Letters to the Editor
marktgarten
Published Letters: 175 Editor's Choice: 23
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Every Charles Taylor Movie Review
[Read the article: Salon's worst calls]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]At least I waited until Monkeybone came out on video.
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To Mike Skuras
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]KK gets two pages, five days a week. That makes a total of ten. HH and SZ don't get that much per week put together.
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intentional grounding
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is intentional grounding if the qb drops back.
How did I learn that? Let's just say Kordell Stewart was involved.
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Here We Go Steelers
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This doesn't really have anything to do with today's column, but my friend Joe, a Steelers fanatic whose dad is soon to undergo chemotherapy, wrote a nice blog entry about sports and life and whatnot.
http://www.jorite.blogspot.com/
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Berman & Baseball
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]King wrote:
"And just in case anybody forgets this most important point, I'll mention it again: It doesn't matter who the announcers are. People tune in to the games or they don't because of the teams on the field."
Actually, I tried watching Chris Berman do baseball and I would never, ever do that again. For me, he made the game unwatchable or at least unlistenable. Maybe he's the exception who proves the rule, but he is a pretty awful exception.
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joke/jihad
[Read the article: Rotten judgment in the state of Denmark]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm sure others have already said this here, but I have to get this out: Why violence?
Were the Danes who published the cartoons jag-offs? Probably. Should the Danes open up to more freedom of speech? Yes.
Do Muslims around the world have the right to dislike the Danes, boycott their goods and services and so on? Of course.
Nonetheless, I feel no need to understand or sympathize with those who take to violence over cartoons. We on the left feel no sympathy for fundamentalist Christians when they attack abortionists. We don't say, "Well, its understandable, because one of the central rules of Christianity states that people shall not kill." We say, "Lock them up." Maybe even "Restrict how close to a clinic abortion opponents may protest." We say, rightfully, in my opinion, "Those guys are assholes."
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Similar reactions? No.
[Read the article: The Moroccan street: No to violence, no to Western disrespect]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Not funny, is it?" says Hottel. "I was deeply offended just to hear it cast as an example. Well, that's roughly the effect on Muslims of these cartoons. And can you imagine if the situation were reversed, if this had been someone outside the religion making jokes about Judaism? You better bet there would have been the same reaction."
I can't imagine the reaction being the same at all. The image of mobs of LA Jews forming on the Westside and in the Fairfax district, converging on the site of the Iranian consulate and setting it afire ... that's a bad SNL skit. No, sorry, the reaction wouldn't be the same.
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Maxim = Abhorrent
[Read the article: Too fat for Maxim's Super Bowl party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maxim is vile. It promotes the worst kind of sexist/consumerist behavior. That said, the people who want to ogle want to ogle those who look hot in spandex or whatever stripper-wear is. Okay, I admit, I'm a guy. But I know I don't I don't look good in spandex. Just a fact. Not enough muscle tone, too much fat. That's the way it is. If you knew me you might think I'm funny, I have a good personality (or not), but you wouldn't want to pay to see me in a cowboy hat and chaps. The guy or girl doing the go-go thing is all about fantasy. Why should we pretend otherwise? Why gnash teeth about behavior, desire so silly and human?
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Skating Mulligans
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Usually I would agree that "do-overs" are strictly for the playground. However, for something like ice dancing, I don't mind so much. Partly because I only grudgingly accept ice skating as a sport, probably. Also, though, because maybe if there wasn't such a rule in ice skating, people might not even try to do something like the quad-whatever. Why risk everything on something no one has ever done before, no? Nobody would hold it against them that they didn't try, because no one else had ever done it either.
In sports where people compete directly, face-to-face against one another, mulligans wouldn't be fair. One football team's failure to get a first down on a reverse is the result of the other team's defensive play. In the instant matter, it wasn't a crafty Russian zone blitz that spoiled the Chinese pair's landing. The Chinese just tried something apparently really really hard and fell.
If the Chinese had taken a spill performing a simple maneuver, then perhaps the mulligan would be inappropriate. The Chinese, however, were attempting something very difficult and rare. Therefore, I support the rule as applied here.
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Whoa!
[Read the article: The war Lieberman didn't want]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am no fan of Lieberman -- even though I admire his voting record, I frackin' hate how he attacked Clinton. Don't even get me started on Iraq. Its one thing to buck your party, but to be so vocal about it!
Nevertheless, calling Lieberman the "senator from Tel Aviv" is distrubing at best and anti-semetic at worst. I'm sure nothing was meant by it, but still.
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Bush Administration as Blank Parody
[Read the article: Cannon fodder at State]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In a better world, I would read this article and think it was pure satire. Or, perhaps, this would be some poorly xeroxed tract left under my car's wiper blades. After Bush II, however, no caper, scandal, abuse of power or irrationality seems beyond the realm of possibility. Bush has made me what I never wanted to be: earnest. It can't get any worse, can it?
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RE: King, you can do better
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think that KK used 2004 as an example b/c Phil Pepe used them in his article as follows:
The Yankees, as an example, range from a high of 123 complete games in 1904, when they were still the Highlanders, to a low of one complete game exactly 100 years later. It’s interesting to note that the number of saves recorded by the Highlanders in 1904 is the same as the number of complete games recorded by the 2004 Yankees, 1.
Also interesting is that even with their staggering total of 123, the Highlanders were eighth in an eight-team American League in complete games. That season, of the 1,252 games played, the AL recorded 1,097 complete games, or 88 percent of games started, and only 12 saves.
Therefore, it seems unfair to accuse KK of using 1904 to create a strawman argument.