Will they stay or will they go? Hey, Tommy boy: Your jockstrap's on too tight again, you're bruising your brain(s). I read your little sidebar, and I must admit I'm confused (Undercurrents, June 15). Now let's see if I got this straight. [John] Henry is unhappy with the current situation and will take his crybaby millionaire athletes and go plague our wonderful Washington politicians with their crotch-scratching, minority-insulting presence if:
• Every man, woman, and child in the tri-county area doesn't dig into their household budget and cough up some kind of a tax incentive for these poooor deserving individuals so they won't have to play ball in the rain.
• The Miami politicians don't cough up some of the most desirable real estate on the planet essentially gratis, plus offer decades of tax-free use of this land while Henry's tax accountants find more intriguing ways of rat-holing away millions.
• We don't find a way of coercing thousands more "fans" into attending an overpriced, underperforming excuse for a baseball team's games.
Is that pretty much it?
Sorry dude, time to loosen up and buy a new jock strap, 'cause in my book these boys are h-i-s-t-o-r-y. Don't let the coconuts hit you on the ass on the way north.
Glenn Wilson
via the Internet
Editor's note: Dear Confused: We're confused. We don't understand how you could read that column item and think the author was in favor of keeping the Marlins in Florida.
Idiocy + Lunacy + Paranoia = Saint Fidel
The media clowns are actually spies: My heartfelt compliments to New Times for the spoof of Rick Sanchez, local buffoon and journalist extraordinaire ("Rick Sanchez, Godless Communist!" Robert Andrew Powell, June 1). Sanchez's idiotic pandering and speculative rants indeed achieved new milestones during the Elián saga. Many "new generation" Cuban-Americans like myself already were sitting in awe and abhorrence witnessing this child's tragedy, manipulated and magnified by fascists here and communists there. But watching WSVN added an additional disgusting dimension, as we were treated to an unending volley of idiocy, lunacy, and paranoid speculation by the ratings-desperate Mr. Sanchez. The question on most of our lips: How can this television station survive with a clown like this as its anchor? Where's the FCC? Don't tell me this braying hound is acting in the public interest!
After reading Robert Andrew Powell's article, it's now obvious that there are thousands of double agents among us. This clearly explains everything that has transpired, from the indefensible and pagan efforts to separate a child from his father, to the threats of violence, to destruction of property, to betrayal of the laws of a nation to which most of us exiles swore allegiance upon becoming citizens.
Wowee! Mr. Sanchez and the rest of the "gang that couldn't shoot straight" exile command are in fact subconscious Castro agents. Yes, now we see it. Our own Herald (both versions) did better than Isvestia in fanning flames and inciting the lumpen with shameless headlines and obscene blowups. (By the way, did their new editor ever spend any time in Moscow or Havana?)
Before "Rick Sanchez, Godless Communist!" we were dumbfounded by such conduct. But now the dynamics are clear and make absolute sense:
• Attacking the universal rights of a good father: makes exiles look bad and Castro look good.
• Defying U.S. law, insulting the President, blocking traffic, and antagonizing the American public: makes exiles look bad and Castro look good.
• Stifling public expressions of differing opinions via threats of violence or, better yet, by calling others communists: makes exiles look very bad and Castro seem just shy of sainthood.
Obviously these folks, including our journalistic wonder boy, are subliminally programmed to project on cue what lies buried in their psyches. Half this herd's members are closet Batistianos, and the other half are former Castro groupies who fell out of favor and mostly hate the man but still cling fondly to his Stalinist tactics. Just wave a flag -- any flag -- and a bull emerges from within each camp, acting in Pavlovian concert to benefit El Jefe in Havana.
Ultimately this excellent article has made many of us stand back and take a second, hard look at those faces that continuously violate the phosphor on our TV screens. The mugs on those journalists, politicians, businessmen, and dubious unemployable types speak volumes. The round faces, the triple chins, the Chaplinesque mustaches, the overreaching lips, the jutting jaws, the flared nostrils, and the headshaking from Washington -- wow, all masks. Most, in fact, are clown masks festooned with flowers, pictures, and cellular phones grafted to their ears.
Castro's fifth column was among us all the time and called to action under cover of a media circus. No wonder Fidel took us by surprise.
Tony Perez
Pembroke Pines
