactly the reason that Rita needs our prayers.
Here’s hoping that the love of Christ is allowed to dwell within ash in 2007. She desperately needs our prayers.
Breathing returned to normal? It was even more insidious than it seemed. After the first such letter appeared, the paper’s editor confided in ash that he had been “arguing her case” all day with the first prayer organizer. That a second should follow it was incomprehensible. Which is what ash was alluding to as she whipped out her reply:
I don’t usually use names but this deserves an exception. Mr. [name withheld], I’m not angry with you. (The editor? That’s another story.) I do worry about your level of reading comprehension. Maybe you were gone over the Christmas break when a long discussion regarding Agnosticism, and the fact that I am an Agnostic, occurred. If you don’t know the difference between that and Atheism please avail yourself of the many reference books providing the definitions. (Perhaps they’re mentioned in the Bible as well.) They are not interchangeable words.
And how about the Christian origin of the Halloween holiday? That little detail rather destroyed your first joke, so now let’s reference – I know – liberal anger.
Editor, now it’s your turn. Singling out one person and beseeching readers to pray on her behalf in an OSTENSIBLY secular newspaper is beyond inappropriate, but that’s what the super religious do. It’s why they have so much trouble with the concept of separation of church and state. But publishing such a letter is quite another matter. It is beyond offensive. And Mr. [name withheld] – bless him - is upset that I’m angry. A new year and no new pattern for me. I can’t seem to shake my name from the editorial section into eternity.
As someone noted eons ago, had enough? I had enough before the first desperate plea for the massive intervention to save my soul. Some in the community, and I can’t thank them enough, pushed back and I guess we Godless types reaped what we sowed. We got more touching concern for my ultimate fate. I suppose this prayer business - more suitable in the Catholic Times or the Protestant version of The Catholic Times and, frankly, beyond unprofessional of the paper to sponsor it - could continue forever.
I thought this page was supposed to debate issues, not individuals. This isn’t a persecution complex. This is persecution.
The letter was rejected. Why? Here begins a series of emails between the editor and ash. Note the point at which he contradicts himself from a previous remark, tacitly revealing a lie:
ash,
I think I will send this one directly to Gus and maybe you guys can have a sidebar discussion.
Mike
You know what? He deserves to be referred to by name. If he ever reads ash’s website, he can thank her for refraining to use his last name also. She responds:
Look out. The deluge is coming. You don't have to publish any of them either but you'll know. And so will your inbox. And thanks for pretending not to realize I wasn't writing to him (the ultimate hopeless case) but to you. Not to notice when I began to speak over his head. I happen to know you're much smarter than that.
Prayer in a secular newspaper. Second only to censorship. Does Copley know? Does it matter anymore? And thanks for stinking up my new year as well.
Mike’s turn:
ash,
People mention prayer in the secular paper all of the time. You make yourself something of a target by contributing so much and by having strong opinions. I really don't quite understand your thin skin on this one. Eddie Bratton has often been mentioned by name, though probably not in the context of being prayed for. And I don't understand what you mean by a deluge.
Mike
Deluge? The fact that several of ash’s friends have expressed outrage. One has volunteered to enlist fellow atheists to express it publicly:
shove it. It's already over. No, you don't know about the deluge but I do. How many people do you suppose I've heard from today - and all of them contacted me. All are nearly as outraged as I am, some are perfect strangers INFURIATED on my behalf, and some of them write. You don't have to publish them but you're damn well going to hear from them. And what an interesting choice of words. "Mention prayer." How about beseeching the community to pray? No, "probably not." In a secular paper, I should hope not. Which other ones you been reading? Just the other small-town hodunk enterprises? How about the professional, reputable ones? Laughingstock. It's the word I decided to use should you write back. You did, and I do. Keep up the highly improper content and I won't be the only reader - and contributor - you lose.
"Probably not." So you debated the reverend and all this time I thought you defended my position. Now it appears more likely he persuaded you of the righteousness of his argument. Call for prayer for someone's soul - not once, but twice - in a secular paper and the prayerful, who don't know better, aren't the laughingstock. The editor is. That letter was addressed to you and you pretended not to know it.
Mike retorts:
I guess it just wouldn't bother me if people called for prayer for me. No skin of my atheistic nose. Not sure why you or anyone else would be "outraged" by this being printed. I promise I will let you know if there is a "deluge." As I think I've told you before, it's your choice to write or not write. But if you write, others are going to respond. That's how the page works.
Mike
Yes, you read that correctly from the man who just one week earlier had spent a good part of his day arguing with a man of God who voiced the same concern for ash. Yet Mike now found such sentiments quite innocuous coming from a layman. ash knew something was up, but hadn’t realized what, exactly, as of this communication:
What you would feel is irrelevant. So is your religion or lack of it. .Beyond that, it's a pathetic defense of an unconscionable act. You don't have to let me know anything. It's no skin off my nose. And what you're "not sure" of you discount.
I do have some sense of proportionality. For instance, there are at least two people far more angry than I am right now. One of them is Fred Goldman, upon learning the man he can only bring himself to refer to as The Criminal is going to get his book published in Europe this year. The other is Rudy Giuliani, who is as we speak busting a blood vessel and threatening an aide's life over leaving some 140 pages of campaign strategy in the hotel of a large, unnamed city only to see it laid out on the pages of the New York Daily News. That's what I've come across today in the vast media, though with constant interruptions I've barely scratched the surface far into the evening. Every day is chocked full of outrage resulting from much greed and occasionally some horrible judgment, some of which could have been avoided with a little foresight and very little of which culminates in acknowledgment or apology. Your "outrage" pales against that of other perpetrators. But make no mistake - you're an outrage committer. I can't reward it and I won't ignore it. I'll just do whatever is in my power to counteract it. But continuing to write is beside the point.
"Pray for my soul" not once but twice in the secular SJ-R. Laughingstock. But hey, maybe you can do an op ed on "Why We Publish Cringeworthy Religious Material on the Allegedly Secular Editorial Page." And whose rebuttal will be read if you don't publish it?
So you exercised extraordinary poor taste - in printing that prayer entreaty at all, in printing it at this late date. A cretin wrote, I chose to respond but not to the cretin. Your choice - whether to print - is the only one that counts. The page doesn't "work" anything. You work the page. It's like when I addressed Bakke on his phraseology "The stem cell issue caused President Bush to issue his first veto." No, no, no. The stems cells did nothing. Somehow that letter got in the paper. Maybe it was because I was taking on Bakke, not the editorial page editor.
When you get backed into a corner, you play dumb. That letter was to you. By all means, stifle it and in your next response I'm sure you'll talk past that salient point like you have every other.
Mike’s Hail Mary pass:
ash,
Did you read any of the other letters I published bashing Weitzel's argument? There were several. This page is a give and take. It also involves hundreds of writers. I think you may forget that sometimes. I have a lot of bosses out there to please, certainly not just you. And of course I know your letter was to me. How in the world would I not know that? I'm not sure of your point beyond that. Am I supposed to crumble because you are mad at me? Get in line. I'm sure it's a long one. I think I have been fair to you, In fact, I take a lot of criticism from some other readers for running as many of your letters as I do. As in the past, if you have something to contribute, feel free. But if your feelings are going to get hurt this easily, maybe it's time for you to take a break. And just so you know, no deluge. In fact, not a single letter on this from anyone but you.
Mike
Catch the contradiction? If Mike was aware from the beginning that ash’s last letter excoriated not the poor sap who prompted it but the editor for unleashing it upon the community, why offer to put her in contact with the writer? Apparently to let himself off the hook. Or, could it be the revelation she had was painfully accurate? That rather than deny her breakthrough perception, he decides his only option is to remain silent:
Ah, I get it. And such good timing, as I had just completed my prepared remarks. It should have been obvious yesterday. Today came the forced revelation and not from your email but from the editorial pages.
Tentative text and guess what? It applies. First, the direct response. Love the insults. “Feelings hurt” (sure that’s not projection?) this and “take a break” that. Like anger didn’t pretty much preclude hurt and not writing was not a foregone conclusion. And “not a single letter”? I assume that excludes the one in today’s paper not to mention the ones that are coming. It’s a structured effort. A motivated friend acting on my behalf. And disregarding my request not to supply the numbers, thanks for that as well. And thanks for pretending I wrote to that Skeadas tool (sidebar, anyone?) right up to the moment feigned ignorance became impossible to sustain, while still pretending you were never against prayer in the paper before you were for it.
Hold off on the letters? Honey, soon there won’t be anything to write about. There won’t be anything to respond to. There won’t be any initial letters to be aware of in the first place. You really have no idea what my only recourse is?
Which brings me to the one-size-fits-any-reply:
It was Weitzel, wasn’t it. That would explain the sudden, head-jerking 180 from “I defended your position” last week to the poor excuse for a Weitzel wannabe yesterday. Weitzel went over your head. Speaking of “bosses,” he’s the boss of them. He appealed to maybe Locher, more likely Schmidt, since Copley would only boomerang it back to local. He may have used the old-fashioned phone and she could positively hear his condescending, Stevie Wonder-like smile through the telephone line. Because he’s special, because, as God’s conduit, he commands almost as much obeisance as God Himself, she let him dictate. It’s a cyberspace liberal joke: the cons can make the most outrageous accusations, the most galling demands, as long as they convey it in polite language, as long as they don’t modify the nouns with “fucking” and “shitty.” And that’s what he did. While he - politely - made it about philosophy and majorities and church membership and yes his input was appropriate Schmidt heard finances and money and veiled threats. She turned her attention from Marketplace and the costs of running the AP wire to monitoring his complaints. And what did she see? While the scholarly types may be more vocal thus disproportionately represented, the provincial contingency is squawking. Behold: not one but 2 letters quoting the Bible. That’s almost as egregious as an organized prayer group blessed by an allegedly secular newspaper. But hey, for a guy whose principles allow for something described as “no skin ‘of’ my nose” (and isn’t it convenient when it’s someone else’s nose) it’s not a small price – it’s no price to pay for keeping the job. With no dignity.
You got your orders and you got boxed in. It knocked the cryptic flippancy out of you like a punch to the gut. The left says you’re too right; the right says you’re too left; Schmidt says we need more revenue. So I almost pity…but no. It’s not about proportion but content. Not how much of what but how extreme. Creepy content. Laughingstock content. Content that would make a Chicagoan or a St. Louisan wince, but they’re not subscribers. Nevertheless you’re supposed to be in charge of something. Maybe of extent. Extent of religiosity. Since Weitzel is the boss of you there is no extent. Maybe ultimately you’re in charge of nothing.
You decided to include me often and now you’re blaming me for “contributing” so often. I’m not trying to get in as often as possible (before yesterday’s outrage I fully intended to take that recommended break, and a much longer one than you would anticipate like, say, a full year if not forever) but simply to say get the hell “of” my mortal soul. Apparently that’s too much to ask or expect of a 100,000+ community newspaper, circulation notwithstanding. Get back to me when it’s 2- or 3- or a million. So today you had the sense to leave my name off the page and offset all that Christianity with one defense of Atheism and one of dark skin on presumably intact noses.
There was more but the computer ate my first version of this. I had to recreate it from shaken memory and of course a lot will remain unrecovered. (If I think of what it was you can ignore the next email. You did know everything I send also goes to the bcc’ers.) What a rotten, stinking year, “alread,” though made slightly more pleasant by the lovely woman who called to say she opens the editorial page hoping to find a letter by me. I cringed over the phone. She just lost her husband and she called to support a stranger. I’m very sorry to embark on disappointing her. Though I suppose we can always have a sidebar.
Oh, yeah. Couldn’t leave your paws off the editorial. Rumsfeld caput and Ugly Betty was the first sentence I wrote. I dare say nobody ordered that metaphorical violation of my person.
The truth is that sometimes ash writes a response to a comment before it has been made. It’s amazing how predictable some people are that she grasps the gist of what they’ll say before they say it. That was the case with the above message. Alas, there are to be no more from Mike. Until she gets the injustice out of her system, she’ll keep writing:
All right. There’s enough information in the editorial section to spot the pattern. It’s like reading in code. Yesterday you gave them what they demanded. Today you’re taking a break from all that religion. I sympathize. Really. Meat grinder image in my head. Nevertheless there’s that unresolved matter called calling for prayer in a secular paper.
It’s a business assessment. Their business and your job. Reminiscent of when the entertainment section abruptly skewed young and became virtually useless to anyone over 30. There’s still the fact that I get exploited – whacked, as it turns out - and no one’s paying me for my letters. (But my “feelings are hurt.” That’s a shock. All this time I thought I was too busy being infuriated.) I donated the material; it’s how the page works. I thought you’d never so much as allude to the glaringly obvious with “bosses” and “complaints.” But you couldn’t take it as far as acknowledging the salient issue: you had to deactivate the obliteration of Weitzel without admitting it. Render it impotent. For all I know he could have threatened a boycott, though I doubt he had to take it that far. Details are immaterial when the outcome is clear: assembling a second prayer group in the SJ-R.
The paper has standards. I didn’t say “high standards,” but there are rules. No profanity, for instance. Or should I say no profane words while profane behavior is acceptable depending on the power of those who commit it. Prayer on behalf of one person, who certainly asked for it with all those letters. No, I’m not going to get off it, though I am going to stop emailing you, while as you well know my letters reached a permanent moratorium effective 2 days ago and yes, the only economic decision I get to make has been made. The natural consequence of prayer in the paper.
Prayer in the paper. How offensive that must be to you as well, not so much as an atheist but as a professional journalist. You could say right now: I’m sorry. They made me. You got sacrificed while I had to genuflect, as we reach the deadline entering too-little-too-late territory. Instead of insulting us both with nose skin and “I don’t know why.” Yes, you do. Save my soul – and just mine – in your no longer secular publication. Followed by the tiniest poker tell: well, maybe it’s not done elsewhere. You bet your ass it’s not. Not in a reputable paper. Not in one with a prayer of being taken seriously.
What they do, and how you accommodate them, is more obscene than the foulest language. They fail to fathom their secular sins, while my observations are redundant to you. Pot shots at the atheists can be neutralized by others. Any number of readers will be sufficiently motivated to correct the record until the next religioso trumps them – on orders from the boss. You feature the opposing sides consecutively and call it a compromise with management. That was yesterday’s message. Today you get to do Saddam and finally some legitimate substance. No more prayer for a while, and give those Bible verses a rest. As long as you don’t apologize for figuratively violating me. For allowing it. For tacitly endorsing it: not that you would pray, but that they might. Pray for me in the paper.
Memory recalls from yesterday’s computer-meltdown copy: You could have stifled me at any point. You waited until someone else did to suggest I cool off. What difference does it make how much I submit when you’re the gatekeeper? What else. OK, I guess the other stuff’s been covered. Now my brain should let me go back to sleep.
And later that day (while retaining the slightest humor):
Subject: Have to call it something in order to save it.
LETTER LITERALLY TO THE EDITOR
For instance, I could poke a huge hole in Will’s revolting corporate suck-up column today. Why minimum wage hurts the only guys he cares about. Or another correspondent might do it though, if you’re lucky, nobody will. I could point out to the reader that Novak conflates “pro-life” with “anti-stem-cell research,” while nothing is more supportive of life than saving or improving the post-gestation ones. That’s likely to draw at least one letter. Will the quality of that letter be up to snuff? I don’t know. You do want to take pride in the quality of letters on your editorial page.
Pray for me in the secular paper. Pray for me in the secular paper. Would Christianists be horrified that I made up a mantra for them?
Genuflect or prostrate yourself. It could be both.
And all three syndicated columnists are conservative (guess which one I refuse to read). Hard to miss the symbolism of that. In other news, AP’s Espo sure is biased, more people can sing as well as Huston than can afford her charity merchandise, and the cops didn’t arrest the woman for breaking and entering but for swearing at them.
The following day, ash awoke to another revelation, based on the first: if the reverend could go over Mike’s head, so could she. So she wrote about Mike to his boss, via a comparison to his, um, personality disorder:
letter about the editor
AND SHARED WITH THE EDITOR’S EDITOR
So it comes to pass after 12 long years in the wasteland (I could use a parable here, but don’t think I’ll bother) that the Democrats, through diligence and the Republicans’ belief in their own invincibility, return to the majority. 12 years of being subjected to the twisted excesses of unbridled power, from unannounced closed door midnight sessions, to illegal time extensions in furtherance of extorting one crucial vote, to disgorging the arbiter of the semblance of ethics to clear the decks for the star of their unsavory show, to a lockstep brigade blocking minority bills, to general defiance and all-out mockery of the whiff of the common good.
In fact, in one instance of gotcha politics for its own sake, when the Republicans attached the “poison pill” of extended estate tax “relief” to Democrats’ simple effort to raise the minimum wage, a giddily triumphant about-to-be victor announced to the assembly and world at large: “Face it. We got you. You’re about to defeat your own legislation.”
“Got” them they had. The Republicans “got” the Democrats like Lucy “gets” Charlie every time. But the event precedes the control-switching election by merely a few short months. So it comes to pass that attaching themselves to the swearing-in ceremonies a group of bold, determined Republicans approach the Democrats (and world at large) with this modest proposal: bipartisan cooperation. Their minority bill, if you will. “Bipartisan cooperation!” hoots Nancy. “Oh, that’s ripe. Harry, quick, grab me, I’m laughing so hard I think I’m about to faint.” “Don’t know that I can,” gasps Harry. “To think that, under the circumstances, I’m being petitioned to consider the minority party’s welfare. I’m laughing so hard I’m dizzy and about to keel over myself.”
And so they are, for what other response to rank hypocrisy is more appropriate than hysteria? The hypocrisy of expecting – no, demanding – that the enemy (which is what they are) be magnanimous and gracious after 12 long years of defiance, contempt and ridicule is, when you think about it, so hilarious as to obscure the gall such hypocrisy requires.
7- or 800 miles away sits a man in his office enmeshed not in hypocrisy (and the denial of) but in its close associate: cognitive dissonance. It’s the mind’s cruel entanglement into schizophrenia when two concepts cannot coexist in harmony, and it works like this: you’re a good person and you do something bad. You try to be fair and virtuous until you run headlong into the contradicting demands and requirements of financial, professional survival. You try, for instance, to draw a line on your editorial page over which you will not accommodate inappropriate, offensive material, even going so far as to confront the author of such material after he inadvertently has been allowed to cross that line and saying “I mean it” with a letter neutralizing the original one from the person he insulted. Until he appeals to the authority above you, at which point it becomes apparent that he, in effect, is your authority as well. He is your boss and as your boss he issues an ultimatum: cancel the cancellation of my sentiments. Cancel it with another letter, not my own, expressing the same ideas then block the inevitable response. That’s his demand and the actual, official bosses go further: pry yourself loose from the author who made our boss look foolish. Furthermore, publish less of the kind of things she says and more of what the opposing side says.
What choice do you have but to obey? So you publish the second offensive letter, block the inevitable response to that letter, and feel pretty lousy. You’re a good person who did something not good. When the preempted writer protests – you have a funny way of showing you agreed with me, she observes – you cross the line from “nasty” to “despicable.” You deny the betrayal. You pretend that you never agreed with her opinion. You pretend that even if you did agree, it’s no big deal to offend her for a second time, and then you pretend you didn’t offend her. You lie to her not to preserve your employment, which you’ve managed to salvage and then some, but because being a good person who did something bad is too uncomfortable, too unpleasant, too dissonant, so one half of that equation must be eliminated. Which half? not the good person half. You are a good person, of that you are certain. It has to be the “who did the bad thing.” It doesn’t compute. In addition to knowing what you did wasn’t fine, you know that compounding the duplicity with deceit is a worse thing than the bad thing you did in the first place. But since you still can’t admit – to yourself - that you committed a bad deed you now get to feel even worse. It can’t be withstood so you rationalize. “I didn’t do anything wrong; therefore anything I did afterward is moot. Changed my position, perhaps, and went so far as to acknowledge that most newspapers don’t engage in the sort of dialogue I permitted,’ which might sustain you were the slighted party to leave you alone. She won’t. You reply at first, but soon she catches you in another, less material lie. She’s relentless and worst of all, she’s on to you. She’s pieced together what happened to cause your sharp turnaround, so the only thing to do is to shut her out. Stop reading the messages, stop receiving them.
Which is what you do. What else can you do? A good person can’t do a bad thing and reconcile them, can he? Therefore, she must be the bad person. The scapegoated person, the person sacrificed for the sake of your livelihood, but she deserved it, so what does it matter? Dilemma solved. Now, why won’t that nagging sense of uneasiness leave you alone?
978 words: then again, what does that matter?
note to Mr. [editor of entire paper]: background correspondence available upon request.
Hearing that she has been silenced, another friend of ash offers to speak on her behalf:
Wow! Hats off to [name withheld]. In his letter he deployed a nifty strategy for forestalling replies from those who sympathize with Rita Cormulley. Having characterized atheists as chronically angry, "That only proves how angry you are!" he'll say.
It's like ending an argument with your spouse by accusing them of always wanting the last word. What a neat rhetorical trap! But that doesn't make it true.
Atheists must be angry, [last name] claims, because otherwise why would anyone take offense at being prayed for? That may sound sensible, but it's misleading. Not all prayers are the same, nor are they all offered in the same manner.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot. [Last name] says Christians welcome all prayers, whether from Christians, Jews, or Muslims. But what about prayers from worshipers of gods that he doesn't believe in? What about publicly offered prayers, not just for his welfare, but supposedly for the salvation of the doomed soul that inhabits his wretched self?
Imagine a Brahmin proclaiming here, "Hindus must pray for [first name] daily, for with all his bad karma he will surely suffer rebirth as the maggot of a carrion fly on the stinking corpse of a vulture. But perhaps, if the love of Krishna reforms his wicked heart, he may achieve human reincarnation once more." (My apologies to the Hindu community, but I needed a vivid example.)
Mr. [name withheld] would surely take offense at this, and at the gall of those who offered to save him by praying to what he regards as fictional beings. An insult wrapped in ostentatious sanctimony is still an insult.
In short, if Mr. [name withheld] habitually addresses atheists in person the way he does in the paper, it's no wonder he thinks they're angry all the time! But, right now, I'll bet a lot of them are laughing.
Though it became an enjoyable project, ash never lost sight of the serious implications. At the whim of several people, she was effectively censored. She retaliated economically – that is, by declining to renew her subscription. Several days later, she decided to strike back in another way: by reminding Mike exactly why he published so many of her letters with more letters which, taken at face value, are identical in style and substance. But the critical difference (which renders them a form of satire) is that they are clearly marked:
LETTER TO THE EDITOR not for publication #1
The Associated Press’ Jennifer Loven impartially reported on Arizona Senator John McCain’s speech, (located on page 3 of January 6th’s edition). What she did not note is that his remarks were delivered before a gathering of neocons at the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute, and that he was accompanied by “Independent Democrat” Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. And while Loven did mention his new slogan “the surge must be substantial and it must be sustained” among other comments, she did not include the fact that McCain repeated the words “substantial and sustained” after having tripped over them the first time through.
This stumbling incident prompted conservative-turned-liberal pundit Arianna Huffington to speculate that somebody else wrote the easily digestible soundbite we surely will hear endlessly as McCain campaigns for the ’08 presidency and more evidence of his handlers’ input arises. We are also likely to hear that, opportunistically for McCain, since the military simply can’t produce the number of troops he has stipulated, the mission in Iraq would have succeeded if only the administration had followed his advice.
As for Lieberman, McCain asserted that his friend’s recent reelection proves that the “American people” (not merely Connecticut voters) do want the war to continue.
See what happens when a few extra sentences of context are added to the stenographical descriptions of this article and others? You get a whole “nother” layer of information.
“Not for publication.” Or, as it was eventually abbreviated: “NFP.” Thus began a series of “LTTENFP”: letters to the editor not for publication, to be continued in other entries, as this one is quite long enough. And when the paper stops being delivered, she can draw from other news sources as long as the practice amuses her.