THE uniformity and stupidity of the coverage of the death of Senator John McCain omits the dark side of his character (We must hope McCain was man of America’s past and not its future, August 27).
John McCain never met a war he didn’t like. He bellowed for “lights out in Belgrade” and for Nato to “cream” the Serbs. He even began declaiming in the US senate for the Nato forces to use “any means necessary” to destroy Serbia.
He advocated arming Jihadist nutjobs in Libya and Syria. An unindicted war criminal whose only other “achievement” was nominating Sarah Palin as his running mate.
As a pilot in Vietnam, McCain cravenly bombed a mostly undefended country of civilians. When he was shot down, his life was saved by the very people he was trying to kill.
At a fundraising dinner in Arizona in 1999 McCain made a “joke”. “Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly?” he told a handful of big Republican funders. “Because Janet Reno is her father.”
The remark packed into its 15 words several layers of misogyny. It disparaged the looks of Chelsea, then 18 and barely out of high school; it portrayed Reno as a man at a time when she was serving as the first female US attorney general; and it implied that Hillary Clinton was engaged in a lesbian affair while the Monica Lewinsky scandal was blazing.
In his later years in the Senate he sold off Native American lands and water to multinational corporations. McCain is being lauded simply for not being Donald Trump. His death should not be used as an opportunity to rewrite history.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
READ MORE: We must hope John McCain was America’s past, not its future
WITH the passing of Senator John McCain the world is today a poorer place than it was yesterday.
Whether one agreed with his politics or not on certain subjects, one could always rely on his honesty and integrity at all times. While his choice of a running mate for his presidential campaign was surely not his finest hour, you could always be certain that dirty dealing behind the scenes was not on his agenda.
America needs now to dig deep to find a replacement for him who can carry on his ideals on the world stage and rise above the general tide of dodgy and disreputable behaviour which presently pervades their political scene.
George M Mitchell
Dunblane
EVERY time I hear Bank of Scotland’s radio advert about avoiding all the security questions in phone banking I find myself thinking: “I have no difficulty in remembering the sixth letter of my mother’s maiden name, and I believe the actor in their TV ads is James Cosmo. What I have the greatest difficulty in remembering is when I last got a decent return on my money in Bank of Scotland.”
I wonder if that would have been a Fringe topper.
Robert Johnston
Airdrie
THE Scottish Socialist Party highlighted the poverty pay and precarious employment practices that plague the Edinburgh Festival – and many areas of the wider economy – with an action in the spirit of the Fringe. A dozen young SSP activists invited members of the public to spin a Wheel of Misfortune at the Scottish Parliament to hear the testimony of workers this August in our city.
From workers being paid close to 30p an hour, being “astro”-turfed out of accommodation or having tips stolen to cover minimum wage rises, there were plenty of spoof-prizes to be won. This is part of our long-running £10-an-hour campaign and joint action with the Fair Fringe Campaign to highlight the profiteering that goes on. Check out the full video on SSP social media.
Hugh Cullen
SSP Edinburgh Branch Secretary
ONCE again, Vonny Leclerc touches upon a captivating topic which fills me with admiration (Boredom is good for children – and for adults too, August 27).
Since most of modern surroundings are artificial, the difficulties of coping with boredom are prone to levels of risk unimagined in previous generations.
In those days, access to the natural environment was commonplace and therefore a connection with nature was guaranteed. Nowadays, the grip of a tree has been replaced by gadgets that threaten far greater risks of harm to a child than any amount of climbing outdoors.
There is an urgent need to recognise that our animal origins dictate that our surroundings are there to be explored.
The world’s greatest exponent of combatting nature deficit-disorder is Richard Louv of Children & Nature Network. His website is a valuable resource of solutions and, in the Year of Young People, he will be coming from California to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh on Friday, September 21.
Now there’s a not-to-be-missed opportunity to learn how to tackle boredom with adventure!
David Ashford
Isleornsay, Isle of Skye
READ MORE: Boredom can be good for children – and for adults too
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