Posted on 05/07/2008 4:31:52 AM PDT by metesky
BANGOR, Maine — Stephen King has fired back at conservative critics who attacked him over a remark he made a month ago at a writers symposium for high school students.
A blogger jumped on King´s statement at the Library of Congress about the importance of reading in which he suggested poor readers have limited prospects, including service in the Army.
"I don´t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don´t, then you´ve got the Army, Iraq, I don´t know, something like that. It´s not as bright," King said at the April 4 event in which he was accompanied by his wife Tabitha and son Owen.
Blogger Noel Sheppard likened the comment to former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry´s remarks that if you don´t get a good education, "you get stuck in Iraq."
"Nice sentiment when the nation is at war, Stephen," Sheppard wrote.
King fired back Monday.
"That a right-wing-blog would impugn my patriotism because I said children should learn to read, and could get better jobs by doing so, is beneath contempt," he said in a statement posted on his Web site.
King said he supports the troops but believes the war in Iraq is a "waste of national resources ... and that includes the youth and blood of the 4,000 American troops who have lost their lives there and for the tens of thousands who have been wounded."
"I live in a National Guard town, and I support our troops, but I don´t support either the war or educational policies that limit the options of young men and women to any one career — military or otherwise," King said.
bookmark...good info.
He claims his webmaster was going on vacation. Yeah, and the dog ate my homework.
Apparently he was inciting his board readers/members to attack the Newsbusters blog for pointing out his stupidity, but his minions were vastly outnumbered by the folks who objected to his siccing the mindless on NB. So he cut and ran like the coward he is.
And a 4-F too, from high blood pressure, flat feet, and bad vision IIRC.
That would be beneath contempt, but that's not why King is being criticized. Maybe King has a problem reading... Let's ship him to Iraq!
Yeah, I don't know what that's all about, I just copied and pasted the source code.
All offciers in the Army must have a degree before being promoted to Captain; however, very few earn a commission w/o a bachelor’s. To be successful, an officer has to continue education, earning a masters at about the senior captian (8-10 years o service) or while a major (10-16 years). Many officers are sent to top-flite schools to earn these degrees and they incur a service obligation usually of 3 years for every year of school the Army pays for. They usually are assigned duties at laboratories or other research & development entities specific to thier specailties, both military and educational.
Hope this helps
God Bless
Thank you madam. I love it. he is just such a wonderful guy. LOL
I would think there must still be some OCS types who escaped unscathed by college . . . but I'm not really up to speed on what's going on now.
Being his neighbor, I can tell you that he is rumored to be even stranger than you thought.
Then you don't support the troops, ass.
He worked in a laundry when he first started writing, before he hit it big.
“King said he supports the troops but believes the war in Iraq is a “waste of national resources “
An analogy for Stephen would be: Some would say they support publishing books; but they are against trees being made into paper.
Post 25 has it dead on in regards to the current standards.
His novels suck.....
....the best of his movies was “The Shining” and he hated it because it did not follow his book......thank God.
Looks like he's using the Tom Daschle "that's outragous!" defense. How dare we question his patriotism when he makes unpatriotic comments!?
Stephen King "suggested" nothing, he didn't "imply". He was upfront and blunt about it.
Meanwhile illiterate dumb Americans who can't read a Stephen King novel can pick up copies of his books on tape. I'll wager that the number of NON-MILITARY persons listening to his books on tape are greater than the number who serve in the military and listen to his books on tape.
What a dumbass antimilitary thing to say.
Maybe he supports the mission and not the troops.
And he produced a made-for-TV remake of the movie with Stephen Webber (Wings) in the Jack Nicholson role. LOL! Yeah, that was much better than Kubrick's flick /s
I'm not sure about the other military branches, but the AF requires a Bachelor's degree before you can be commissioned as an officer. Graduate degrees are not mandatory, but they are considered during officer promotions. I've known several very good officers that were passed over for promotion to Colonel because they didn't have a graduate degree.
i will now shun mr. king’s books just as i shun jane fonda’s films.
This whole brouhaha came up a few days ago. I went to that website to leave my remarks. There was nowhere to do so other than leave remarks about the website itself to the webmaster.
Well, I chose that route. I gave my personal information (accurately) and typed my message (not a very nice one). On hitting submit, a message came up that my message was improper and could only be about website issues.
It was obvious someone was monitoring the page; had to be. I suspect I wasn’t the first to leave a message that way. Oh, there was a forum one could join, but I didn’t want to go that route. Why bother having a presence on a Stephen King forum? I’ve never read his books, never seen a movie of his.
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