Dear Editor,
When one clicks on “Read Previous weeks>>” on the Reader’s website homepage you are taken to a page showing the covers of previous issues. Click on any of these cover photos and the complete text of the issue pops up… except for one. The May 26, 2016, issue text is still missing from the Reader’s website. Why?
The May 26 issue is where Ben Olson went on his hate filled rant against me following one of my letters to the editor. It appears the Reader and Keokee Press want this issue swept under the rug.
Let’s revisit Olson’s hateful rant:
“I’m so bored with this back and forth. Unlike you, I have a job that demands my attention. Get a hobby, man. Maybe find one of those “Little Brother” programs where people take old, confused people out for walks and listen to them gripe about nonsense for hours.
Seriously though, you are a cancer to intelligent thought. You find the negative in everything and smear it in everyone’s faces.
Your logic is fascinating; you dare me to publish your work and when I tell you that your writing sucks (which it absolutely does, Lee) you say that we are censoring you or being politically correct. I suspect if I did publish your dreck, you’d find something wrong with that too. Let me tell you this: the articles you barrage me with under your pen name are rubbish. One of them enters the world of holocaust denial, which I consider cowardly and stupid. I refuse to publish such crap. GET A CLUE…, we don’t want you here!
Lee Santa. Such a jolly name for such a mean, pedantic twerp of a man. And by the way, the dog writes circles around you. -Ben Olson, Publisher.”
Olson’s Barb of a couple weeks ago said: “Do I think it’s right to kneel during the Star-Spangled Banner. No, I’ll stand with my hand on my heart…”
Lyrics within the “Star-Spangled Banner” celebrate the deaths of slaves who sided with the British: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.”
So Mr. Olson, do you continue to stand and hold your hand over your heart when the above lyrics are sung? That enters the world of racism.
Lee Santa
Sandpoint
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