In Defense Of A Letter

To The Editor,

This is an open rebuttal letter to Tom Belli – Re: angry letter in The Bee, May 3, 2000.

Sir, one of the problems with making public assertions about something or someone you know nothing about is the great danger of revealing yourself to be in a state of ignorance.

In your rather personal attack against my beliefs, you have (deliberately?) misconstrued my description of “a quaking Janet Reno” as an attack on that poor lady’s Parkinson’s disease.

The last time I looked, the verb “to quake” describes “state of fear” – not one’s medical condition… (as in the hymn “Silent Night” – “shepherds quake at the sight”).

If you knew me as the person who worked with the mentally challenged at DATAHR in Danbury where I visited businesses and corporate settings to arrange for employment of handicapped people and secured their place in the mainstream, you’d know how really foolish your assertions were when you said that my remark was a “low blow.”

Further, you have decided that I am influenced by Rush Limbaugh and that marks me as a supporter of “hate radio.” How odd! In fact, Don Imus is my main man. (I do love how expertly he slices and dices the Clintons.) Hillary should be well-filleted by the time New York’s senatorial race is in full swing!

As for Rush being a “hater”… horse feathers! He’s a pussycat with attitude, in my view.

I’m a proud feminist and when he plays his parody of us: “We’re feminists and we’re in your face,” it breaks me up. I’m an ardent environmentalist – a recipient of an Audubon scholarship in Greenwich, CT. So you see, you’re barking up the wrong tree-hugger! (That’s me.) But enough about me. How come when you beautifully describe “your flag” flying over the town, it’s loving, and when I cry out for freedom for Elian, I’m “wrapping myself in the flag?”

This child does indeed belong with his father – I agree that all children belong with their loving parents. But… in Cuba, his father has no say in his upbringing.

Elian’s supply of milk will be stopped by the state next year at the tender age of seven. There is not enough to go around in this totalitarian nightmare.

His father, who also “belongs” to Castro, will have no say when they put his son in the sugar cane fields or put a rifle in his young hands in order to “enlighten the African converts to Communism.”

And, oh – you said I was “vituperative” because I referred to the cabal in our White House as “The Clinton Gang.” How about TV’s Washington Gang? Or better still, “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight?” Uh oh, now we’re back to Waco and Ms Reno and the massacre ordered by Bill Clinton through the fearful (quaking) victim, Janet. “I was only following orders,” she was quoted as saying as children died horribly in the flames. It has a certain eerie, familiar ring to it… doesn’t it? And that bell you heard tolling, wasn’t for Miss Liberty!

Yes, I’ll accept your apology for your intemperate attack. But please, don’t cop an attitude with me by calling me “Paula.” It implies a familiarity to which you are not entitled. Bedsides, it’s bad manners and condescending and it could be considered as an attempt to intimidate me. And that would make you look foolish. Ask anybody in this town who really knows me.

Very Truly Yours,

Paula Hopper

131 Boggs Hill Road, Newtown                                   May 3, 2000