I love the Daily News, for a number of reasons. One in particular is the letters to the editor page — which the Daily News calls, quite properly, the Voice of the People.
Because it isn’t a careful selection of more or less serious readers’ comments on the news. Indeed, the DN willingly publishes eye-opening comments from often enraged, low information people: racists, Trumpists, women-haters; fact-free opinions I’m fairly sure come verbatim from Fox News or Breitbart or Rush Limbaugh (although I don’t watch them, I read the same stuff over and over in the letters, so suspect Rush or whoever tells his fans to write to their local papers, i.e., the “fake news”, and tell ’em the Truth!)
And they do, they tell me The Truth. Among other things, the Trumpists have declared any editorial criticism of their idol to be treason. “Treason” is the new word.
Often I’ll read some of those letters, especially the ones slamming women or calling Obama “corrupt” (another big word), and say to myself, “Oh, you’re going to get a slap-down for this!” And indeed the slap-down comes, because the Daily News allows a running forum on its Voice of the People page. So someone who objects to a reader’s comment jumps in a few days later with his or her retort.
A lot of the People whose Voices I read are religious to a point of crazy. I read stuff about how we all have to come back to Jesus, our True God, before we can be cleansed of our sins — without any hint the writer grasps that a bunch of us don’t believe in their Jesus or their god. Or that we’ve sinned.
Which leads up to a letter a few days ago from someone who said it has been proven that Jesus was black. (Voicers tend to be absolutely certain that whatever they say is indisputable fact.) Hm. I figured someone would weigh in on that.
And today someone did, bless him. Here’s his response:
Miraculously enough
Yonkers: Voicer James Pettus claims Jesus is black. I disagree. Circumstances strongly support that he is an Irishman. First he worked in construction, he lived with his mother until he was 30, and she thought he was God. — Frank Brady