Mailbag

Death of a mill town

Although I was not particularly interested in the topic, I found myself reading Caleb Bailey’s entire article because it was so beautifully written.
     Anne Phillips / Wildwood, Fla.

When in Rome

Thank you for perfectly ­displaying the beauty of life even as Italian culture is blind to it. The excellent writing and pictures of the precious Vitale family surely make the Lord smile. I wish I could hug them, but I will certainly pray the Lord’s richest blessings upon them.
     Shelley Merritt / Wichita, Kan.

Nothing new under the sun

Thank you for calling attention to the failure of the U.S. patent system to protect the rights of individual inventors. I am an engineer and independent inventor who has experienced the dysfunction of the modern ­patent system firsthand. I applaud Josh Malone for his perseverance in adversity and for advocating for inventors’ rights. Praise God for vindicating him.
     Douglas Zietlow / Silver Lake, Minn.

The U.S. patent system delivered $11 million in profit to Josh Malone for designing a better way to inflate water balloons. Have you ever heard of a story like this from any other country? God bless the founders of the United States.
     Tom Willis / Vancouver, Wash.

Profits and losses

Todd Vician’s thought-­provoking article brought back memories of when I worked in retail management in the late 1980s and is a reminder that nothing is really free. It is interesting to see the ways retailers are working to combat the “inventory shrinkage” that is now a given.
     Darla Dykstra / Kansas City, Mo.

The leftward slide

Joel Belz’s classic column from 2003 failed to attribute “the leftward slide” to the law first coined by John O’Sullivan in 1989: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.”
     Bruce Spidell / Boca Raton, Fla.

Eternity in our hearts

Janie B. Cheaney hit the mark in every paragraph, including “… even while the years stacked up behind me are pushing me forward faster and faster.” Finally, the perfect way of putting it. And, of course, there’s never a time not to remind oneself of Ecclesiastes 3:11.
     David Sparks / Lewisville, Texas

Leaders who don’t lead

Andrée Seu Peterson wrote, “I say we find that wise man and elect him!” Alas, the majority of voters do not want a “wise man,” for they are not wise themselves.
     Stephen Leonard / Vidalia, Ga.

A seer and a survivor

I was sufficiently intrigued by David Kern’s review of Crook Manifesto to read a couple of chapters on Amazon but quickly ran into a great deal of off-­putting foul language. It would be nice if WORLD’s book reviews would warn those of us who strictly adhere to Ephesians 4:29 about objectionable ­material like your movie reviews do.
    Tim Royappa / Pensacola, Fla.

Early retirement

I was surprised and a bit ­disappointed to see the 1980s’ “600-ship Navy” omitted from John Dawson’s statistics. WORLD readers would benefit from the insight that the U.S. Navy is now half the size it was then.
     Bryant Ling / Half Moon Bay, Calif.

Correction

Bill Roggio is an analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal (“Playing to win,” Oct. 7, p. 55).