Rand Paul or Ayn Rand on the evil of vaccination?

I recall in the 1950s the John Birch Society was saying that putting minute quantities of fluorine in our drinking water-to prevent dental decay in children-was a communist plot. Now Republican leader Rand Paul  is saying that vaccinations are DANGEROUS. Did he consult the Complete Works of Ayn Rand ( his idol ) before speaking out on this BIG GOVERNMENT plot?

To: letters@providencejournal.com

Portion of a 1955 cartoon warning against the evils of three government health programs, including water fluoridation.  [Source: Spectator]

50th Anniversary of Malcolm X assassination (Feb. 21)

The Autobiography of Malcolm X,
original paperback cover

How can any radicalized in 60s baby boomer ever forget the greatest black leader of our time? With tens of thousands of black Americans in the streets again protesting police brutality (with chants of "Black Lives Matter!")

I vividly recall the still inflammatory images and speeches of Malcolm X. The 50th anniversary of his assassination is coming up on Feb.21. What radicalized  young whites observed was Malcolm's growth and evolution. In the last year of his life (read socialist writer George Breitman's book) he clearly began to connect the evil of racism with the evil of capitalism: "Show me a capitalist and I'll show you a bloodsucker", he declared.

In his famous biography Malcolm X described all the good the Nation of Islam was doing to rescue young black lives from the gutter, from alcoholism and drug addiction, to rescue black prisoners from self-hatred and self-destruction.

Yet in 1965 the Providence Journal was not impressed with Malcolm X : "Put down the assassination of Malcolm Little as a minor footnote in history." ( check your microfilms on this ).

These are the words of Malcolm X (1925-1963)
inscribed high on the front of the University of
Rhode Island Library. link

There is popular quotation of Malcolm expressing his love of books inscribed on the outside wall of the URI library. But his name was blotted out (last time I checked).
I glance at this internet headline: "Malcolm X was right about America". Yes, indeed!

Submitted to: letters@providencejournal.com

U.S. Foreign Policy Hypocrisy!

Link to Debs Canton Speech at the Zinn Education Project

As a citizen of the United States I can only wish that our own-literally bought and sold-news media were as honest as this commentary on the mind boggling hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy. Did the working class people here ever decide that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was a great friend of the United States, that socialist Cuba was a perennial enemy, that Israel-simply as another STATE-could do no wrong? After the collapse of the old Soviet Union we find fault with Czar Putin?

I just read Eugene V. Debs' famous, eloquent, and most instructive "Canton Speech". The American plutocracy has always operated under the banner of freedom and democracy. Will young working class Americans continue to die for the same Wilsonian blather that the old socialists ridiculed?

What cant over FREE SPEECH here! "Je Suis Charlie". Humbug, I tell you. Humbug!

EUGENE V. DEBS HOME
 –TERRE HAUTE,
VIGO COUNTY, INDIANA

( comment on article  published in Altavoz ( Peru ) on Jan. 28, 2015 by Editorial, "The Hypocrisy of the United States" , WATCHING AMERICA )

ProJo's Stanley M. Aronson's last column on NOTHINGNESS- weird and wonderful!

Link to Dr. Aronson's Obituary in The Providence Journal

When I read that your beloved columnist Stanley M. Aronson had died I immediately recalled he was my dead mother's favorite too. (and Ma was also born in 1922.)

It does indeed pay to be CURIOUS in this life. Einstein spoke of "holy curiosity." But it was just plain weird that Dr. Aronson's last column was a profound reflection on NOTHINGNESS. Unless we have an unshakeable belief in the afterlife we tend to associate death with nothingness. Aronson's last column is not dogmatic on the subject but creative and informative. I had an impulse to comment on it but it was really too deep for haste.

If you can think of God as No Thing, you can indeed believe in both the Big Bang and a metaphysical Creator. But Aronson's last sentence suggests that this very deep philosophical discussion be continued in the nearest tavern.

                                                                                                                                                               



Submitted to letters@projo.com