Dear Editor: Linda Turley-Hansen obviously couldn't resist ruining a good article ("Bigotry toward senior women primeval," Jan. 4, AFN) with her opening salvo against Hillary's alleged Marxism. Here's my challenge: read my letter on Limbaugh's economic distortions (same page as your column) and focus on Clinton's stock-market record. How could the stock market thrive for eight years under Marxist socialism? (I assume that you agree: Hillary's economic policy would parallel Bill's, with competent treasury secretaries like Robert Rubin instead of hacks like Snow and Paulson). Linda, have you ever read anything about Marxism? If so, I can imagine your eyes wandering over the page. But I can't imagine your brain engaged with the text. Once in while, it's enjoyable to take off ideological blinders and actually think. C.W. Griffin

When did America start punishing financial success or inherited wealth? We don’t punish educational or sporting successes or achievements. We don’t punish people who are born good-looking or well-built do we? If a student studies hard and earns a good grade do we reduce that test grade to a lower grade and bring up a failing student?

In last week's Time magazine, Fareed Zakaria observes that conservatives once held the world view that their approach to problem solving was based upon an analysis of reality. "Unlike the abstract (woolly-headed) theories of Marxism and socialism, (conservatism) started not from an imagined society but from the world as it actually exists. From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, the greatest conservative thinkers have said that to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve." Zakaria continues, "Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America's present or past. This is a tragedy, because conservatism has an important role to play in modernizing the U.S."

Old age did what nearly half a century of U.S. policy toward Cuba could not - get Fidel Castro out of office.

By arranging long prison sentences for 75 dissidents — librarians, journalists, people just hoping for a taste of freedom someday — Fidel Castro has disproved some of the most cherished hopes and ideas about him and the island state he has now tyrannized for more than four decades.

“The Democrats don’t seem to understand that people aren’t successful because they’re wealthy. They’re wealthy because they are successful.”

A friend sent me a message over the weekend. They informed me of a link on Barack Obama's campaign Web site, "Public Allies" and informed me that once there if you read a bit you would find the statement, "Individual salvation depends on collective salvation."

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's president-elect belonged to the group that seized the U.S. Embassy in 1979, but he played no role in either capturing or holding Americans hostage, according to friends, associates and a former hostage-taker interviewed Thursday.

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April 19, 2005