Reply #11: By popular demand... [View All]

[KamaAina]

no piles of fascist garbage, but...

Dear Mr. Memminger,

I’m so glad you stepped away from your accustomed role as a humor columnist to mark the passing of 27 Kane’ohe-based Marines and a sailor from Pearl Harbor. You see, the Bush Administration has had trouble making up its mind about who the enemy really is in Iraq. First it was Osama bin Laden, who may or may not have ever visited Iraq. Then it was Saddam Hussein, who may or may not have been running the whole show from a rathole buried beneath a remote shack in the Iraqi desert. Most recently it’s been Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who may or may not be connected to the aforementioned bin Laden but who certainly has built up a fearsome reputation in the corporate-owned U.S. media in a comparatively short time frame.

But now, thanks to your award-winning journalism, I am at last crystal-clear on where the real threat lies: Ted Kennedy. That’s right: all ominous present-day risks of terror aside, the real danger facing our great nation stems from an auto accident on a remote stretch of Massachusetts road in 1969. For that matter, I now know that Mary Jo Kopechne’s hair was blonde. Knowing this at long last, I may well sleep soundly tonight for the first time since I was five. By the way, what earthly difference could her hair color possibly make? And for that matter, since your intent was clearly to demonize one of America’s elder statesmen by invoking her tragic death, why did you not attempt to humanize her by using her name?

Really, Charlie, you should be wary of intruding on the journalistic (and I use the term loosely) turf of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and so on. How would you feel if Limbaugh or O’Reilly attempted to write a humor column? I can just see it now: “Next on the Factor: Mopeds (or ‘mo-peds’): Convenient transportation, or a Chinese Communist plot to destroy the American auto industry?”

What’s with the hyphenated ‘mo-peds’, anyway? One would hope your readership would be bright enough to distinguish between a moped, or motor bike, and ‘moped’, that is, sat around and acted sad and miserable. Then again, ninety percent of them appear content with a ‘humor’ column that thinly disguises a partisan political attack on a close colleague of our own Senator – and decorated war veteran – Daniel K. Inouye, so maybe I shouldn’t be too quick to jump to conclusions.

And another edifying tidbit I just picked up: Ninety Americans are killed annually by ‘lightening’? Isn’t it a bit tactless to reveal this just on the eve of the Michael Jackson trial? Seriously, doesn’t your award-winning, and often quite readable, column deserve stronger copy editing than that? Although, come to think, that was the only humorous bit in the last two columns…

(KamaAina)

Honolulu