Who’s the bumbler?
The media and Bush administration jumped on a recent video that depicts al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as an idiot who doesn’t understand how to properly use his automatic rifle. I would much rather see a video that shows the criminal incompetence of the Bush administration that led to the unnecessary deaths of 3,000 saints on Sept. 11, WMD lies that got us into Iraq, more than 1,000 needlessly dead in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, etc. Please don’t tell the families of our 2,400 fallen warriors in Iraq that al-Zarqawi is a bumbler.
James J. Tenant, Centennial
Walking for health
Re: “Britons’ health rosier than American peers’,” May 3 news story.
Averaging the cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure stats given, Brits are only 62 percent as sick overall as Americans. According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Americans drove 9,941 miles per capita in 2003, while the British Department for Transport says Brits drove 6,833 miles. So Brits drive 68 percent as much as Americans do. To paraphrase the 1984 cult film “Repo Man,” the more you drive, the sicker you are. And the more you drive, the more fevered the climate will get.
One solution to both problems is to drive less, and bike, walk or skate more. I almost never drive and have the health of most folks half my age. I ask you to drive less so we can all just get along. A good part of the reason I have no health insurance is that I’d be paying mostly for others’ bad habits.
Evan Ravitz, Boulder
Health care dollars
Recently I received a well-timed (beginning of allergy season, aspen/cottonwood pollen in peak force in Colorado), nicely packaged box of Kleenex promoting Rhinocort, an allergy nasal spray. On leaving my medical office, I considered the energy, resources and dollars expended for highly paid, intelligent, creative people to meet repeatedly in expensive real estate, dining and drinking the best of food and drink, to design and implement this marketing program. I then considered how our sick, ailing health care system might improve if these marketing projects were scrapped and resources were focused on its problems. If AstraZeneca had diverted this project’s cost to the purchase of basic health care policies for the currently uninsured, how many policies could be purchased?
Earl J. Carstensen, M.D., Aurora
Furor over 6/6/06
Re: “‘666’ sense: Date marked with caution,” May 1 news story.
I really can’t believe that a story about silly superstition and the mystic powers of a date would rate front-page coverage in The Post.
While it is always interesting to find out what the nut cases of the world are getting worked up about, you can usually get that information from talk radio.
If any public official is actually getting serious about this date, then they should be fired on the spot. As for all the predictions of a holy war in Israel, this prediction has been made the last 30 years or so and it will probably be good for another 30 years.
I would like to think that The Denver Post can do better with what it chooses for the front page.
Doug Hubka, Lakewood
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