Baltimore has two daily newspapers. There’s the Baltimore Sun, the venerable institution, a pretty-much down-the-middle newspaper politically. And then there’s the free daily, the Baltimore Examiner, which is well to the right.
I bring this up, because I discovered, through an Internet search, that I’d written a letter to the Examiner, back in March.
And it wasn’t even on anything important:
The Examiner’s March 5 story, “Teachers like the classics,” brought back memories of my high school and college years, when “Beowulf,” “The Iliad,” and “The Odyssey” were read.
Her fun article was marred by the accompanying photo, a cover of “The Iliad” that displays the Trojan Horse in all its glory. In fact, Homer never writes of the Trojan Horse, which originates in Virgil’s “The Aeneid,” the Roman version of the story of the Trojan War and the founding of Rome by Trojan refugees.
Examiner writer Tina Zou shouldn’t be faulted for a book publisher’s mistake, but readers expecting to find the Trojan Horse in “The Iliad” will be sorely disappointed.
Now that I’ve read this letter, from the March 8th Examiner, I can almost remember writing it. And I can envision the article in my head.
Almost.
It’s not as profound as my letter on The Boondocks to the Raleigh News & Observer. Or my letter to the N&O on the need for impeaching President Bush that was published on Christmas Day 2005 and then, because it was so good, was run again a week later.
But, hey. You can’t always tilt at windmills. And, let’s be honest. Complaining about the accuracy of an article on the Trojan War? It does sound like me. 😉