As discussed on my main letters
page, I have occasionally sent letters to the editor to my
local newspaper, and some of them have even been published.
Newspapers, however, have editors, and editors tend to make
changes to the text that you submit.
The letters collected on my main letters page are the published
versions, which I think are on the whole better than what I
submitted. But for those who are interested, here's a glimpse of
what they looked like before the editors had their way with them
(and perhaps a little bit more background as well).
Interestingly enough, the first I knew that the Chicago Tribune
had accepted any of these letters was when I happened upon the
second one ("Bad politics") while reading the opinion page a week
or so after I submitted it. I hadn't seen the first one, because
at the time I didn't subscribe to the Thursday paper. (I meant to
search online to find out if it had been published eventually, but
September 11 drove the thought entirely from my mind.) So after I
saw the second one show up, I went back and discovered the first.
Happily, it seems like the Tribune now notifies contributors if
their letters are accepted.
The article that I was responding to is described pretty well
in my letter, I think. It was in amazingly poor taste, and I
heard later that the Tribune was flooded with angry responses
(many from the local Jewish community). Perhaps my letter was
accepted because it didn't go over the top with fury. For the
record, when I wrote "in a satirical publication", it was hard not
to mention The Onion by
name; many parts of the article honestly wouldn't have seemed out
of place there.
The main change between this and the published version was a
substantial cut of superfluous detail in the second paragraph.
Also, they cut the ellipsis near the end of the first paragraph;
in retrospect, I should have replaced that ellipsis with the word
"only" (or something along those lines). And my final two
sentences were published as a separate paragraph, which I really
liked.
A year later, when I found out that they'd printed this, I felt
strangely proud that I'd gone on public record condemning
terrorism less than two weeks before September 11.
Failed terror — August 30, 2001 (sent
Aug. 25)
I was appalled by the tone of the recent front page article
regarding suicide bombings in the Middle East ("'No room for
mistakes,'" Aug. 24). In the article, the subject of failed
terrorist attacks was presented in a format usually reserved for
tragedies: it featured an interview with a grieving
parent—whose son was arrested before he could detonate
himself—and comments by a political leader distressed by the
situation... because failed attempts made it harder to recruit
new suicide bombers.
Throughout the article, dry facts are interspersed between
musings on why recent bombings have fallen short of their
potential for horror, almost as if future suffering could be
averted if those failures could be understood and prevented. The
subtitle of the article, "Radicals lament rash of thwarted suicide
bombings," is far too similar to headlines like "Parents lament
rash of schoolyard shootings" for comfort. And the nearest thing
to a condemnation of these terrorist acts is the final line, "I
wish he would have talked to us before he did it."
In a satirical publication, this article might have been
appropriate as dark humor ("Lots of things can go wrong when
someone is strapped with explosives," we are told). As serious
news in a serious newspaper, it shows an astonishing lack of
sensitivity. There is no place for terrorism in a civilized
world. The tragedy occurs when it happens, not when it fails.
The context here was two statewide races in particular: the
race for Governor (the Democratic candidate was the son-in-law of
a powerful member of the Chicago city council) and the race for
Attorney General (the Democratic candidate was the daughter of the
enormously influential state Speaker of the House, who organized
the full state party machinery to push her in the primary).
The Attorney General race in particular was frustrating to me:
the leading Democratic challenger in the primary had a fantastic
resume (he'd been an assistant US Attorney General for years) and
was almost overqualified for the job. He was beaten by a
candidate with only a few years experience practicing law (and a
few in the state legislature) and who seemed more interested in
advancing her political career than in the actual work of an
Attorney General. For the record, both of those candidates won
the general election, too.
The only editorial change here was the change from "the ballot
I voted today" to "the ballot on Tuesday", which made a lot of
sense once I saw it (although I felt that it also made the letter
less personal).
Bad politics —November 10, 2002 (sent
Nov. 5)
The best candidates were missing from the ballot I voted today,
pushed aside in the primaries by entrenched political dynasties.
Before I moved to Chicago, I hardly believed that politics this
bad still existed in our country. I hope the people of Illinois
realize that it doesn't have to be this way.
The letter was a response to the lead editorial in the Sunday
paper on "intelligent
design" creationism. The editorial wasn't bad, but I felt
that it came too close to "teach the
controversy" for comfort. (There is no serious
scientific controversy about the issues in question, that's the
point.) This has been a "pet issue" of mine for years, so I felt
I had to say something.
Another letter printed the same day gave the explicit reference
information for the editorial, so they rephrased that a bit. They
also cut the break between the second and third paragraphs and
removed the words "So by all means"; I guess I agree that it's
better in some ways, but I still prefer my original
construction.
Pursuing answers — August 22, 2005 (sent
Aug. 14)
As a scientist, I applaud the Tribune's call for teachers to
"inform students that today's science doesn't have every answer,"
("Schools and 'intelligent design'", Aug. 14). That is the very
essence of science.
But we must also teach that science can advance only when we
seek those answers. By contrast, intelligent design asserts that
many scientific questions are forever unanswerable. That claim is
based on faith, not reason, and an overwhelming majority of
scientists—religious or not—insist that such arguments
have no place in a science class.
So by all means, encourage students to ask deep questions and
to seek meaning in nature. But don't ask teachers to present
unscientific methods as a valid alternative within science
itself.