Tags: editorial | letters | Think-Magazine

Letters to the Editor, Issue #24

To the publisher-editor,

Hello. I am Minstrel, and I wear a cape. Tights are right out, but I do fly, and have secret powers. I am friends with the Prophet Merlin, have even smoked the peace pipe with him. Suffice it to say, I'm qualified.

Can we start with Aliens? They are not your friends. I like to read your exposes on the subject, and wonder whether you know this. Do you?

Are you interested in selling advertisements, or are you interested in doing something that could change the world? You guys seem to love conspiracies, so here's one for you: You're being used. And by the very powers you strive, at least apparently, against.

Don't you understand you can't be cool and truthful at the same time? Being cool, by definition, means covering up. You can't cover up while being truthful. I can hear a response already. "Well, I wasn't aware we were trying to be cool. Ed."

But you are. And succeeding, somewhat. But that's the problem, isn't it? Drugs, sex, aliens, throw in a rave party or two, then try, in the midst of this, to hear the small, still, voice of reason, logic and compassion? The voice of truth? It can't be done. Confusion is their tool.

I hope you realize I'm not as erratic as I may sound. I could be much clearer. But I can't see myself laying something really heavy on you. There are facts, you understand. There is logic, and deduction. Extrapolation. That's a good word.

If a=b, and b=c, then c=a, I don't give a f*ck what your basic university professor tells you. There is truth. And the truth is, you're being used. Drop us a line sometime, there are answers to your questions. -Sincerely, Minstrel

Subject: NATO ground war options???!!!

War game scenarios are nice, in an arm-chair general kind of way, but totally beside the point: those who truly oppose the police action in Kosovo don't need to indulge themselves in these kinds of exercises (another example of which is arguing whether the US is capable of conducting 2 or 2.5 wars simultaneously).

It is not our role to act as if we are advisors to the President or to the Joint Chiefs of Staff or to the Supreme Commander of NATO; our role is to oppose the bombing because it is unnecessary and unjust.

- Brian Weber

Dear Think,

In last issue I read many pieces about the situation in Yugoslavia. Obviously these pieces brought controversy. Those pieces are interesting because I think that the people and the countries who control the current political scene are ravaging Eastern Europe and would like you to think of their way. So that you go away from your savage political commentaries, after hearing news of the war, thinking western dogma.

You see, we know that they are wrong... that, in essence, they are betraying themselves. To speak and fight as Yugoslavia has is, in effect, anti-human. And are these not humans? Don't all humans at the core of their being want to love each other... all of us?

All humans?

I just came back from Montenegro. I have Albanian blood in my body and yet it did not occur to them that I might be one of the 'b*stards'. It was truly one of the most powerful experiences of my life. I have Czech sticker on my van, and as I prepared to leave the stupidity, several security forces gathered around my vehicle.

I must have stared at the van for an hour before I actually went down to see them. There were about six that I could see from my hotel room. They had been parked there for most of the afternoon - skinheads all of them - drinking beer and speaking in gruff voices. You could see the pain they were in.

Look what happens to you when you get so compromised... To feel one way and think another. To kill and ravage for an idea.

Could that be manipulated to serve a higher political goal? Who runs the arms companies that supply the arms? Ask yourself these other questions: Why did this ethnic war just begin again, after so many years of committed tension? Who is funding the militias? Who ultimately gains from it?

These are questions no broadcast news program will ever ask. Instead you are shown details of the military action in what is now the former Yugoslavia. Instead you hear constantly about the ethnic war, the ethnic cleansing... the brutality these people are continually unleashing upon each other.

I suggest to you that these newsbites are veils that keep the public from accepting the truth about the role of the West in instigating and profiting from this political atrocity. That the most honest people involved in the action are its participants and, despite their brutal anti-human views, honesty will heal the planet faster than lies.

- Channel Zero

From the "Well, at least he read it" file:

You and your magazine suck rotten blue fleshy moist dead nigg*r cock! f*ck you and this crappy ass magazine! Your lucky I mailed this and not a letter bomb you queers! Get a real life! This fagazine insults the paper it is printed on!

- Unsigned

Attention Keith Kirchner:

Whilst on a 17-day sabbatical in Praha, I cocktailed the amusement of THINK magazine with pints of pivo... the end result being a not-so-bad publication blended with a not-so-bad pint of beer... I loved my sojourn in Prague, damnit. And so, I am curious as to how often you release your mag to the masses? Do you toss copies overseas?... for those of us that plan to return to Prague one day soon... .

Are you in the least bit interested in considering freelance ramblings from recent visitors? Not necessarily for pay and satchels of gold... but for opinion (who cares?) and a brush of local colour from a foreign hand. THINK magazine alludes to having a bit too much time on its' hands... and I do not usually take my time to write for little or no remuneration... unless, of course, I think it's a good decision.

Back here in Canada... perhaps with too much time on my hands... I'd love to contribute to a (your) cause... please send details... I'm one of these Hotmail items... not very flattering, but for a traveller it works... Somewhere between the pivo and the absinthe, if you feel like responding and sending some writers' guidelines (not too taught I surmise) I will embrace the correspondence.

Keep up the wonderful work on the mag (a corny-as-hell, yet apropos line in this case) ... go down to the Chapeau Rouge and re-read this after an hour of indulging.

- Michael Carter

Dear Micheal,

We appreciate all contributions especially from alcoholics and milleniarians. Since our inception 3 years ago we have set out to represent where we are at, even if some of our content has been, how you say,... iffy. Any loser opinion has a chance, in other words. How did you know I did most of my reading at the Chap? If you ask around town for the latest on Think's payment policy, I'm sure you'll find we pay what the market can bear.

- kk

Attention Player's klub 2000 s.r.o:

We weren't kidding. You obviously don't fear us as much as you should. Just to teach you a lesson, we have bought the exclusive rights to your entire family. In addition to the "Russian Mafia", the terms "Mom", "Dad", "Cousin Phil", etc. are now exclusive property of Touchstone Films. To visit your folks, you'll have to pay 100Kc at the Multi-kino just like everyone else. We will not tolerate disobedience.

- Yours Truly, The Disney Corporation