Free Republic

In Central California, Mark Arax sees what fear--over terrorism, over our commitment in Iraq--can do to a community. Hatred between Right and Left. Hawk and Dove. Too bad they aren't listening to one grieving parent, who found some peace. Ever since the twin towers came crashing down and the cloud of jihad fogged the land, the crop dusters swooping low over the San Joaquin Valley had taken on a new menace. Even here, tucked away in the farm fields of middle California, fear had settled into the ground. Harvest to harvest, one year to the next, we watched tens of...

[Editor’s Note: In the Sunday February 5, 2006 edition of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Fresno-based Times reporter Mark Arax published an essay purportedly about how acrimony over 9/11 issues, Iraq, and the war on terror has divided his community "The Valley's Not So Civil War". In fact, the piece was slanted, replete with factual errors, and almost laughable in its caricatures, especially of Fresno-area "Jews." Here is our response to the essay by Victor Davis Hanson and Bruce Thornton, Private Papers contributors who were both mentioned in the article, and like Arax are both natives and life-long residents of...