Letters to the Editor
Justin Bur
Published Letters: 22 Editor's Choice: 8
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that other reason for the Iraq war
[Read the article: The silence on Iraq is deafening]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Apart from the nonsense about fighting terrorism, and the lies about weapons of mass destruction, there was another reason for this war in the first place. The anti-war protesters often pointed it out: No war for oil. That reason was never openly admitted, but it surely has something to do with the "NATO-quality military bases" that a previous letter-writer mentioned. And with the unwillingness of many in both parties to think publicly and seriously about a withdrawal from Iraq.
James Howard Kunstler discusses the issue this week in his blog in provocative terms. See http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2005/10/they_lied_to_us.html
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U.S. airlines are just one part of a broken transportation system
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The United States has a uniquely flawed transportation system. A larger proportion of trips are made by private car than just about anywhere else in the world, so the market for public transportation (including air trips) is relatively small. Within the public transportation sector, travel is about as inconvenient as a wealthy industrialized nation can manage. There is little integration between buses, planes, and trains. Outside the Northeast Corridor and a few other areas, there are practically no trains (and certainly none you can rely on). Even getting to the airport from the city is harder in the U.S. than just about anywhere else.
With little train service and poor connections, airports are overburdened with short-haul flights. Not only are these wasteful of passengers' time, they are also wasteful of fuel: the burden of takeoff and landing makes up a disproportionately large part of the total trip. And so many short-haul flights cause airport congestion, which means more airport improvement fees to pay for huge airport expansion schemes to mitigate the congestion.
I wonder what the CASM would be for a well-maintained modern train service over distances under 500 miles, such as Amtrak's Northeast Corridor (but without the dilapidated infrastructure). If airlines had the option of purchasing train seats to bring passengers into their hubs (instead of flying short distances), the way many European carriers do, they might be able to lower costs substantially. Even better, the travel experience could become less painful if carefully integrated air and rail services reduced total travel time and airport congestion. Who knows, maybe even some drivers would switch to the air/rail combination if it were faster and more pleasant.
The current fight-to-the-death climate makes such a proposal pretty utopian. A plan like this requires coordination and leadership, as well as substantial public and private investment for long-term benefits. None of that is very plausible right now. But it may be necessary to preserve the mobility that Americans have come to take for granted.
[Here in Canada the financial state of the airlines may not be so catastrophic, but the transportation system in general has most of the same problems.]
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The article is excellent, but its message doesn't seem to carry
[Read the article: A kinder, gentler war on terror]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Andrew O'Hehir summarizes Peter Beinart's argument by saying "The problem seems to be that we're all so shit-scared of being blown up at the mall that we'll sign up for any level of homegrown fascism that promises a remedy." If the discussion in this forum is any indication, that is an accurate diagnostic. Among some more thoughtful letters, there are many motivated by Fear of the Other.
It's part of human nature to fear the Other. But for this basic survival instinct to have any practical survival value, the Other has to be usefully defined. What use can it serve - other than perpetuating the Bush-Cheney regime out of fear - to demonize 20% of the world's population and declare these people an enemy? What use can blacklisting a major world religion serve? You might as well decide that young unmarried men with low incomes are the Enemy. The generalization would hardly be worse.
There was a time when the United States was so much admired around the world that its many transgressions were forgiven by most. Now, mired in fear, corruption, incompetence, and an awful lack of interest in dealing with its internal problems, the U.S. as a whole offers an easy target for derision and becomes feared itself. Individual Americans, communities, cities and state legislatures still do great things and still inspire the rest of the world. The greatness is not gone, but it is getting harder to find behind the clouds of fear and loathing.
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Happened in Québec years ago
[Read the article: The baby-name debate, Italian style]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In Canada, naming and marriage are matters of provincial jurisdiction.
In the province of Québec, women do not take their husband's name at marriage.
In Québec, a child's family name is "a single or composite family name consisting of no more than two parts of the parents' family names." In other words, it may be the father's surname, the mother's, or the two of them hyphenated together in either sequence; however, if either of the parents already have hyphenated surnames, the total number of components in the child's name must not exceed two.
Strangely enough, society has not come to an end since these measures were adopted (1981 - 25 years ago!). We do have a lot of children with long names, but that's hardly a problem. The enthusiasm for hyphenated surnames peaked at about 20% of births in 1997 and has now dropped off.
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The trend is downward
[Read the article: Apocalypse architecture]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kunstler at his best is perceptive, convincing, and highly entertaining. At his best, he wrote Home From Nowhere, which broke New Urbanism out of its cult status among planners and helped bring its ideas into the mainstream. He has sounded the alarm passionately about the end of cheap oil, the transportation crisis on this continent, the crying need for cities and buildings that people care about. Unfortunately, Kunstler is not consistent, and at his worst he is a curmudgeonly, arbitrary doomsayer. At his worst he ruins his own credibility by overstating his case and revealing how deeply he despises the culture that he wishes to influence.
It's been a while since I've read any of Kunstler at his best. He seldom helps me understand how the world works any more. Time to move on to more articulate voices.