Pubdate: Sun, 02 Nov 2003 Source: Times Record News (Wichita Falls, TX) Copyright: 2003 The E.W. Scripps Co. Contact: http://www.trnonline.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/995 Author: Nell Sogard JUST LISTEN AND LEARN I take empathic exception to the article "Rush Limbaugh no different from any other drug addict." My answer to you is that you should listen to Rush Limbaugh then, you too, just may learn to listen to other news media and learn to think for yourself. I sincerely hope that you are never in such pain that you would take a narcotic, legal or illegal if you had the opportunity to. You see, I have been in such pain and I assure you I am not "extremely wealthy." (And I really don't understand how a person's ability to earn a small fortune through hard work has any bearing on this case.) I do consider myself very fortunate to endure such constant pain. In addition, my brother, a white, low-income - as you would call it, an addict - was seriously injured in a farming accident when he was quite young. The doctors kept him on narcotics for weeks just to get him through the first few weeks following the accident. When he was able to go home he was supplied with narcotics to enable him to endure the terrible pain one would experience when half of his calf and part of his foot had been torn away by an auger and a cotton puller. Yes, in your words, he was a junkie - a Christian, husband, father, and Democratic junkie. For weeks and then months we saw very little of him as he tried to get off of narcotics - some legal and some possibly illegal. The main thing is that he survived. When should we punish a person because they do not have to go to a state-funded SAFP or government supported MHMR run program, or that they have insurance (heaven forbid!) and do not have to rely on the government? Your hatred for Mr. Limbaugh and his more than 3 million supporters makes you a poor columnist for our newspaper. Your attempt to write and get published such an article "by creating animosity between the two sides of the political spectrum - driving an even bigger wedge between the right and the left" reflects poorly upon you and our paper. Nell Sogard Wichita Falls - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens