Ramirez’s Message Gets All Tangled Up

Re “Kerry Sutra” (Commentary), Michael Ramirez’s March 30 editorial cartoon, with the caption, “The Many Positions of John Kerry”: Apparently The Times is incapable of distinguishing between a sacred symbol of a dynamic cosmos (the Nataraja, or Lord of the Cosmic Dance) and a secular treatise (the “Kama Sutra,” or the “Principles of Sex”). Conflating these images, as Ramirez did, is akin to using images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Mary Magdalene to illustrate the “Joy of Lesbian Sex,” obviously not something any editor with an intellect would allow.

This mix of willful ignorance, casual bigotry and intellectual vacuity that allows a cartoon such as Ramirez’s to pass muster would be embarrassing in a poorly educated teenager. When I reflect that roughly a seventh of all mankind would have known better than your editorial staff, I can only feel pity for your provincialism that seems to have endured into the 21st century.

K.V. Bapa Rao

Los Angeles

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Re Ramirez cartoon: Changing positions is a sign of control and maturity. It would be refreshing if our leaders could practice the art.

Martin Rand

Laguna Niguel