Michael Ryan parrots America's Mentally Ill Attitude Toward Sex

Re: "Society in the Sewer," from the November 27th editorial page of the Augusta Chronicle.

The U.S. leads the industrial world in teenage and out of wedlock pregnancies. Yet, Mr. Ryan laments the inability of some prudes in Iowa to keep a sex education magazine for teenagers from being displayed prominently in the local library. The parents wanted the magazine hidden from sight. How absurd? The whole point of subscribing to a sex education magazine for teenagers is for teenagers to read it and learn, not for it to be hidden away, where it would serve no purpose.

Americans have always had a mentally ill attitude toward sex. Too many Americans think sex is something dirty that shouldn't be discussed in public. The reason we have high rates of teenage pregnancies is because of the conservative philosophy that opposes sex education.

Oh and btw, Mr. Ryan must be too lazy to get the remote and change the television channel. He described Adam Lambert's raunchy performance at the American Music Awards in more graphic detail than I wanted to read about. Hey, Mr. Ryan, there are 500 channels on tv now days. Nobody is forcing you to watch this stuff.

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On November 25th Mr. Ryan featured a disgusting bigoted letter written by Lawrence Smith who equated the Muslim religion with terrorism. No Mr. Smith, the U.S. is not at war with a religion. Mr. Ryan should be ashamed for printing this bigoted garbage, let alone featuring it.

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Re: "A disaster--of out own making," from the November 28th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Once again, Mr. Ryan writes of his concerns with the expanding federal deficit. He's running out of subject matter because this has been the topic of one of his editorials at least once a week since Obama's taken office. I don't remember him ever writing one about this topic when Bush was president.

His editorial is laughable and has no credibility because of a column he wrote the week before suggesting there should be a moratorium on income taxes which would lead to an even bigger deficit.

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Re; "Afghan push: Is it in time?" from the November 30th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Here's more unfounded criticism of the president. He writes, "it's hard to argue that the Afghan war effort and the goal of destroying the terrorist platform from which to launch attacks on America hasn't been dealt a severe blow by the indecision of the White House."

First of all, the U.S. has already destroyed the terrorist platform in Afghanistan. According to news reports, there are fewer than 100 Al Qaida left in that country. Second, it's no longer a war, it's an occupation--and an unnecessary one in my opinion. Third, Mr. Ryan provides no evidence for his belief that the delay in Obama's decision has hurt American efforts there.

Mr. Ryan writes that it's hard to argue the delay hasn't hurt, yet he provides not a single fact to support his argument. His criticism is just baseless political bashing completely without ties to reality.