IT’S TIME ONCE AGAIN FOR YOU TO hear from your fellow readers. Below, you’ll find some of the comments on my columns in the past few months. I hope you’ll feel free to send me your opinion of my opinions in the future.
Some of the responses to my column about the movie,“Borat”include: ED: We laughed hard at the movie — then felt like we should be apologizing to someone, but didn’t know who.”
HERMIT: “I’ve only seen that man on TV and he is the most repulsive creature I’ve ever seen on TV,and you know TV has a lot of competition for ‘repulsive.’”
GARY: “Enough Borat already!!... in reality, Mr. Cohen is not funny.Anyone who would do what he is doing for profit, needs some form of psychiatric intervention.”
And here are some responses to my column about the new citizenship test: CONSCIOUSNESS: “... if we as a common people, use our head and not be afraid of what we don’t know but embrace the unknown to learn... we could really show the rest of the world what America was founded on.”
TIGER: “The number of people in the U.S. House of Representatives, Ha! I don’t even know that one!!”
I received, among others, the following response to my column that was in praise of “wishy-washiness:”
RALPH: “Jimmy Buffett must be quoted in this regard: ‘Indecision may or may not be my problem.’”
My New Year’s column consisted of making resolutions for other people. Here’s what a couple of readers thought about it: MARIA: “It really hurts me to admit that I agree with your writing 100 percent. You are on target.”
PHIL: “All public figures should resolve that if they get into trouble to not enter rehab immediately and refuse to take responsibility for anything except alcoholism.”
I wrote about the probability of food from cloned animals being on our grocery shelves in the not-too-distant future. This is one reader’s response: CARMEN:“Everything will taste like chicken!!!” I talked about the recent practice of presidential hopefuls announcing their candidacy on television entertainment shows. One person took exception to my opinion, threw in a little insult, and demonstrated that he’s not the most careful reader in the world: HUAN: “Obviously,you’re really old and are stuck in another era...P.S.Jay Leno is not funny at all... you really are old.”
Well, Huan, I never mentioned Jay Leno in my column. I did talk about David Letterman.
Don’t feel bad,Huan.It’s probably easy for someone who’s getting old to confuse the two of them.
I wrote about the experiment in which my wife and I gave up credit cards for a few months, and one reader responded quite emotionally: R919…: “In 1987, I made the decision to live debt-free for the rest of my life...I refuse to sell myself into indentured servitude to the credit card industry ever again.It isn’t worth it. I am a free man.”
I wrote about all of the politicians who don’t seem to have a good memory when it comes to crimes they may or may not have committed. The responses included: DAVID: “Must be something in the water in Washington that is creating all these hazy memories. That would explain all those campaign promises that they just can’t seem to recall.”
CALL: “If only Clinton had said he could-n’t recall Monica.”
I talked about the new screening devices at airports that are capable of seeing what we look like under our clothes. One reader couldn’t resist taking what I chose to believe was a playful swipe at me: JIM: “Lloyd, unless you are some alien being, they already know what you look like naked, and they aren’t looking forward to seeing it in person.”
So, in the future, whether you agree or disagree with me, or even feel like insulting me, just send me an e-mail.
Lloyd Garver writes the “Modern Times” column for CBSnews.com’s Opinion page and
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 7, 2007. Read the original PDF.