Letters to the Editor
William Timberman
Published Letters: 3298 Editor's Choice: 7
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@ j.m.
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I didn't call you a troll, and I didn't say that you hadn't any right to express your opinion. What I did imply is that you seem to take some pleasure in portraying Glenn's efforts as trivial, or envious and that your reasons for doing so seem suspect.
It seemed quite natural to ask what experience of yours brings you to that conclusion, and why we should accept your judgment as anything more than an unfounded insult.
If you'd prefer a more substantive, less combative response to your criticisms, you might try couching them in less dismissive terms.
For an example of how this works, see my reply to one of your earlier criticisms on the previous thread.
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Puhlease....
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And W.T. isn't the "thuggish enforcer" here, God bless him. He is far too cultured and refined for that sort of thing. Right, William? ;-) -- J.W.M.
Uh, no.... I do believe in giving the devil his due, but I also believe in honi soit qui mal y pense. It's a difficult juggle, and occasionally seems to require a little of that old-fashioned scatological clarity.
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It's not what they think
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A lot of the anger at Blogistan coming from professional journalists -- I use the term advisedly -- and pundits is based on a misperception. They look upon bloggers as an unwashed horde who are trying to wrestle the small end of the cultural funnel away from those who've bought and paid for it. Lèse majesté, in other words.
What they don't understand is the paradigm shift involved. Thanks to another technological hiccup, the small end of the funnel is getting larger again; many-to-many dialogue is once again becoming the norm. Where is Marshall McLuhan, now that we really need him.
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Not exactly
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Don't you mean "what's he doin'"? -- ondelette
That's the Almighty's business now, I think, and I've never been one to question His purposes. ;-)
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Another inspired typo/misperception
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...you cannot simply wave a wand at the blogosphere and declare that both left and right have demonstrated equivalent levels of insantity. -- scientician
I read this initially as insanctity. (Odd how forgetting your reading glasses sometimes returns you momentarily to that freshness of vision you had as a child.)
As bebop-o frequently says, (I think) even in the midst of our squabbles, we should never forget the ashes to ashes, dust to dust part of our place in the universe, nor our kinship with the rest of mother nature, whose steward, by virtue of both our successes and failures, we have increasingly become.
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jojo++, Paul R
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I couldn't agree more that mathematics as a form of literacy is essential to an understanding of what's going on in the world. The Greeks were right about that, as about a great many other things.
One of my real regrets is that while my early training in engineering left me with the basic tools to understand the mathematical principles underlying Newtonian physics, or computer science, or interplanetary navigation and biochemistry, for that matter, I'm largely ignorant of statistics, at least those practiced by planners, pollsters, etc. At times, I feel very much like the only tone-deaf person at a Bartok concert.
I do wish our secondary schools would make more of an effort to teach mathematics to every student, regardless of his phobias, short attention span, or conviction that in the real world a knowledge of fashion will stand him in better stead than a knowledge of trigonometry.
Failing that, the future is likely to be a lot more perilous than it needs to be.
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What's wrong with HuffPo
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is what's wrong with Arianna Huffington herself. Now that she thinks she's accumulated as much influence on the left as she once had on the right, she's ready to start peddling it again. As she always has.
Mind you, this is just one man's opinion, and has nothing to do with the politics on display at HuffPo. It comes, rather, from a number of years of observing Arianna in action as an individual, and not liking what I've seen. YMMV.
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Actually....
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is that a haircut or a molded piece of plastic? -- e_five
A beaver, I'd say, a very well-trained beaver. You know, tail tucked under, eyes averted whenever cameras are present, and slectively bred for the ability to lie very, very still.
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@ Glenn
[Read the article: A beautiful mosaic of anti-blogger hatred]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, you're nicer than I am -- a lot nicer -- but yes, I think that what you describe is quite likely to happen.
I once had an e-mail exchange with Joe Conason, after he wrote an article for Salon in which he said he accepted Arianna's liberal credentials as genuine. I wrote that I doubted it, given her ambition (I actually meant something somewhat less complimentary.) He replied to the effect that he never met a prominent politician who didn't exhibit just such ambition; that it was essential to success in the trade.
Well, he has a lot more experience than I do, so I took him at his word, but the question still arises in my mind if such a phenomenon -- to paraphrase an old joke -- is good for the Jews. I think not, especially if it spreads, as it has, to journalism. Is that not one of the principal points of many of your recent posts?