Bob bothers an Editorial Page Editor (the schmuckeusse has an Irish-American name)

VLEEPTRON CONFESSION: Okay okay I sent my Hard Sell Begging Non-Negotiable Demand to Connolly, Mary yesterday AND I GOT A [DELIVERY FAILURE]!!! After she wrote me to inform me about

Danbury CT News-Times Rule 2. We don't publish letters from people who live outside the area, unless
> they are involved in a local issue. We just have so many local residents
> who write letters that there isn't room for others.

... I guess she pulled the plug on her own e-mail account, or changed her addie, so asshat bothersome Foreigners wouldn't keep pestering her.

So I sent my e-mail again, to every other e-mail address listed on the News-Times' website: The Publisher, The Editor, The Reporter, The Managing Editor, The Managing Editor (Production) and maybe the Sports Editor, too.

I threw in the Reuters article about the White Supremacist anti-Somali immigrant Parade in Lewiston, Maine.

Maybe that's what everybody's talking about in the coffee room at the News-Times today. Watch This Space for further developments.

(And I'd LOVE to drive down to Danbury to hand out flyers! The Charles Ives Center -- named for my favorite American composer -- is there, and we didn't get a chance to see it when we were in Danbury for the family wedding!)

> [Original Message]
> From: Connolly, Mary
> To:
> Date: 6/20/2005 12:45:12 PM
> Subject: in response

> Mr. Merkin:

> We don't publish letters from people who live outside the area, unless
> they are involved in a local issue. We just have so many local residents
> who write letters that there isn't room for others.
>
> But thanks for sending this. I enjoyed reading it.

> Mary Connolly

=====================================

----- Original Message -----
From: Robert Merkin
To: Connolly, Mary
Sent: 6/20/2005 6:57:23 PM
Subject: Please reconsider, or let's dialogue about an issue that's important for your readers

Dear Mary Connolly,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I was just attending a wedding. I didn't want to get involved in Danbury's business. I didn't want to learn that Mayor Boughton had a scheme to spit on my ancestors, and your ancestors, and to harrass and deport today's desperate newcomers to America.

But I read The Times-News' front page story, above the fold, as it screamed out at me through the honor box. So I feel I'm involved.

Now I ask you respectfully to bend this new rule as well and still consider my letter for publication in The Times-News, because more than ever, I want to send the thoughts of a guy who was just passing through to the good, generous people of Danbury.

Danbury is only 2.5 hours from me. If I must, I will drive down there and hand my letter out to Danbury citizens in the mall and on the sidewalk as a flyer or a broadside -- the original way New Englanders shared their political and civic thoughts with each other.

What Mayor Boughton is doing in your community is as disgusting as what the Mayor of Lewiston, Maine did regarding his city's Somali immigrants. The citizens of Danbury should know what Mayor Boughton is bringing to them next: A parade of support for the Mayor by White Supremicists, right down Danbury's main street.

I'm sorry if this is, or seems "hard sell." I feel a deep shame, disgust and horror at the story I read in your newspaper -- great journalism, just a disgusting story -- and I want deeply to tell the good people of Danbury in your pages what a guy just passing through feels.

Please reconsider, or phone me for a bit of dialogue. Collect if you like.

Yours,

Bob Merkin
Northampton, Massachusetts