Letters to the Editor
Monty Johnston
Published Letters: 119 Editor's Choice: 9
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Dear Rebecca, Steve and Steve -
[Read the article: Proud atheists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I haven't read the other posts yet.
Before we get to ESP and other such action at a distance, how's about talking about egolessness? The why of its efficacy would of course be interesting, but until then, how's about that? how's about talking about the fact that creativity seems to involve egolessness? that atheists in 12 Step recovery are satisfied with egolessness as fulfilling any higher power requirements they might have, leaving the atheist with her or his atheism? that, though fundamentalist religionists deny it, all religion began with the impulse of individual egolessness? that Einstein's E=MC2 was brought to us by a brain that, apparently through egolessness, did its best thinking through stopping thinking? etc.
The rest of us shake our heads over the huge sad useless battles between non-egoless religionists and non-egoless atheists.
Best -
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
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A. Anesko
[Read the article: Proud atheists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm surprised no one addressed A. Anesko's post, p. 14, 7:56am. For my money it was the one that got to the heart of the matter.
Best -
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
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Segregation
[Read the article: Good times for liberals]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Approval of interracial marriage may be up to 77 percent, but I'll bet that approval of rigorous enforcement of fair housing laws is noticeably less. Housing is where our remaining segregation hides, as well as those who collaborate with segregation.
We best not get complacent. Integration, no matter how you measure it, is not complete.
Best -
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Fanatically in love with the little doggies and kitties
[Read the article: Ellen, the dog bullies and me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Days later and the story's still sticking with me.
You don't have to visit with too many homeless dogs or cats to be smitten. Or I don't. I'm a pushover, and I'm willing to jump through some hoops as a result. So we're presented with the gotcha problem, that once you're hooked, some reel you in with an increasingly farfetched plausibility.
Back in the 1940s AA asked individual groups what their membership requirements were. When they put them all together, it turned out they eliminated everyone. It sounds like this applies here. Drunks died then as a result. Pets are being killed now, by pet fanatics - by people who "love" pets so much that pets are being killed because of it.
Fanaticism is my gig. One requirement for membership in the human race might well be that I conscientiously examine how fucking nuts I am, and you do it for yourself, too. Maybe we'll need a little help, too, from some denial-puncturers. And then we each take our own craziness into account on a regular basis. Manipulative control freak do-gooders, please take note.
Best, too, to know the pet adoption rules before you meet the pets.
Best -
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
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Toyota Yaris > Vitz
[Read the article: Who needs a Prius anyway?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry this post's late.
Check this out: According to the web, there's a Yaris that's called a Vitz and gets the best gas mileage award in Japan. Instead of the 1.5 liter 4 cylinder US Yaris version, the Vitz has a 1.0 liter 3 cylinder engine with constantly variable transmission and a battery powered idle stop-start system. It apparently gets something like 55 to 60 miles per gallon.
I assume that if it was imported to the US it would cost about $10,000.
There are other versions, a 1.3 liter, and a 1.4 liter diesel. Some are available in Europe and other parts of the world. But please confirm. I'm not much of a web browser.
What can be done to get Toyota to import the 1.0 liter Vitz to the US? I assume shame is not enough, plus shame is sick.
I have a '95 Mitsubishi Mirage, 1.5 liter, $700, 212,000 miles, that's been getting 40 mpg.
Good article.
Best -
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
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What's the beef?
[Read the article: America's first Me Generation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]- the Transcendentalists ended slavery and us hippies ended the Viet Nam war. Give us a break.
They were both/and times, which was their glory: both self-realization and political action in the wider world. Both.
The "Me Generation" phrase came about through a fairly profound misunderstanding: If in your social action you don't know yourself thoroughly and if you swallow your own bullshit, you're a ship without a rudder. Self-hating fanatical codependent, is how I might put it.
It's not ego that was followed in the 1840s, and 1960s and '70s, but egolessness. Getting to know that part of yourself opens you up to the fullness of the world. That is, to creativity. I'm sorry - this is fairly rudementary stuff.
New Agers might fall to some self-preoccupation, but that's not what I'm talking about. Both/and is brass tacks; either/or is troubled; and, I might add, to add to the trouble, they usually don't know either/or is troubled.
Emerson is WONDERFUL. We do ourselves no harm in coming to understand how Emerson ended slavery.
Best,
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
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Partisanship is cool, transformative, immanently transcendent -
[Read the article: Obama's double magic]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Restoring the moderate center in America - workers and consumers equal to bosses, for instance - is a partisan fight. I pick the candidate who has clearly put cards on the table: Edwards.
Not that I wouldn't also support Barack or Hillary. But they might be less firm in reestablishing that private property for profit must come furnished with no fascist prerogatives.
Best,
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
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Primogeniture, etc., was once the way of the world -
[Read the article: It's my abortion, too!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Way out ahead of all other anti-abortion rationales is that the father owns the woman. That this is not so is one of the central realities conservatives hate.
Best,
(More, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")