Thank you for your moving story about the happy life and sad death of Kelly Wallace.
It is shameful that cycling in Boston is so dangerous. Biking is one of the best ways to feel at one with the city. And the more cyclists there are, the higher all of our standards of living will be. There are many things that could be done to improve the lot of those who enjoy riding their bicycles. We need better roads, safer routes, legislation to promote cycling and protect cyclists, and police officers who enforce existing laws. (How hard would it be for the Cambridge Police Department to punish some of those drivers who park in Central Square’s bike lane?) Most of all, we need drivers to respect cyclists. When will drivers realize that one less car means an easier drive for them?
Phil Simon
Somerville
Welcome, Big Brother
Your article on college-newspaper censorship does a good job dealing with a sad tale. But why didn’t you close with the true Orwellian message of the piece: that the students now love Big Brother? Neither Tufts nor Brandeis had to torture anyone; they only had to pander to the students’ self-image. Scary.
George Goverman
Cambridge
A convenient truth
I am so tired of Congress’s lame excuses. That includes you, Hillary Clinton. “Bush lied to us,” “If I knew then what I know now,” etc. Anyone with a sliver of intelligence should have known it was all bull from the start. Congress was so scared of being labeled “pro-terrorist” that it gave Bush a blank check. Now, it is too gutless to cancel that check and deprive Bush of the money to continue this war.
The truth is, chaos in Iraq would be good for the US. A civil war in Iraq that sucks in Syria, Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia would keep the Middle East too busy and weak to do anything else. Al Qaeda would be stuck in the crossfire. That scenario would succeed in killing more terrorists than we ever could.
Edward Cunha
Estero, Florida
Brave heart
Kudos to the Phoenix and to Mike Miliard for the article “Home of the Braves?” My young heart was ripped out on March 17, 1953, when the Braves left. I was not quite five years old when this larceny was committed. Yes, the wrong team left town.
How ironic is it that the very thing that Red Sox fans accuse the Yankees of being, the beloved Sox were in relation to the Braves? And in actuality, a lot of the blame for losing the Braves lies with the community at large. Boston’s racial relations and attitudes could never have allowed it to support an integrated team during the ’50s and ’60s. Bostonians preferred a collection of mediocre white players to what became a successful National League franchise that culminated in the defeat of the “hated” Yankees in 1957.
A Babe Ruth curse never existed; rather, it was a curse of Tom Yawkey — a man-made curse. There never should have been an impossible dream in 1967. If Yawkey had willed it, the Sox would have been every bit as competitive as the Yankees. The pennant in ’67 was attributable to the enlightened leadership of then-GM Dick O’Connell. Of course, the Red Sox still being the Red Sox, O’Connell was shown the door not long after that.
Yes, there are fewer of us who still hold a strange allegiance to a baseball club that doesn’t exist anymore. For me, it is not only about what once was, but what could have been.
David Ben-Eliezer
Belmont
Correction
In our most recent editorial, we stated that Massachusetts was the second of the original 13 colonies to abolish slavery, with Vermont taking the lead in 1777. In fact, Vermont was not one of the 13 colonies.
