Dear Editor,
Thank you for a very informative, unbiased and unsensationalised view at the crisis facing our aged care facilities. I work for a therapeutics manufacturer in Australia whose products are used in this area, and having had both my grandparents pass away in the last few months, I have seen a fair bit of the nursing home industry.
I honestly think that the problems facing our industry are much worse and of larger scale than most think. The problem is something that can only be fixed by government intervention, which will only come about through sustained and constant political pressure.
Who knows, maybe the Minister for Caged Hair will do an about face and actually improve her portfolio's performance.
Thank you,
DG
5 April 2000
Dear WSWS,
Tony Blair fanatically promotes the use of the Internet on one hand, only to use it as a spy camera on the British people with other hand.
William Shakespeare said it best:
"Often Times to do us to our harm the instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, To betray us in deepest consequence"
A reader,
31 March 2000
To the editor,
Thank you for your article on Gore's support of the United States' kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez. I had planned to vote for Al Gore this coming November but have recently changed my mind. The way he bowed down to the anti-Castro demonstrators is sickening and I am very disappointed with him.
This November I will either vote for a third party candidate or not at all.
I am really heartbroken for Elian Gonzalez's father and I pray that some day soon he will be with his son.
Thank you,
KF
3 April 2000
Dear Editor:
I am so impressed with your news reporting that I recommend your site to all my friends. Yours is, in my opinion, the most unbiased, informative, articulate news available from any source.
I was inspired to write to you after many months of following your terrific news coverage, being especially impressed by the April 5 article “Republicans, Clinton White House back funding for US military intervention in Colombia,” by Patrick Martin.
Well done, Patrick. Keep up the excellent work.
Sincerely,
JG
6 April 2000
Dear WSWS,
I am a fellow wage-slave and have recently become a victim to another form of employer negligence. I need help. I need the following: a lawyer, dirt on McDonalds and other injury cases involving them. I need advice on how to go about: (a)suing McDonald's, (b) getting them to be more responsible regarding the health and safety of "their" employees, and (c)getting retribution for all minimum-wage workers!
My situation, very briefly, is this. For the past few months (4-6), I have been requesting that my employer (McDonald) purchase new fry-vat cleaning gloves (old gloves were being used by other employees to clean toilets, hence, I had no gloves to clean the vats with). I was burnt one week ago (I so very graciously received two second-degree burns on my left hand while cleaning the fry-vats). I had to work because I needed the money to pay rent that week, so I waited two and a half hours before I could go to the emergency room. (They would not allow me to be paid while in the emergency room). I will not be receiving any workers compensation for the two days that I had to miss work, on doctor's orders, because of my burns. This is because in the state of Florida employees are not allowed to sue their employers.
I went back to work and today I approached the two shift managers who were on duty and proceeded to question them as to why a co-worker of mine was cleaning the fry-vats WITHOUT THE CLEANING GLOVES. HE WAS BARE-HANDED! Obviously, McDonalds does not care about "its" employees' health and safety. Please help me. I am in dire need of advice on how to approach the situation. We need to stick together to end this type of thing.
HELP!
8 April 2000
Mr. David Walsh:
Hello, my name is C and I'm writing from Argentina. I just want to say that your film reviews are great. Your writing is very complete, deep, intelligent. You can't even imagine how much I've learned from you. Actually, you are my favorite critic in the US. It's always a pleasure to read your work, even if I don't agree with you sometimes.
Please, never stop writing these wonderful long reviews.
Is it possible to get reviews of older films? Can I find them somewhere in the net?
Thank you very much. Congratulations!
Thanks to everyone at the WSWS for making this great site.
C
Buenos Aires
3 April 2000
Dear WSWS,
I am an avid reader of everything you put out who thanks you very much for the work you are doing. Your frequent reviews of film and theater with interviews with directors are a special treat; I just read your review of the Sri Lankan production of Trojan Woman. By the way, I am a graduate student at Princeton University.
I'm writing to express the opinion that it is imperative that new generations of scholars carry on the work of men and women like GM St. Croix, who possessed a deep love for the ancient, coupled with a passionate engagement with a socialist perspective. The field of classical studies is ripe for such a "rereading." The discipline is as rich, diverse, and rewarding in its own right as any field in the humanities, and has a place of unique importance as the foundation of the Western tradition. Furthermore, classics is often appealed to and appropriated by the most right wing and reactionary forces, as if a healthy dose of Homer or Vergil were a bulwark for modern bourgeois capitalism! (See, most notoriously, Hanson and Heath's "Who Killed Homer?" for this kind of shallow, reactionary reading of the modern US's relation to classical studies.)
It is these kinds of ideas I feel I and other like-minded students in this or other disciplines must combat. In that regard, I thank you for recent reviews of matters relating to my own field. While I do not think you are always right in your reading of what's happening in my field, your voice is fresh, enthusiastic, and thoughtful, a welcome and pleasurable respite from the Bill Bennetts of the world with their silly "Books of Virtue." It is heartening to me to think that your reviews might encourage readers to dust off those old classics, for more serious reading or for pure enjoyment, and find throughout those texts issues of perennial relevance for the modern age.
Incidentally, if you or your readers are interested, the works of Peter Rose in Greek literature (professor at New York University and devoted Marxist activist) and Josiah Ober in Greek history are of great import and interest for classical studies. (Ober is chair of the dept. at my own PU; while not a Marxist, he has initiated a revolution in the studies of ancient Athenian democracy, ideology, and class struggle, studies which easily and naturally lend themselves to more leftist readings.)
Thanks again,
JB
Princeton University
2 April 2000