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.

Michael Ryan has no sense of humor

Re: "What Now-Curb Your Outrage," from the October 29th Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

As I showed on a previous blog entry, Michael Ryan allows Rick Mckee's anti-semitic caricatures on his editorial page. Yet in this editorial, he whines about a recent episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which the lead character, Larry David, accidentally urinates on a painting of Jesus. Clearly, Mr. Ryan is a hypocrite.

Larry David was not inciting hatred of a religion or group of people, like Rick McKee's political cartoons do on a regular basis. Mr. David was taking a satirical look at those nutty people who sometimes see Jesus in such mundane items as a French fry. I find this kind of humor quite clever.

Leave it to Mr. Ryan, and a few Catholics to be offended. Mr. Ryan complains that to "cynically mock an entire religious faith's belief in miracles is an insult overlaying an insult."

Any people who believe in religious miracles or any other superstitious nonsense deserve all the mockery they get.

Mr. Ryan further complains that comedy writers would never think of mocking the Muslim faith. Evidentally, Mr. Ryan hasn't seen many episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Mr. David devoted one entire episode to making fun of a Muslim woman wearing a burkha, and he's made fun of his own religion (Judiasm) more often than any other.

Mr. Ryan's whine that Christianity is the only religion to be mocked by comics is just not true, and the occasional theme in his unsigned columns of the persecution of Christianity is based on his own imagination rather than facts.

Larry David is a genius; Michael Ryan is a mentally-retarded plagiarizer. The latter has no business criticizing the former.

BTW, the funniest part of this Curb Your Enthusiasm episode is the sight gag in the final scene.

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RE: "Obama Stews, We Lose" from the October 30th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Once more, Mr. Ryan claims he's not being personal when he attacks President Obama. Don't believe it. He's trying to stick our president with the labels of weak and indecisive, but he has no basis for this criticism. In this editorial Mr. Ryan thinks President Obama is taking too long to decide upon a strategy for Afghanistan.

To support his argument, he quotes ex-VP, Dick Cheney who recently said President Obama was dithering. Dick Cheney has no credibility at all with the American people. This is the man who lied to us about WMD's, torture, and Saddam's role in 9-11. The American people wished the administration he was in would have taken the time to make better decisions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that have cost billions in dollars, tens of thousands of innocent civilian lives, and thousands of U.S. soldiers lives.

Perhaps conservatives are hoping to rush President Obama into making a bad decision that they can later use against him.

There's no reason to rush. Actually, the best strategy would be to withdraw completely. The terrorists who attacked us are in Pakistan. There are very few left in Afghanistan. Our presence there, no matter how many troops we put in, is little better than a "whack the mole" strategy. The U.S. should withdraw, and if terrorists try to re-establish camps, destroy them with missiles and raids.

Mr. Ryan wrote, "Bloggers and internet posters across the nation are demanding a decision..."

So what? The U.S. government is not based on mob rule?

Whatever decision Obama makes will most likely be far superior to any made by the Bush administration because he will actually be using something unknown to conservatives--brain power.