Letters to the Editor
JackSparx
Published Letters: 433 Editor's Choice: 16
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Gypsies invented mozzarella
[Read the article: A bad week for buffalo mozzarella ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OK, no one else cares I'm sure, but I think this idea is actually likely.
The way you make mozzarella is basically the same method used to make paneer in India today. The Roma are from India. They brought buffalo at least as far as the Middle East, undoubtedly to sell milk. You make cheese (in part) to extend the shelf life of dairy products, and the process for paneer/mozarella is the simplest type of cheese-making, and could easily be done by nomadic people.
Maybe the Roma weren't still with the buffalo when they got to Italy, but I'll bet their cheese-making idea did.
Considering how the Roma were treated by the Italians, there is another irony to this story. Roma gave the italians the buffalo, and probably the process to make Mozzarella.
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Half-pint
[Read the article: What makes a feminist book a classic?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think as the second-wave ages and recedes culturally, women, like Traister, can look beyond their literary contributions and rules, rejudge some old classics and see female characters with agency. Choosing the Ingalls Wilder books also crosses some old lines a bit since feminist classics tend to be from coastal literary scenes, particularly East Coast. Certainly that was true of Jong--Berard, Columbia, NY City. But I think the uniquely American contribution to feminism originates from the interior American West. My vote would go to My Antonia, by Willa Cather.
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@carolh "Can a feminist book be truly feminist if it is also racist?"
[Read the article: What makes a feminist book a classic?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes. Ignoring the racist strain that runs through feminism and feminist literature would leave few classics. Rejecting these classics would be like expunging Ferraro's VP candidacy from the historical record just because of her racist comments during the current presidential race.
More broadly, though, comparing racial and gender social constructs has long been a staple of feminist thought, whether it was white feminists exerting white privilege as a means to power or blaming racial discrimination on patriarchy or realizing that many forms of oppression exist and realizing their own responsibility. Feminist classics have to include "Ain't I a Woman" as well as the the speeches of whites that Sojourner Truth was criticizing.
The issue of race and gender raised by the Little House books is even stronger within the genre of captivity narratives, but I do think some of these narratives are feminist classics. Some go beyond the trial and redemption template, too. Indian cultures did provide alternative frameworks of reference, both real and imagined.
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The banality of Yoo
[Read the article: John Yoo's war crimes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From Yoo's bio at the Berkeley Law School:
"From 2001 to 2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers."
From Eichman's bio:
"From 1942-1945 he served as Transportation Administrator for the German government where he worked on issues involving transportation and minority affairs."
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@Treeple Come join me in the men's room...
[Read the article: What makes a feminist book a classic?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I read [the Women's Room] when I was 14 after hearing my mother and a friend talking about how it "changed their life," blah blah blah. NOT a good book to read at age 14. It totally effed me up for a while.
Heh, I read that book when I was 14 (or so). Imagine how it totally effed up a teenage _boy_. Definitely a classic in the feminist horror subgenre.
Jesus Treeple, our reading histories from TC Boyle to Marilyn French seem oddly similar and equally inappropriate.
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Petroleum perpetuates Wahhabism
[Read the article: "Petroleum perpetuates patriarchy"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That much is clear.
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Devil with the blue pantsuit on
[Read the article: Elizabeth Edwards: "Obama was charming"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I loved this article. The transparent chutzpah of it all. A year of race-baiting Obama on her part, but now Walsh advises everyone else to play nicey-nice.
I do think it's wise for Obama himself to politely step around an increasingly self-destructive Clinton. But, this is the presidency of the United States at a critical juncture in our history. Clinton is deeply responsible for the mess we are in: Iraq, particularly. With her Bosnia comments we as a glimpse of the self-aggrandizement that got us here, and that could cause us even more harm.
Should we feel sympathy for Clinton? How about we wait until she drops out.