Nothing Shocking

I was shocked to read such a hard-hitting, pull-no-punches, accurate piece as Brendan Bernhard’s [“The Butterfly Effect,” Feb. 17-23]. What a wonderful, albeit frightening, wake-up call to your overwhelmingly left-wing readers. While I’m not a regular reader of your publication, I’ve found it to be generally replete with “blame America first,” radical left-wing rubbish, so I was wondering if the editors were asleep at the wheel to allow such a terrific piece to be published this week.

I suspect that most Angelenos are largely unaware of how radical Islam intends to destroy their way of life, and how the West — wittingly or not — seems to allow, if not welcome, those radical Islamists to operate within its national borders.

While I don’t defend the poor judgment of those newspapers that have insulted the Muslim faith (Christians, especially Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, as well as observant Jews, commonly experience such degradations to their faith by the secular Western press), the response by radical Islam to the publication of these cartoons should be a wake-up call to every American.

Michael Burny

Los Angeles

Power Plan

After reading Harold Meyerson’s article [“The Shape of ’06,” Feb. 17-23], I consulted various Web sites I subscribe to, starting with Harry Reid’s Give ’em Hell Harry and moving on to the DNC. I planned to give both Reid and [Governor] Dean a piece of my mind for Reid’s tepid performance at the recent press breakfast Meyerson attended. Strangely enough, on Harry Reid’s site, I found the Democrats’ Energy Independence Plan. On the DNC site, I found a series of very laudable beliefs and principles.

Do Democratic leaders fail to state the principles and beliefs on their own Web sites? Or do the media, L.A. Weekly included, simply ignore what Democrats do say, going for a sort of knee-jerk, brainwashed cliché — namely that the Democrats don’t have any ideas? Perhaps the Democrats have too many — and frequently conflicting — ideas. But then is this a sign of party weakness? Perhaps a party with many ideas might be able to synthesize those ideas and come up with stronger policies.

William Miller

Los Angeles

The Race Is On

Nikki Finke may or may not have some valid points [“How Gay Will Oscar Go?” Feb. 3-9].

However, to use the SAG Award for Crash as a barometer of a possible defection to Crash from Brokeback Mountain for best picture — well, I wouldn’t gamble on it. SAG’s track record in that category has only been four out of 11 times.

And I am hoping it’ll be four out of 12 on March 5.

Lyle Palaski

West Hollywood

How Could We?

Calendar items [“Readings,” Feb. 10-16] mentioned Carl Reiner signing his latest novel, NNNN. The novel’s actual title, pronounced almost the same way, is NNNNN.

Ryan Stevens

Los Angeles

Correction

In our article on same-sex commitment ceremonies [“We Do, Too!” Feb. 10-16], one of the subjects was misquoted. The writer had quoted Elissa Barrett as saying, “There were lots of lookie-loos hoping for a freak show. But people came up to us after, saying, ‘Wow that was just like a regular wedding!’ I think some of them were expecting us to wear flannel shirts and drive off in a truck or something.”

The quote should have read: “Frankly, we knew that some people were coming for the food and the freak show. But after the ceremony, people came up to us and said, ‘That was just a Jewish wedding!’ Some were expecting a spectacle, Trixie the Lavender Elephant hanging from the ­chandelier. What we gave them was two people in love.”

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