About this blog

Greetings! You have arrived at Blog for the new book, Letters to the Editor, that were never published--and some other stuff . It is a compilation of the many letters o the editor that I have written in the past several years. I am continuing to write letters to the editor to various publications, like The New York Times,The record (of Bergen County, NJ) Psychiatric News, Newsweek, etc. They will be posted on this blog for your perusal and, hopefully, comments.

As an introduction to my book," Letters to the Editor that were never published," here is my introduction , synopsis, and index of chapters into which I have organized my letters.



INTRODUCTION


The New York Times is a journal like no other. National and international potentates of all sorts eye its contents warily, ---and hopefully, for educated reports and opinions about their doings.

It is an on-going enclyclopedia encompassing local, national and international events, along with the business world, all the arts, visual and performance: music, theater, dance, and all the rest of interesting show-biz, movies, and TV. Then there’s sports, food, society, many varieties of science, religion, history, military activities, research in many areas, medicine. In other words, endless interesting items and subjects that are changing all the time, as it keeps up with contemporary knowledge and devlopments throughout the world. It is an incredible educational resource encompassing a wide scope of human achievement, knowledge and interest. It is a convenient resource for one to acquire for themselves an impressive post-graduate education.

Perhaps the most interesting is the editorial section, with its in-house editorials, usually about something special going on at the time. The whole Op-Ed page is dedicated to major articles by outstanding authorities, important contributors in their field. The “Letters to the Editor” section is set aside for interested readers to contribute expressions of opinion about some article in a recent issue. Unfortunatley the chances of beiing published is quite slim--like one in a thousand--because that’s the number of letters the letter editor receives each day!

I have been addicted to writing letters for possible appearance on that page, and fortunately, and happily, over the years I have seen a handful of my letters in print. But I have written well over a hundred in the last decade. I decided to get them into print one way or an other. Amazon.com has a new program in which they will publish an author gratis to appear in their e-book program--which is more than a golden opportunity --to which I expect to be admitted .

The prevalence of new and interesting publishers referred to as ”on-order publishers” makes it much easier to get a book published nowadays. I have fortunately selected Trafford Publishing to do mine.

So, along with “Letters to the Editor of The New York Times’, and other publications, like The Record ( BergenCounty, N.J.), Newsweek, Business Week, the New York Post and Psychiatric News, a scientific publication aimed at psychiatrists, I have included a bunch of essays on topics of interest to me--as well as dissertations on a number of topics of broad interest, which, hopefully, will be of interest to my readers

Inasmuch as many of these letters have reference to the same or similar subjects, there is some repetition from one article to another, which I have tried to minimize without losing the gist.


PREFACE

Organizing my collection of some 150 or so of such letters and brief essays, this book is a compilation of my offerings in the subjects of most interest to myself and of most general interest, representing major issues of the day that are controversial and looking for solutions.

The letters to the editor, letters to prominent influential people, my own essays on a variety of subjects, and some other odd notes here and there are organized in chapters for continuity.

Each chapter is opened with a general description of the subject, its history, a general description of its scope, developments, and characteristics. There follows individal letters expressing my own opinion about specific Times articles on various aspects of the subject involved.

The chapter of Essays includes more lengthy dissertations on subjects of interest in our culture about which I have especially strong feelings, either for or against.

Again, I want to mention that there is some repetition from one item to another, inasmch as they are on similar topics and to eliminate all repetitious sentences would interfere with the flow of the particular content of the letter.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Chapter 1 Psychiatry

Chapter 2 Psychoanalysis

Chapter 3 Depression

Chapter 4 Religion

Chapter 5 Bishops and Priests

Chapter 6 Homosexuality

Chapter 7 Violence

Chapter 8 Miscellaneous

Chapter 9 Essays

Saturday, August 15, 2009


Selective Morality

In the article " In Forum at Church, Rivals Meet Briefly, ...etc ( the Times, Sunday August 17, page 19) the two moral issues  most often  raised by the politically inclined  evangelists again appeared,---- namely, abortion and homosexuality (gay marriage) In the first place, there is nothing in the Bible about abortion,obviously.The main citation for homosexuality as immoral appears in the Old testament Book of Leviticus. In the sentence "mankind sleeping with mankind is an abomination'"---along with eating shrimp and seeing your father or uncle naked. ( pretty bad!) However,  I have yet to hear an evangelist crusade against adultery or fornication--both of which are clearly and definitely,prohibited in the New Testament--by Jesus , himself and St Paul. Jesus says in several passages that anyone who marries a divorced person is committing adultery. And of fornication, --i.e any sex outside of marriage, St Paul admonishes single women and widows to marry, for " it is better to marry than to burn". Certainly for any clergyman to crusade against these two "sins", would risk losing most of his or her congregation---to say the least--if not laughed out of the church. So they keep to moral subjects involving minorities  as safe areas to mobilize their congregations against  and hopefully, the rest of the society. But lets face it--- according to the Bible--this is a land of adulterers and fornicators-----isn't it? And the majority seems to like it that way!

Pat Robertson in Lipstick
We all heard the question recently from  Governor Sarah Kalin "" What's the difference between a hockey-mom and a pit-bull?" ---answer ---"lipstick". Well, my question is " What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Pat Robertson?"---answer---"lipstick."  Pat Robertson told us that God allowed  9/11 to happen, and Sarah Palin tells us that the Iraq war is God's plan. The  distinguished theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr once commented that  there is no more dangerous person than one who claims to know what God is thinking.

     Abortion By God.   
In the New York Times, Saturday, May 9th, on Page A17 there is an article entitled, "Roman Catholic War on Abortion".in which the subject of abortion is presented as the reason many Catholic clergy oppose the invitation to President Obama  to speak at Notre Dame University. According to Roman Catholic beliefs, the earliest fetus represents a human life, and is to be treated as such. Therefore to perform an abortion is equivalent to murder. It is estimated that between 15 and 20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, i.e spontaneous abortion.  The Bible says, " are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?-- yet not one of them shall  fall to the ground without your Father". We must therefore assume that God is aware of the phenomenon of miscarriage and,  by definition, a participant . In addition, if all such fetuses are human beings, should they not be baptized and have a Christian funeral and burial?  Can the Catholic clergy explain this discrepancy in the handling of fetuses if they are , in effect, full fledged human beings?

The Deadly Toll of Abortion By Amateurs
The article in the Times, "The Deadly Toll of Abortion By Amateurs" ( Tuesday, June 1, Page D1) reminds me of the similar  situation as it existed in this country before Roe vs Wade. Up to that time, it is estimated that  every year approximately 15,000 women died from botched illegal or self-induced "coat-hanger" abortions Therefore , one could estimate that over a half million women's lives  have been saved in the 35 years since that ruling. No one ever talks about this  striking statistic when the subject of pro-life vs pro-choice is debated.


The Crucial  Question re Same-sex Marriage

Another article about the on-going discussions and controversy about same sex marriage appeared in the Times,--- ",Civil Rights Leader Is Under Fire for Backing Same-sex Marriage" ( The Times, Saturday, July 11 page A11) The debate about the morality of gay relationships and legality of gay marriage will not come to any fair and rational decision until a very basic question is finally answered. That is, is homosexuality in-born, and therefore, for the religious right, God-given, or is it a matter of individual choice? Certainly the continuing remnants of social opprobrium of everything gay suggests that no one would voluntarily decide to be gay, even if that were possible--which it obviously isn't by any knowledgeable opinion. And with the American Psychiatric Association delisting  homosexuality as a pathological condition, along with the total lack of clinical evidence that it can be “cured,” the overwhelming scientific opinion is that homosexuality is either innate or is determined very early in human development and is therefore essentially “normal” for some individuals in our society. It's therefore incumbent upon our society that they be treated as such.  


   To Bill O'Reilly-- of Fox News
Dear Bill---
You're the doctor, Bill and a woman comes to you in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy and you diagnose eclampsia, which is often fatal. What do you do? or another woman  in the 3rd trimester has a fetus with defects incompatible with life, such as " absent brain", or Down's syndrome with many defects including a heart that would need immediate open heart surgery  with high risk, or other defect, such as stumps  above the elbows and knees  for extremities--there are many such major problems possible. What would you do in these circumstances? Save the woman or the fetus? These are difficult decisions that have to be made in order to offer good treatment  as an obstetrician. Many have declined to deal with these very difficult decisions because of all the bad publicity, threats, bombings, etc. Only a few doctors  have ben willing to deal with these very nasty problems. Would you? Bill--Before Roe vs Wade, each year 15,000 women died from botched illegal or self-induced " coat-hanger abortions". Do you want to see this statistic again?


BELIEFS vs  SCIENCE

In the article " A Call to Catholics to Trust What Cannot Be Seen, ( The Times, Monday, April 20, Page A22)   the newly installed Bishop Dolan "called on those in his flock to build their faith on ""trust in what cannot be seen"" and not ""on empirical, scientific evidence".  His comments recalls Martin Luther's comment centuries ago, " "reason is the enemy of religion'" How true!.  Bishop Dolan is saying,in effect, ---  eschew what is known to be true by the study of  concrete evidence, i.e reality,--- and put your faith in what we hope is true---but we'll never  know to be true until we die. In other words let  your beliefs be your reality, even though a belief is not a fact. .What century is the Bishop living in?
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