I snapped this picture (click to enlarge) during today's 34.2-mile ride. It shows a bridge over Village Creek in the Village Creek Historical Area in Arlington, Texas. The weather was gorgeous both yesterday and today. I've pedaled 273.6 miles in the past 13 days. I'm far ahead of my 2015 mileage pace.
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To the editor:
When Muslim attackers in Boston, Paris, San Bernardino and Brussels shot or blew people up, there were immediate calls for, among other things, stopping all Muslim immigration to the U.S., surveilling mosques and patrolling Muslim neighborhoods. But when a white man in Norway killed 77 people (most of them teenagers), there was talk of only a deranged person. When a blond-haired, blue-eyed former soldier named Timothy McVeigh blew up an entire federal building, killing 168 people, nobody called for extra patrols of Christian neighborhoods and churches. ("Ignore Cruz and Trump—scapegoating Muslims is an un-American response to the Brussels attacks," editorial, March 22)
When white Christian Americans shoot innocent people in movie theaters, shopping malls, schools, churches or healthcare clinics, nobody calls for special scrutiny of their churches or neighborhoods. Have we noticed how the National Rifle Assn. promptly calls for protecting gun rights after mass killings perpetrated by white people but remains quiet after killings by Muslims, evidently because doing so would imply Muslims deserve unfettered access to firearms too?
Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and all the other Republican also-rans: What's your answer to this?
Bruce Barnbaum, Granite Falls, Wash.
Note from KBJ: The letter writer fails to notice a relevant difference, namely, that the Muslims in question acted out of religious conviction, while the others, though possibly religious, did not. Did Timothy McVeigh or the Norwegian mass murderer or Adam Lanza or any of the other "white Christian Americans" yell "Glory to God" prior to killing?
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Conrad Black is an interesting writer. Here is his latest column. Key paragraphs:
The last refuge of the Trumpophobes is the argument that Hillary will hammer Donald. I don’t think so. She has never faced a serious opponent and has advanced to her preeminence by shadowing her husband, yet being distinguished from him by her victimhood. It has been a skillfully calculated advance from Birnam Wood to Dunsinane, interrupted by President Obama’s hijacking of the Clintons’ party for the overdue shattering of the color-bar.
But now, all her falsehoods, her absence of a real public record, her working both sides of the street as a feminist and a wronged woman, the profligacies of the Clintons, and the American public’s boredom with the Bush-Clinton era, will come home to roost. Donald’s limitations are obvious and have been more than adequately decried, but no one should doubt that he will throw everything that isn’t nailed down at Hillary Clinton and carpet-bomb the country with well-placed negative advertising through October.
This isn’t Don Tyson’s free pass to a jackpot or a $150K speech; Hillary is tough and smart, and, as Obama famously said, “likeable enough.” But I doubt she will prevail against Donald, with all the baggage of the snipers in Bosnia (“jetlag” caused this apparition, she said), Benghazi, the apology to the world’s Muslims, the improprieties of the Clinton Foundation, e-mailgate (assuming she isn’t indicted), and the voluminous catalogue of her other jejuneries. Trump’s vulnerabilities have been labored by overreaction for six months and there is unlikely to be too much left in them. Senator Clinton’s apparent defeat of the almost admirably unfeasible Bernie Sanders is little better than a Pyrrhic victory.
See what I mean?
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Shorter Goldberg: "It's stupid to compare Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan, so let me compare Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan and find the former wanting." Prediction: By mid-October, Goldberg will be claiming that Trump is the second coming of Reagan. Write it down.
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Here.
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Here.
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With the Beatles (1963).
To the Editor:
A wide range of March 24 news articles reveal the indelible imprint on our daily realities of racism, as exemplified by the Flint, Mich., water crisis; President Obama’s remarks in Cuba; young people’s views of the political candidates; and even our global wars.
For a white person to say he or she “doesn’t think about race” (which many whites view as reflecting an enlightened, “post-racial” attitude) is simply evidence of the privilege whites enjoy.
Minorities have to think about race every day. To the extent that white people (including me) fail to recognize, acknowledge, talk about and work to eliminate the manner in which our systems and society grant unearned advantage to whites, in every sphere, we will never be able to eradicate racism or its insidious effects.
MARY T. YELENICK
New York
Note from KBJ: Think about race and you're a racist. Don't think about race and you're a racist. Heads I win; tails you lose. As long as there are race hustlers like Mary T. Yelenick, this society will never be colorblind.
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I can't believe I used to like Ted Cruz. He has revealed himself to be a sleazy, slimy, dishonest politician, and his wife is no better. Donald Trump has him nailed when he calls Cruz "Lyin' Ted." There is only one person I'll vote for this November, and it's Donald Trump. By the way, Rush Limbaugh showed his true colors today, making fun of a caller who defended Trump. I turned Limbaugh off and will never listen to him again. He's been playing coy all these months, pretending to be above the fray, when in fact (it now appears) he has been supporting Cruz. Limbaugh has every right to support Cruz, and I have every right not to listen to Limbaugh. Isn't America great?
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