Sunday, April 20, 2008
Quick
Letters to the Editor
Your responses to recent articles
Lilli Grace was killed in an accident in December 2007
CREDIT: Courtesy of the Register family.
I just read Kirsten Ott’s article about toddler Lilli Grace Register (“Amazing Grace,” Life, April 13) and am moved to drop a quick note of thanks. I have a 16-month-old, and it takes my breath away to even try to imagine what the Register family has been through. The strength they have shown in making her legacy a positive one is indeed inspiring. The article reminded me not only of safety measures to take in this crazy time of toddlerhood but also that life can change in an instant. It’s nice to see a story like this in The Sunday Paper. I look forward to sharing it with my husband tonight.
—Stacie Hanna, Atlanta
Regarding “Amazing Grace,” Life, April 12: I was very happy to see [a message of] education and understanding that this is and continues to be a devastating accident that happens to a lot of parents. Many families’ angels have been, and continue to be, called back to our heavenly father way too soon. But the trial and the many lives that are touched and changed forever is nothing short of the miracle they were and will always be. After sending the link to www.lilligrace.com to over 50 friends and family, the response was wonderful. If we all could just do something as simple as that, Lilli Grace will be smiling that sweet little smile down on us! I did not have the pleasure of meeting Lilli Grace, but I have known her grandfather, Alan, for over 30 years, and he is such a kind and loving man. I just want to ask God to bless this family and any and all that try to help her family reach these wonderful goals. Thank you so much for sharing her video and allowing me to participate in helping others to never, ever go through this pain.
Posted by Katie Alexander on SundayPaper.com
Slick thinking
In Stephanie Ramage’s column on oil (“All About Oil,” News & Views, April 12), there is a portion of the formula that has been left out. The OPEC nations has always held the line on the price of oil because the U.S. has bargaining power that it used effectively. In fact the U.S. has usually kept oil at about $10 a barrel.
What is that bargaining power? You may have noticed that many of the countries that have lots of oil are poor, at least the general populations are poor. Yet, the richest people in the world live there, too. Ever wonder how it stayed that way? The rank and file people in Saudi Arabia, for example, are aware that they have all this wealth, so why don’t they rise up and demand a bigger share of their country’s riches? Well, they are suppressed by the ruling class.
The the ruling class (made up of people like sheiks and Shahs) is protected by…(here comes the punchline)—the U.S. military. After all, the Saudi military ranks 23rd in the world in terms of number of active troops—less than 200,000 according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. How can they get away with that? (See above.)
In fact, a Sept. 17, 2001 CNN.com report, in which Bin Laden denied responsibility for the 9-11 attacks, saying that he was living in Afghanistan where the presiding government did not allow him to pursue such operations, notes that Bin Laden's terrorist “campaign stems from the 1990 decision by Saudi Arabia to allow U.S. troops into the kingdom after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait—a military presence that has become permanent.”
He knows that to make any changes in the condition of his people, he needs to remove the U.S. military. Remember how fast we got Saddam out of Kuwait? That’s the deal. We protect those people from internal and external threats, and we get cheaper oil. Then, immediately after 9-11, oil prices began to climb upward and have never looked back.
Did the US lose its bargaining power? No, actually, I believe it just gave it away. The oil people in the White House have no incentive to use it. American Big Oil and the Middle East’s ruling class are richer than ever. Everyone wins!
Except us. Oil is now over $100 a barrel.
—Dr. Robert Soloway, Decatur
Bigotry and witchcraft
Today our religious Christians may have attained a level of enlightenment away from fanaticism and violence (“The Evolution of Religious Bigotry,” by Jonah Goldberg, News & Views, April 6). However, that is a recent (and maybe temporary) achievement. It wasn’t so long ago that our good Christians were hanging women as witches. Even more recently, we convicted day care centers for witchcraft and allegations of human sacrifice on the manipulated testimony of imaginative children.
So, tell us again… who is calling whom “smug”?
—L.W. Calhoun, Atlanta
Send your letters to sundaymail@sundaypaper.com. Include a phone number where we can reach you to verify that you did, in fact, write to us. Letters are edited for spelling, grammar and space considerations.
Posted by
Anonymous User on
Sunday, May 11, 2008 at 3:55 PM:
If the facts don't work, just make them up.
Dr. Soloway is very fond of throwing out fiction disguised as fact to back up his arguments.
The Saudi military and police have proven time after time that they are very capable of keeping the peace within Saudi Arabia. Therefore his erroneous contention that the Saudl "ruling class" needs the US military to protect them from Saudi citizens is complete fantasy. This fantasy is further exposed by the FACT that all operational US troops left the country in 2003.
Then he goes on to write that we "gave away" our bargaining power with the Saudi'a and OPEC after 9/11. What bargaining power? Bin Laden is from a wealthy Saudi family. Bin Laden was covertly receiving funding from the same wealthy Sheiks that Dr. Soloway claims Bin Laden was trying to free the Saudi people from.
Bin Laden has stated very clearly on a number of occassions why he was enraged about US Troops being on Saudi soil. And it had nothing to do with his ficticious desire to make "changes in the condition of his people". And everything to do with his extreme fundamentalist views of Islam. That any non-Muslim troops allowed on Saudi soil were "infidels" and therefore an affront to Islam and the teachings of The Prophet in the Quran. Never once has Bin Laden been quoted as saying that he wanted foreign troops out of Saudi Arabia in order to facilitate changes for his fellow Saudis.
The reasons why oil prices have increased so much over the past 7 years are multiple. Oil is a worldwide commodity that is subject to the same supply and demand dynamics as any other commodity item. And thanks to China's huge economic growth boom over the past 10 years the Chinese thirst for oil has become massive and continues to grow in epic proportions. Because the Chinese know that if they want to continue to grow their manufacturing based economy at the same rate it's been growing then it must have all the oil it needs to sustain that growth.
At the same time Russia has been hoarding it's very large oil reserves for it's own internal needs, both now and in the future. This further exacerbates the supply versus demand problem. As Russia has significantly reduced the amount of oil it exports. As we have ever growing world demand facing an ever dwindling world oil supply.
Which brings us back to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi oil reserves are not infinite. They are actually finite. Many of the leading experts on oil believe that the Saudi's are running out of oil. And at the very least the oil the Saudis do have left has become ever more expensive to remove from the ground. They make the comparison to a tube of toothpaste. As the amount of toothpaste left in a tube decreases, it becomes much harder to extract what's left inside.
So from a pure economic viewpoint why would the Saudi's want to apply pressure to the other OPEC members to increase their output and reduce the price of oil? They know their supply is finite and will eventually run out. So the all time high they're currently getting for their limited product is just what they need at this point in time.
But like anything to do with the free market there is a silver lining in this current scenario. It forces all of the largest world economies to seriously start progressing towards other forms of energy. And the higher oil prices are already slowing down China's overheated economic growth. From a world economic viewpoint that's a good and necessary development. Because as China's economic expansion slows down, so will it's demand for oil.
I don't know what kind of PHD you have Dr. Soloway, but your propensity to throw out fictional claims as if they're fact reminds me of a third grader trying to fudge a book report because he didn't actually read the book.