Letters to the Editor
Johnalive
Published Letters: 190 Editor's Choice: 33
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Biden's weakness
[Read the article: Mixing messages on Alito]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am not surprised that Joe Biden is undermining the Democrat's position on Judge Alito, as he did on the Gonzalez nomination and as he tried to do on the John Bolton nomination when he went on TV and said Democrats didn't have the votes to block the Bolton's bid for the UN ambassadorship (Democrats did eventually force a recess appointment). Biden has consistently been a source of weakness in the Democratic party by undermining its role as the opposition party. I hope people remember that if runs for president.
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Where to next?
[Read the article: Ten years of Salon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Salon has largely taken the place in my life of two subscriptions: to a daily newspaper and a weekly news magazine.
I held off on subscribing for a long time because I wanted more content from you to pay that much money. I'm glad that I eventually joined and now support you directly through the Premium membership, but I am still disappointed that there is not more content.
I find the journalism and the ideas of Salon compelling, but under-represented in the marketplace of ideas. In the next 10 years, I'd like to see Salon writers become more multi-media and appear on radio and television programs that are national in reach. I'd like to see the editors and other top management at Salon pushing the writers and pulling the national media to make it happen.
I realize your culture rises out of the Bay Area media scene, and that you do harken back to the "rogue journalistic DNA that ran in the veins of maverick (San Francisco Examiner) writers like Mark Twain, Ambrose "Bitter" Bierce, Jack London and Hunter S. Thompson," but all of those illuminaries are embraced now as national icons. Salon needs to follow them to the same place.
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Better half
[Read the article: Woodward's disgrace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]With what we know now, clearly Bernstein was the better half.
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Cronyism infects journalism
[Read the article: The Woodward coverup]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Woodward's carryings-on have undercut trust for the fourth estate (already at a low ebb thanks to the Judith Miller and the New York Times), but I am dismayed at how his leading-light journalistic colleagues like Sidney Blumenthal and Daniel Shorr (of NPR) continue to go to awkward lengths to minimize the opprobrium that Woodward deserves. Cronyism impresses no better in the field of journalism than it does in public service.
Blumenthal's understatement of what Woodward has done (credulous vs. complicit, as another reader observed) is inaccurate, pure and simple.
If Judith Miller was (properly) forced out, then it's only fair that Woodward be inveighed against and forced out too. This is a question of fairness and balance, and the editors at Salon should push Blumenthal harder to tell the truth.
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Slippery slope
[Read the article: Religious conservatives: All women should be pregnant! Oh, except you]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This flame war with Jessica is fascinating, but let's get back to the issue.
Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is bad enough, but the idea that it was legal to deny medical help on marital status shows this isn't an issue where gays and lesbians will be the only ones personally affected.
What we need here is a constitutional right to procreate, much the way the Supreme Court created a right to marry (not yet extended to gays) explicitly in 1969 when it struck down a ban on interracial marriage in Loving vs. Virginia.
There have been a whole host of other reasons that have been proposed to prohibit people from marrying--all of which could equally be given as reasons why doctors (or the state) might object on moral or personal grounds to providing medical help: An attempt by Wisconsin to prohibit people from marrying when one person owes child support; an attempt to prevent prisoners or ex-cons from marrying, if someone has a history as an alcoholic or drug addict, has been through a bankruptcy, if someone has been accused of child abuse or neglect. If someone has a history of adultery or was determined by the doctor or the state to be too poor--all could be given as reasons to refuse medical help to have a child.
Maybe Jessica wouldn't choose to prevent people from having kids for any of these reasons, but plenty of others (from all ends of the political spectrum) probably would.
I doubt the current Supreme Court will write opinions to extend Constitutional rights to the act of procreation. Lacking that, the goal should be achieved through democratic means, with legislation that goes deeply into the professions of doctors and pharmacists, forcing them to risk their licenses and certification if they refuse help to patients.
If doctors and pharmacists don't want the state micromanaging their professions more than they already do, then they should prevail upon members of their profession to keep their personal views to themselves. Suck it up and do your job.
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Thank you
[Read the article: When is the Washington Post not the Washington Post?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for highlighting the partisan dumping on Froomkin from the Post's White House reporters. It gives the lie to the notion that Woodward was a renegade celebrity ideologue and shows other areas of the newsroom have fallen into complicity. In my mind, WP has completely fallen out of the running as a credible alternative to the New York Times as the nation's newspaper of record.
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Magical thinking and voodoo romance
[Read the article: Living single]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a man in his late-30s who has done a moderate amount of Internet dating, I've been mystified by the prevalence of the word "soulmate" in the profiles of women of all educational backgrounds. It arises even among women who seem to have a fair amount of previous relationship experience. At what point in the American female experience is the prime directive to find a "soulmate" imprinted?
I've also been struck by the passivity of women who anticipate the experience of a magic "click" to tell them when so-and-so is Mr. Right. At least among my anecdotes, the click refers to something more all encompassing and mysterious than mere physical attraction.
I feel like the partner I have now breaks the mold by not subscribing to these inane notions. Maturity and realism are so attractive…Is there an educational initiative out there to debunk the uninformed superstitions that hold sway over so many American women? Love is active, not passive.