Wednesday, August 15, 2001

After reading Günther Rückl's logorrhea ["Lack of child health care is an American shame," The Citizen, July 25], I had to laugh. As the European proverb goes, "You can always tell a German, you just can't tell them much."

Might I suggest that Herr Rückl start by checking his facts. I went to the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy HQ itself, http://worldpolicy.org/americas/newindex.html. There, try as I might, I could not find a positive George Bush article (fancy that) and extracted the following data: Average life-span for U.S. citizen is 76.8 years. For a male, it is 73.5 years; for a female, it is 80.2 years based on 1998 paper updated for 2001 with foreword by that renowned arch-conservative Kofi Annan [U.N. secretary-general].

Whenever I see some half-wit with multiple initials after his name trot out the "cut the bloated Pentagon budget in half and eliminate corporate welfare" argument "for the children" as if America is some Dickensian orphanage ("Please, sir, may I have some health care?") with malnourished children running around in rags dying by the thousands from lack of medical care while their parents "greedily" exploit the "citizens of planet Earth," I am always astounded.

Astounded to see that yet another seemingly intelligent individual has managed to slog his way through a university system for years without actually learning a damn thing!

Max Hughey

Peachtree City

Maxhughey@mindspring.com

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