Freedom lives-- along with tasteless headlines

Your front-page headline "3,000 dead & freedom too" [September 8 cover story] is a tawdry offense to the memory of Americans who were slain ten years ago.

Tragically, the victims of 9/11 actually are irretrievably gone, while freedom in America is now "dead" only in a metaphorical sense, in the minds of a few. (For example, the First Amendment freedom of the press to disseminate tasteless headlines is self-evidently alive and well.)

Your attempt to equate others' real loss of life with your perceived political grievances is nothing less than repugnant. From this headline, what seems to be truly dead in America is the decency to realize that some occasions should transcend ideological opportunism.

Mike Powers
Charlottesville