Letters

(4 of 4)

IT IS FRIGHTENING TO THE CITIZENS OF A country when war and chaos are prevailing right outside its borders. Syria shares a long boundary with Iraq and is highly interested in having a stable Iraq. There is no basis for the charge some are making that Syrians back Iraqi terrorists and support them with weapons.
ABDUSSALAAM AL-HAFIQ
Damascus

I'm O.K.; You're an Idiot

JAMES PONIEWOZIK'S ESSAY "THE AGE OF iPod Politics," about Americans' ability to fashion their own insular world, was right on target [Sept. 27]. With the smorgasbord of available media coverage of presidential politics, we can see to it that even the news can be personalized to jibe with our own particular reality. America's endless supply of niche media outlets has given us the option of selecting a news source that suits our specific political ideology, leaving us with a narrower perspective and a brazen contempt for opposing viewpoints. Individualism and dissent are the lifeblood of our democracy. We have to remember, however, that we are all in this together, and the cacophony of so many angry voices vilifying one another is stifling informed debate rather than promoting it.
TYLER P. BURKE
New York City

ONE IRONY OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL AGE is how a plethora of choices has served to separate and isolate us. We have become electronic and ideological shut-ins. Nowhere is this willful know-nothingism more apparent than in the current political quagmire, in which candidates and their rabid supporters ferociously cleave to their ideological realities. It's not only on Election Day that most of us will decide we don't care what our neighbors think. As the U.S.'s pre-emptive war in Iraq has taught us to ask: What neighbors? The hell with them.
EDWARD C. PEASE
Petersboro, Utah