Sinners, Repent!

The New York Times doesn’t like to publish my querulous letters, so I’ve decided to publish them here. Since newspaper circulations keep shrinking while the audience for this web site has increased by over a billion percent since last year, when it didn’t exist, I may soon be able to cut them out of the loop entirely. Here’s the latest.

To the Editor

Re: “Reckoning with Gunter Grass’s Reckoning of Nazi Past”: Robert Galford’s letter on the subject prescribes, “Best practices would suggest that full disclosure, and the earlier the better, is most successful in mitigating these negative effects.”

Okay, I’m ready to admit my past mistakes. Where do I take them? Who will publish my youthful indiscretions?

Until you’re a big name, there’s no place to discuss your dirty secrets except employment applications, and they don’t ask – unless you have a criminal record, in which case it’s already public. For anything else, you would have to append an unwanted essay: “My Past Mistakes.”

Do that and you don’t get the job. If you’re Gunter Grass, you don’t get published. You avoid the problem of blighting your brilliant legacy by never having a brilliant legacy to begin with.

If, instead, you go ahead and make your mark, then it’s too late. You’ve missed your chance to miss your chance.

I have a better idea. Just keep hushing it up.

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