HOWELINGS

How Dare You?

By Mark Howell

 

In the noble tradition of the caustic iconoclast who rails against the pretensions of the fifth estate is this powerful Letter to the Editor of Key West’s local daily paper that was mailed to Northside Drive on 19 April 2014 but has remained unpublished until now — when it was discovered among our collection of personal ephemera gifted to us by the late Sir Peter Anderson.

 

Dear Sir:

I read with growing disdain the hypocrisy demonstrated in your editorial of April 9, 2014 bemoaning the decline of the “One Human Family” aspirations of the city of Key West and also of the Conch Republic.

How dare you? Between the totally caustic “Citizen’s Voice” and your proven dedication to sensationalize stories that divide and depress, you work harder to undermine One Human Family than any one individual group or person on the island.

Your negativity, your persistent attacks on institutions and individuals working for the betterment of our community are divisive and corrosive to the fabric of society.

You are the problem and you should be ashamed. You quite obviously don’t like us very much.

You never met an issue you would not or could not exploit to sell papers. You seek to inflame, not inform.

And you have the nerve to editorialize your perception that One Human Family has lost its luster! This is over-the-top hypocrisy. If it has lost its luster, it is you who’ve done the tarnishing.

No, the daily paper has long ago lost touch with One Human Family. The rest of us will continue to promote what can only be called a dream while the likes of you distort the social and political landscape for a profit.

I mourn the days when you were a true community newspaper.

— Peter Anderson

613 Simonton Street

Key West

                    

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“Blume’s Sex Education” is the headline on an item on the “People” page in the July 18 edition of the magazine THE WEEK (all caps) featuring the Key West resident and writer Judy Blume.

“Judy Blume has a strange effect on women of a certain age, says the London Times. ‘I always put tissues on tissues on the table at book signings,’ says the author. ‘They cry, I cry, we touch hands and the floods start. You know what I represent for them? Childhood.’ More specifically, Blume, now 76, was the first children’s author to truthfully render female adolescence. During the 1970s and ’80s, novels such as ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ taught a generation of so-called ‘Baby Blumers’ about sex and puberty. She sold 82 million books, despite being forever and repeatedly banned from American libraries and schools. These days, many mothers are desperate for their children to read her books — perhaps too eager, says Blume. ‘If you want your kids to read them, don’t bring out your battered ones and say, “Here, I saved them for you.” Buy a new book, leave it around the house and say, “Oh, don’t read that — You’re not ready for that.””

 

*****

Quotes for the Week:

“The Secret to happiness, of course, is not getting what you want; it’s wanting what you get.”

—           Helen Keller     

 

“Happiness, of course, is having someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to.”

—           Alex Trebek      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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