Yates’ Finger-Pointing, Ramirez Cartoon

Re “Yates Draws Life Sentence,” March 17: I am incensed at the cold, tearless, finger-pointing of the husband of convicted capital murderer, Andrea Yates. Russell Yates blamed the mental health system, judge, prosecutors, Texas law, the press and his wife for the drowning deaths of their children while conducting “an impromptu sidewalk news conference” after the sentencing last week.

Knowingly impregnating his wife for the fifth time against medical advice, housing his family at times in a converted bus and asserting his strong will on a passive, obedient wife, Rusty Yates has distanced himself from blame and now bemoans his lack of companionship and impudently states the two will not have more children together. At the very least, Rusty Yates should be indicted as a co-conspirator in the deaths of the five children.

Dan Anzel

Los Angeles

*

Russell Yates wants to have more children? He belongs in prison with Andrea. He blames the doctors for Andrea’s condition. However, Russell was the one who said that she wasn’t well, but did he do anything about it, did he try and help her? No, he went off on his merry way to work like everything was fine. Guilty.

Karen Husman

Pasadena

*

Recently I wrote political cartoonist Michael Ramirez to say that I greatly admired his visual artistry, despite his partisanship if not outright falsehoods. But his Andrea Yates cartoon of March 16 passes the limit of my tolerance. He shows a woman with a National Organization for Women T-shirt holding a “We support Yates” sign and saying, “Just think of it as late, late . . . late term abortions.”

It is pure stupidity, if not slander, to equate concerns about severe mental illness with the abortion issue in this sad murder case. Has he no shame?

Ovadya Yesodi

Fountain Valley

*

I see that Ramirez has graduated from the Rush Limbaugh School of Fearful Misogyny. I’m sure The Times is very proud of his degree in Misinterpretation, with a minor in Hysterical Misdirection. His thesis cartoon, which tars a pioneering organization like NOW and its just defense of a woman’s right to choose with the ink of a multiple murderer, must have made his professors on the radical right very proud indeed.

Elena Tropp

West Hollywood

*

I cannot believe the poor judgment exercised in allowing publication of such a hate-filled, outrageously offensive “cartoon.” The implication that any member of NOW would condone the acts of an obviously unstable person and connect it to abortion rights is so disgusting I felt that I had fallen into a cesspit when I read it.

My immediate reaction was to throw the paper on the floor. I then called The Times and canceled my subscription and took a shower in an effort to wash away the filth that I felt had been dumped on me and all supporters of women’s rights.

Please don’t quote me the 1st Amendment as an excuse. I can’t imagine your printing Hitler’s diatribes against the Jews, but Ramirez’s hatred for women is just as obvious a form of fascism.

Lesley Paul-Boggs

Torrance

*

In a 72-hour period, your editorial staff approved Ramirez cartoons depicting members of the Democratic Party as the Ku Klux Klan (March 14) and members of NOW as child murderers. By hiring Ramirez and giving his paranoid, right-wing vitriol free rein, The Times has allied itself not with free speech but with hate speech. What a shameful commentary on a formerly respectable newspaper.

Bonnie Sloane

Los Angeles

*

Ramirez’s cartoon was disgusting, malicious, mean-spirited, just plain wrong and certainly not helpful. To take advantage of one of the saddest news events within recent memory for his own political purposes was despicable.

Burton Lieb

Laguna Niguel

*

I am quite disappointed in The Times for allowing the ignorance of Ramirez to make light of such a horrible tragedy. In addition to his lack of understanding of the importance of a woman’s right to choose (which is a completely separate issue), he also fails to see the seriousness of mental illness.

Even the most loving of mothers can suffer postpartum depression and psychosis. Andrea Yates is no more responsible for the symptoms of her disease than a cancer sufferer is for his. The idea that mental illness is somehow within the control of its victims is a myth that continues to pervade our society.

Anne Hager

Northridge