Letters to the Editor
William Timberman
Published Letters: 3298 Editor's Choice: 7
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Just to clarify
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I realize that one aspect of my previous comment may not have been clear. I did indeed mean proscriptions rather than prescriptions, m.b.f. We've already talked about what you think we should do that I think we shouldn't; here I was making the case that viewing our political adversaries as a complex of pathologies, even metaphorically, rather than taking them at their word, is to limit our interactions with them, and thus forego beforehand any possibility of genuine dialogue. Even if, in fact, many of them are pathological in their personal and political behavior, I believe that limiting contact with them in this way is unwise.
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My sympathies
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Che, I know, I know...still, everybody gets to hoe in his own part of the vineyard, yes, even though the time's fast approaching when we may well have to drop the hoe and answer the call. I'm helping to organize a peace rally on April Fool's Day in my town -- the first time I've done anything like that in almost 40 years. It feels weird, but good. A bunch of ladies as old as me, and me with my old N/D nuclear disarmament button...Gawd.... Not a scruffy, bearded kid in sight, either, more's the pity.
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The kids are alright
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Che, our cut of the Howard Dean fifty-state strategy rented us an office during the last election, and sent us a 23 year-old from Phoenix to whip us into shape. She was beautiful, of course, and smart, and every bit as full of life as 23 year-olds tend to be -- you could warm your hands on her aura -- but.... I missed the old fire.
She worked like a dog, though, and helped us turn out more Democrats in our district, by a substantial margin, than in 2004. I wish her, and all her contemporaries, the very best. (I can't believe she was almost ten years younger than my daughter. Still, when they ask you where all the flowers have gone, take a clue from clownsense: they come up every year without fail. It's a miracle....)
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The thread that wouldn't die
[Read the article: The right-wing cult of contrived masculinity]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LWM, as someone pointed out here recently, and as I myself said way back in the pre-HaloScan days of Unclaimed Territory, having integrity in politics necessarily means choosing your battles carefully. If the battle chooses you -- civil rights or abortion both being excellent examples -- you must be prepared to lose.
This is hard advice for a politician to take, and the evidence suggests that our current crop of Democratic congressmen and senators, with few exceptions, have never taken it in the past, and are not about to take it now. A pity, as we've now been forced to begin a long battle to replace them with those who will.
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Ah, yes, I remember, clownsense, I do
[Read the article: Various matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Boudu, yes? Boudu sauvé des eaux. If he knocks at my door, I let him in, and I ask no questions.
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This is the part that galls me
[Read the article: The FBI's lawbreaking is tied directly to President Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Headonfire, you make an excellent point. I remember that months ago a number of us tried to point out to the trolls here -- to no avail, of course -- that no matter how benign the intentions of the administration might or might not be, that this sort of thing was inevitable.
It still amazes me how many people there are who won't give out their E-mail addresses voluntarily, or buy things on line, because they're afraid that the Intertubes boogeyman will get them, and yet this goes by them with nary a ripple. I hate to call our fellow citizens dumb, but I can't see how anyone, no matter how ignorant of computer technology they are generally, could fail to see the implications of this.
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On our fellow electric sheep
[Read the article: The FBI's lawbreaking is tied directly to President Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Think of them as androids constructed on the model of the androids in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the novel from which Blade Runner was extracted, with very little of moral/metaphysical dimensions of the original novel. -- Paul Rosenberg
This may be off topic a little, but I've long though this one of the best examples around of the peculiarly related virtues of the novel and the movie.
You're right that the dark vision of Dick's novel is marvelously nuanced, and -- for me, at least -- sepulchrally sad. Dick was such an awful writer in the technical sense, yet saw so clearly what almost no one in modern times ever sees. I've always marveled at the sense of lonely mission in his work, and the heroic efforts he undertook, despite his limitations as a writer, to give form to his torments. With apologies to folks who believe -- correctly, I think -- that science fiction is oversold, Dick is the real thing. I compare him to Blake, and make no apologies for the comparison.
As for the film, reducing Dick's bleak psychosocial underworld to a dystopian retelling of the Prometheus legend was truly inspired. When all is said and done, Roy Batty is emblematic of all the terrible damage returned to us when we spurn a legitimate peer, when we refuse to give an entire class of people a seat at the table. If you want to understand what drove airplanes into the World Trade Center, Blade Runner, for all that it was a throw-away popular entertainment, is not a bad place to begin your investigation.
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To the commenter formerly known as m.b.f.
[Read the article: The FBI's lawbreaking is tied directly to President Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Given your public metamorphosis in these threads, how about the familiar chameleon, or famileon, for short, as a handle.
In the interest of saving our bandwidth, you understand, as well as our sanity....
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No....
[Read the article: The FBI's lawbreaking is tied directly to President Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I admit that it seems disjointed, but I prefer to think of it as all of a piece. Which makes m.b.f. one of our most artful dodgers, I should think. I salute him. (Or her, as the case may be.)