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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
redshooz
Published Letters: 197 Editor's Choice: 3
Dear Salon,
It's good to know that your columnists are so in touch with the phenomena of pop culture. "Turns Out, Advertising Stereotypes Men Too?" If this were an intentional spoof, it might have been hilarious. Sadly, you were SERIOUS. Have you not been watching television for the last 20 years? There are innumerable commercials and, even more offensive, entire series based on the assumption that women are models of virtue, rationality and good taste while men are sports watching, semi-retarded, eating machines. Congratulations on spotting a "trend" that has been going on for nearly a quarter of a century.
Let's review: In a single issue of SALON, we find that women are attracted to psyschotic men with large penises and that Republicans are sexists. All of this information was, so helpfully, provided by women writers. So, my question is: who is really crazy here?
Dear Ms. Clark-Flory,
It will be imppossible for me to take "feminism" in the United States seriously as long as women are not subject to ALL of the same laws as men: that is, until WOMEN are required to register for the military draft.
Secondly, you're assuming that men have a choice in this matter. A man will "embrace" the same level of "feminism" that the woman in his life demands--which, in my experience, is a seemingly random mixture of 70s equality rhetoric and 19th Century female privilege--which means most women are staunch feminist up until the moment when heavy lifting is involved.
When will we see a sign that reads: "FEMALE SELECTIVE SERVICE REGISTRANTS, HERE"? Such a small, but significant, change.
Israel has had far too much influence on United States foreign policy for far too long. Why? What have they ever done for us except create dissention and violence in the Middle East and make the much of the world question the sanity and fairness of our policies toward the whole region? Beyond that, anyone who would vote for a president based on ONE issue is a pretty sad case. And, anyone who would even seriously consider voting for JOHN McCAIN--he wooden, fumbling, clueless George W. Bush clone--must surely have been in a coma for the last eight years.
Dear Salon,
Perhaps I have missed it, but I have not seen or heard anyone state the OBVIOUS concerning the Obama-McCain race. The simple and ugly fact is that IF (God help us!) John McCain is elected president it will be purely because those who vote for him are RACIST! Obama has offered this country more hope for the future than any candidate since JFK and yet some of the willfully ignorant among us would rather have more of the horror of the Bush years rather than vote for a black man.
Am I mistaken or is SALON a publication for adults? Either your "critics" are actually teenage girls or, worse, have the same mentality.
The thing about tragically hip young people is that they are convinced that they are immune from aging and that whatever trendy, superficial stuff their into at the moment is timeless. Let me know if any of the "great artists" you admire so much are even around in a few years. If my generation is so out of touch why has your generation sampled, stolen and "neo-fied" everything we did? The largest percentage of what you have produced musically is postmodernist at its worst--all copy-cat without an ounce of originality.
First of all forgive my typo in my response to Peter Joshua (their=they're). Secondly, I have hated Foghat and the like for longer than you have been alive. At a very tender age, I realized that most rock and pop were little more than disposable consumer commodities. At that point, I began looking beyond what the media and my peers told me to like and began to explore for myself. As a result, most of what I listen to today just gets deeper and deeper.
I began this whole exchange with the idea of MENTAL AGE. It really doesn't matter how old your are in years as long as your taste--and, more importantly--your exposure to various styles of music is so obviously limited. It is interesting to me how much the "critics' picks" have in common. All of the performers mentioned are largely dependent on visual appeal, image and lyrics. In most cases, actual music and/or musicians are only a minor part of their overall presentation. If you are listening to a lot of "music" (ie: lyrics) by people much younger than you are, that is probably a symptom of arrested emotional growth. If you are NOT listening to an array of improvisational instrumental music and music from other cultures, that is just a case of self-induced ingnorance.
All I know is that when I was a kid, we didn't have all this here new-fangled musical crap. We had ONE record (I think it was "I'm a Believer" by The Monkees--the greatest rock band of all time.)and we listened to it over and over again. Boy, that was good stuff! If we wanted to make our own music, we had a tin can and a stick and we sat in the dirt and beat on that there tin can till the cows come home and it was good enough for US. You kids today are spoiled rotten!
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!!!!
As a lowly man, I have never CHEATED, but have been CHEATED ON more than one. (Yes, women DO cheat.) Beyond that, are we to assume that you are promoting this kind of behavior--which, if nothing else is probably illegal: theft, destruction of property, slander, etc.? Why, indeed, is it not viewed as HATE CRIME? Oh, I forgot the victims are men. If and when men do these kinds of things, they are usually arrested. This is just one more example of the kind of thing that makes so many men say: "all women are crazy." Worst of all, it can only set the stage for more violence against women. Karma is a BITCH!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
Salon headlines in your mailbox
