Bush Declares War
on Nature.

Written by David Manning to
The New York Times,
September 22, 2005.

To the Editor:

RE: “Bush Compares Responses to Hurricane, Terrorism” (September 22, 2005).

So President Bush is now comparing Katrina with 9/11. There are indeed similarities: a parasitic leader trying to suck personal power from national tragedies.

—David Manning
—New York

EDITOR’S NOTE:
In “Storm and Crisis: The President, Bush Compares Responses to Hurricane, Terrorism,” New York Times writer David E. Sanger wrote, “President Bush on Wednesday for the first time linked the American response to terrorism and its response to Hurricane Katrina, declaring that the United States is emerging a stronger nation from both challenges, and saying that terrorists look at the storm’s devastation ‘and wish they had caused it.’”

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Profiling Mourners at Virginia Tech.

Written by Andrew Bottomley to
The New York Times, April 18, 2997.

To the Editor:

Re: “Rampage Gunman Was Student; Warning Lag Tied to Bad Lead” (A1, April 18)

The front cover photo selection accompanying the announcement of the identity of Cho Seung-Hui as the Virginia Tech gunman is rather conspicuous. Though there is no indication that Mr. Cho’s killings were racially motivated, the portrayal of three young Asian women mourning amongst thousands of other students makes an unavoidable statement about race. I find it hard to believe that if a white (or African-American or Hispanic or Arab) man (or woman) were to have been identified as the shooter that this same photo would have appeared.

Even if the intent of this photograph is to make an editorial statement about Mr. Cho acting alone, portraying how other Asian-Americans in the community are not like him, and are as distraught over this tragedy as everyone else, it still inextricably links him and these women as members of a distinct racial group. It endorses a visual stereotype of racial differences, even as it presumably attempts to downplay anxieties about the role of race in the crime.

—Andrew Bottomley

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posted on a daily basis.