Letters to the Editor
MAV in Florida
Published Letters: 309 Editor's Choice: 22
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OK reporters and editors, let's assume he really is confused:
[Read the article: McCain gets confused about al-Qaida again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've been wondering for years if reporters should treat their campaign coverage more like SATs or a civil-service exam and less like a personality contest. And this applies to state and local politics as well.
Instead of the hackneyed "What's your position on....?" and "Whaddya think of ......?" the reporters should be able to quiz various candidates about what they actually know about the position they are going after. Questions such as "What percentage of the national budget goes for foreign aid?" or "How many standing committees are there in the Senate?" At local and state level, questions could be things such as "What's the difference between an industrial revenue bond and a general-obligation bond?" and "What's the difference between secondary wastewater treatment and tertiary water treatment?"
After a few years of this, we might, just might, start getting some candidates at all levels who actually know what they're talking about. How about it, inkstained wretches?
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So what took them so long? Where have you guys been?
[Read the article: Bobbing for boobs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A nightclub in the Tampa Bay area was doing that several years ago, but I guess if it doesn't happen in LA, San Fran or lower Manahattan it doesn't make the radar.
I learned of this through a story in the way-above-average St. Pete Times called "Kenya's Quest." The lady at the center of the story (her first name is Kenya) entered such a contest because after several kids and middle age her bust was not what it was. The contest was simple - women get up on stage and verbally humiliate themselves by bragging about how badly they want a boob job. Kenya was roundly booed for not being slutty, as the winners were.
I've read some sad stories in journalism over the years, but that story had a creepy level of sadness. I know, it doesn't compare to Congolese rapists or Dafur, it's just that it was a description of comebody in a community like the communities we live in every day being systematically humiliated. I was also left with one other thought: can the doctors who hire out to give boob jobs as contest prizes really look at themselves in the mirror and say this is part of the high ideals of being a doctor? I guess the money talks.
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I've been wondering about that, Rosen
[Read the article: Bobbing for boobs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Could it be that most men would rather look and make hooting noises at their drinking buddies than actually get closer? I remember reading of a survey among college kids in, I think, Pennsylvania that given the choice of (a) getting some but not being able to tell about it or (b) not getting some but being able to brag about getting some, most of the respondents chose (b).
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More non-parallels (or, "Unparalleled")
[Read the article: McCain's century-long problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Please, enough with the comparisons to Germanyt and Japan. Both countries were modernized industrial nations with strong central institutions before falling into militaristic dictatorship in the 1930s. Germany had a Reichstag with oppositions parties, modern coeducational schools and strong communications and transporation infrastructure. Japan had its Diet as a legislative body before thuggery by members of the active military propelled int into dictatorship and war.
Compare that to Iraq, a country whose traditions of governance are pretty much limited to "I shoot you, Sunni dog!" and "Bah, I kill you first, Shiite!" Suddenly the comparison just doesn't look that hopeful.
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Oh, I see, it's a STATE matter!
[Read the article: Larry Craig has David Vitter's back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So if you're elected to federal office, you can break all of the state laws you feel like breaking, and it's OK!
So, Elliott Spitzer's mistake was that he got caught hiring a hooker while he was a state official. Whereas if he was, say, a congresscreature from New Yawk, well, then it all would have been OK!
Where do we find these people?
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"Cleric: Unveiled women burn men to ash"
[Read the article: Cleric: Unveiled women burn men to ash]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Honest to Gawd, when I saw that headline I first thought a bunch of Uppity Women in Afghanistan had finally had enough of veils and beatings and had taken some guys out and doused them and lit them up!
Sort of like something Ogden Nash wrote back in the 1940s: he said that just once he wanted to see a headline that read "Georgia Negro Lynches Mob."
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A payoff of 250:1
[Read the article: The GOP's "Culture of Corruption" lives on]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Actually, that's pretty small as far as the usual level of congressional play-for-pay goes. The developer in Fort Myers (which, by the way, has a really sordid history of sleazy real estate development deals, even moreso than Florida as a whole) should have gotten a payoff of at least $40,000,000 of taxpayer's money.
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@ Jim
[Read the article: Bush's missing bin Laden plan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought the wording on the tombstone of the Bush administration was going to be "Nobody could have foreseen ________ ."
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Origin of the Torch
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This may be off-topic, but so is almost everything I say: I've read somewhere that the origin of the doing the running of the torch to the Olympics was in 1936, for the Berlin Olympics. The Nazis apparently liked the theatrical appearance of lighting a torch on Mount Olympus and bringing it to Berlin, making themselves seem like the new Spartans. Has anybody else read this?
Perhaps the Chinese could have avoided some of this by simply saying "Nah, no Olympic torch this year -- the Nazis thought of that, anyway."
By the way, I'm no fan of the Chinese policies for human rights or in Tibet, but I thought the harassment of the Olympic torch runners was embarassing. I hope that the next time we have an Olympics in the United States the Chinese don't respond in kind with protests over our annexation of Hawaii, the opening of Oklahoma's Indian Territory to the land rush settlers, or some of our more recent questionable activities.
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"Shockingly young" ???
[Read the article: City of lost children]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Agreed. When I saw that phrase, all I could think was that the good gentle sweet people at Salon are either older than we thought or, more likely, are not taking their ageing status gracefully.
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OK, here's what I want to know about Rep. John Duncan:
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Was he a virgin when he first got married?
Come on, Washington reporters! We think of your questions foir you, do we have to quit our jobs and go there and ask them for you, too?