L. Neil Smith’s THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 920, April 30, 2017
Previous
Contents
Next
Send Letters to editor@ncc-1776.org
Note: All letters to this address will be considered for
publication unless they say explicitly Not For Publication
[Letters to the editor are welcome on any and all subjects. Sign your
letter in the text body with your name and e-mail address as you wish
them to appear, otherwise we will use the information in the "From:"
header!]
Sean Gabb’s Democratic Art
Re: “Democratic Art: The Non-Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy” by Sean Gabb
Much as it pains me to do so, I have to take issue with Mr. Gabb’s contention that Housman was the last person to write real poetry in English. The “Three Musketeers of Weird Tales”—Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and H.P. Lovecraft—were all writing very good traditional verse after Housman. It just so happened that the academic establishment had fallen madly in love with ”free verse“ after World War One.
I would recommend to Mr. Gabb’s attention the poetry of Clark Ashton Smith in particular. A great deal of Lovecraft’s poetry is, I must admit, dreary eighteenth-century-style couplets, although he did do the excellent Fungi from Yuggoth sonnet cycle, as well as some very nice light verse. Howard’s poetry can be hard to find, but in my opinion, repays the effort.
Eric Oppen
[email protected]
Was that worth reading?
Then why not:
Just click the red box (it's a button!) to pay the author
Re: “Yes, Bill Maher, There Is A Planet B” by J. Neil Schulman
Great article!
I noticed the Planet B remark when I was gathering info for my Errf Day piece but somehow I forgot to include it when writing it yesterday afternoon. Good thing you did it. The Planet B Fallacy is just the latest rehash of the Only One Earth Fallacy which I recall Ben Bova referring to in his book The High Road as the Flat Earth Fallacy and your detailed treatment of the issue is much needed and will be far more effective than a brief mention in a laundry list of other things being pushed by the enemies of Liberty.
I started out back in the early 80s reading stuff by Issac Asimov and Mr Bova as well as subscribing to the Planetary Society newsletter: The Planetary Report. And mid decade the beginning of my transition away from leftish thinking began with Jerry Pournelle’s A Step Farther Out and the editorials in the Far Frontiers paperback anthologies. My eyes were opened to the realization that progressives were stuck in the early 20th Century and were not going to give us the future of Star Trek or Buck Rogers. Furthermore President Reagan knocked my socks off when he gave his infamous speeches on SDI and the commitment that gave us the International Space Station. Mainly because a sitting president was giving lip service to ideas I had read all about in editorials in a SF magazine and never imagined they'd ever be seriously considered and debated as matters of public policy!
Well it didn't go quite like hoped for—but the future is still ahead of us and inroads are being made in the way of private commerce in space that will lead to all of the things we've dreamed read and written about. I also credit the Far Frontiers pulps for introducing me to the likes of Timothy Zahn, Vernor Vinge & S.M. Stirling. And they talked so much about a Heinlein that I ended up reading his novels too.
This is my copy of A Step Farther Out. It is the older 1979 mass market edition.
Jeff Fullerton
[email protected]
Was that worth reading?
Then why not:
Just click the red box (it's a button!) to pay the author
Responding to the letter in TLE 919 from Media Research Center.
Male genital mutilation happens wholesale, every day, in hospitals around the world, yet nobody is ever arrested for it. “But circumcision is necessary!” No. It isn’t.
Bill St. Clair
[email protected]
Was that worth reading?
Then why not:
Just click the red box (it's a button!) to pay the author
Another Update
Texas HB 375 removing the requirement that law abiding Texas residents must have a license to carry a handgun in public has been left pending in committee since 28 March. Essentially It is dead this year. HB 1911 permitting people who qualify for a license co carry without a license was forwarded to Calendars Committee and will soon be voted on by the Texas House of Representatives and forwarded to the Senate. Hopefully it will be passed by the Senate with a minimum of fuss and thus on time to go into effect this 1 September.
Sadly, the greatest danger to permitless carry (as opposed to true constitutional carry) is that supporters of Constitutional Carry will drag out the amount of time to pass the law to where it does not get passed by Monday 29 May when everyone goes home. This can happen by trying to push amendments that would make the bill closer to the ideal of true constitutional carry than the establishment are currently willing to accept.
So do we go with the good enough and win or fight for the better and probably lose? If you are a Texas resident decide and write your state legislators. I consider HB1911 a big enough improvement over license required to carry that I'm willing to keep in mind “Better is the enemy of the good”, or good enough. That said, I expect to see people fighting for corrections that bring Texas weapon laws closer in line to the true meaning of the Second Amendment.
One positive change contained in HB1911 as it came out of Committee is the change that pistols carried openly must be in a holster instead of the earlier requirement that they be carried in a belt or shoulder holster. Massad Ayoub’s quip about ankle holsters in Texas nudist colonies has been overtaken by events. More practically, people in jogging shorts can now carry in ankle holsters if they choose to do so. Given Texas’ spring through autumn temperatures, this matters.
A.X. Perez
[email protected]
Was that worth reading?
Then why not:
Just click the red box (it's a button!) to pay the author
This site may receive compensation if a product is purchased
through one of our partner or affiliate referral links. You
already know that, of course, but this is part of the FTC Disclosure
Policy found here. (Warning: this is a 2,359,896-byte 53-page PDF file!)
TLE AFFILIATE
