LETTERS
TO THE EDITOR
Enjoying a little Village Fourth celebrating in Montecito this year were Maya and Rishi Goyal, grandchildren of Steve Bachman and his wife, Marilyn, a recently retired (and much-admired) longtime MUS sixthgrade teacher
If you have something you think Montecito should know about, or wish to respond to something you read in the Journal, we want to hear from you. Please send all such correspondence to: Montecito Journal, Letters to the Editor, 1206 Coast Village Circle, Suite D, Montecito, CA. 93108. You can also FAX such mail to: (805) 969-6654, or E-mail to jim@montecitojournal.net
Into the Unknown
I
have to take issue with your response to Dave Willett’s letter (“Etiquette, Shmetiquette” MJ #22/26). Mr. Willett wrote that a particular Michelle Obama speech cited by a Mr. [David] McCalmont did not, in fact, contain defamatory language. You, on the other hand, chose to believe that Ms Obama had to have said something disrespectful, despite what the evidence disproves. I think this is an instance, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, of you believing an unknown known. (Let me know if you need help translating.) There was once a time when publishers and editors held to a set of journalistic and ethical standards to corroborate evidence before going with a story. While you have the right to publish whatever you want, what do you call it when you publish your opinion contradictory to the available evidence? In the interest of civil discourse, I will allow you and your readers the opportunity to fill in the blank.
Bernard Roth Santa Barbara (Editor’s note: Jeesh. In my note to Mr. Willett, I was simply trying to explain that I understood where Mr. McCalmont was coming from, and admitted I had not heard or read Ms Obama’s remarks. As for a set of “ethical standards,” there was also a time when public officials at least genuflected before the altar of ethical standards. No longer the case, however; with a little research into the “career” of Hillary Rodham Clinton, you’ll find a litany of ethical pauses, from Whitewater to Rose Law Firm billing records to cattle futures trading bonanzas, to bogus anti-Muslim videos, unauthorized e-mail servers... ah well, to paraphrase the ethically challenged Mrs. Clinton: at this point, what difference would it make? – J.B.)
A Little Celebration
I thought this was a really colorful picture of the Montecito Village Fourth parade day on July 4. These are our grandchildren, Maya and Rishi
Goyal, on the fire truck. My daughter Karen and her husband, Dr. Vishal Goyal, moved back to Santa Barbara last summer. Marilyn Bachman Montecito
The Knucklehead Vote
In a recent letter to the Journal, “Drunk Is As Drunk Does,” after an inoffensive, though mighty rambling, paean to the elderly Brits who voted to Brexit, so ably led by feckless fabulists BoJo the Toff and the weasel Farage, Mr. David McCalmont veers off onto a despairing road that carries him from “the growing intensity, particularly
among left-wingers, to jump to the conclusion… that the left’s problems could be solved if only non-leftists weren’t permitted to vote” to the left’s supposed targeting enemies of “antileft resistance” to the left’s suggesting “the whole group should be deprived access to the ballot box” to “dehumanizing the enemies of left-wing global politics”, and to his thrilling climax: ”From there it’s only a hop, skip ’n’ jump to dictatorship and concentration camps.” (You see what I mean about his prose style, I trust.) Wow! Could he perhaps supply some evidence of that “growing inten-
LETTERS Page 224
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MONTECITO JOURNAL
• The Voice of the Village •
14 – 21 July 2016