Take more care before carving up Eric Bahrt

Considering all the letters Eric Bahrt has written to The Nation over the years, I find it unbelievable that John Arnone, who is obviously an ardent reader of this column, still can’t spell his name right. It’s Eric, John, not Erik. And, by the way, who or what are “co-inhibitors of Earth”? Let us strive for a modicum of literacy here. The editor of this column cannot be expected to function as each writer’s personal spell-checker.

There is a smidgen of hypocrisy in John’s latest. He complains that Eric and JC Wilcox take up too much space in this column on the single issue of eating meat. I recall that John himself commenced his letter-writing career many years ago (it may have been decades – I was just a boy then) with an interminable series defending his right to smoke and attacking the anti-smoking lobby. Eventually somebody got fed up and wrote in telling him to stuff a sock in it. (I bet he still smokes. There’s nothing else to do in Yasothon except write letters to The Nation.) 

In order to save this column from being monopolised by certain unnamed space hogs, may I suggest that The Nation impose a rationing system on letters. Limit each writer to one or two letters per month. This would force them to pop off only on issues that really matter to them and would leave more room for others. And for God’s sake, make the writers spell the names right.

Ye Olde Nitpicker