Letters, calls, complaints and great thoughts from readers:
George G., Chicago: I’m sick and tired of people taking shots at President Clinton for being a “womanizer.”
Let’s face it, most men are either womanizers or wish they could be, but they don’t have a knack for it and women brush the poor saps off.
It is a man’s nature to be a womanizer. We can’t help it. Those are the kinds of instincts and glands Mother Nature gave us. So blame her. I’m glad.
In a lot of countries, especially France, prominent men are expected to play around.
And I really get mad when women use the term “womanizer.” What about all the modern women who are “manizers?” Nobody wags a finger at them.
If Clinton is a womanizer, it just proves he’s a normal guy with normal instincts.
Maybe if Nixon had been a womanizer, he wouldn’t have been such a weirdo.
Don’t use my name. I’m engaged to be married, and my fiance wouldn’t mind but her parents are kind of uptight.
Comment: You didn’t say what you did for a living. But you might consider a career as a political consultant.
Marge Kush, Chicago: I’m not a mean-spirited person, but I don’t understand all the emotionalism about the bomb explosion in Atlanta.
I agree that it is awful for someone to die or be injured that way. But when the Olympic park was reopened, it was treated as a triumph of the human spirit, an act of mass heroism and patriotism. All that singing and speech making.
Come on. The bomb was a crime. And worse crimes happen in this country every day. Just read your newspaper. Innocent people on the street are killed in drive-by shootings. Storekeepers are killed by trigger-happy thugs. Babies are murdered by brutal parents.
But every morning, people go back out into the dangerous streets, open their stores, go about their business and their lives.
So should we have a festival every morning, hailing the human spirit and patting ourselves on the back for going on?
It just shows the power of show business and TV, which is what the Olympics are all about. Even a senseless murder is somehow turned into a major entertainment event.
Comment: To some extent, I agree. I’d be more impressed if 50,000 people showed up in Humboldt Park and declared that they had reclaimed it and that the Insane Idiots and Deranged Demons and their semiautomatic weapons were no longer welcome. Then everybody duck.
Mildred Nielson, Chicago: Will someone please tell all the stupid TV weathermen that they don’t have to worry about everything?
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When it is going to be 90, they worry about people dying from the heat. But when the temperature is going to be in the 70s, they worry that we are getting fall instead of summer and tell us to wear sweaters.
If there are clouds, they tell us to take our umbrellas with us.
What nonsense. Just tell us what the forecast is, and we’ll decide if we want to wring our hands.
Comment: Some day it will occur to a news show that all they need for the weather segment is for somebody–maybe the janitor–to look out the window and say: “It’s nice out. Bye.”
J.C. Leon, Chicago: I grew up in New York City in the days of the great post-war New York Yankees teams. I always thought I was lucky.
But having lived in Chicago for many years, I realize that you Cubs fans are the lucky ones.
Whereas I expected nothing but ultimate excellence from the likes of DiMaggio, Mantle, Maris, Berra, Rizzuto, Martin, Ford, Howard and the many others who collected pennants like seashells, Cubs fans are so easily gratified.
This year caps it all. Here you have a team that can’t win as many games as it loses, but I work with Cubs fans who have pennant fever. And the sports scribes and broadcasters are talking about how they have a real shot at it.
I say this in all seriousness: I hope you Cubs fans never lose this touching childlike, naive simplicity. You are an inspiration to mediocrities everywhere.
Comment: Thank you. And may you New Yorkers never lose your potbellies, skinny arms, eyebags and gastrointestinal problems.
Adam Roth, Evanston: I think you would like the Libertarian candidate for president, Harry Browne.
I surely think you would find him refreshing compared with Dole and Bill. He talks like a man–straight!
Would you please write a column supporting his desire to be included in the presidential debates?
Comment: Sure, here goes: OK, guys, put Harry Browne in the presidential debates or we’ll all switch channels to a dirty movie.
Bob Charles, Chicago: I wonder if you’re ever going to grow and recognize that the world is not frozen in the past.
Even my 77-year-old mother has grown and matured as she changes with the new world developing around her.
Now it is finally being recognized that people of the same sex can and do fall in love. Their relationships should be recognized.
Other than being trapped in traditions of the past, your prejudices seem to have no basis other than hate.
Comment: That is not true. If your mother doesn’t care who you love, why should I, just so long as you don’t love me? I’m already taken. I love my dog.