Letters to the Editor
scotjohn
Published Letters: 25 Editor's Choice: 3
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Report on the real story: safeguarding our democracy
[Read the article: Was the 2004 election stolen? No.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whatever you think of the legitimacy of the 2004 election, most of us can agree that two very disturbing things happened:
1. Republicans "employed broad, methodical, illegal tactics" (as RFK Jr. phrased it), inappropriately attempting to influence election results -- from discarding valid voter registrations and provisional ballots, to deliberately targeting minority voters for intimidation, to neglecting to provide adequate voting equipment in good working condition; and
2. The mainstream media made no real attempt to shed light on these abuses.
So naturally, when a major article comes along (in Rolling Stone) to draw attention to these very real problems, exhorting millions of people to ask "why is this happening" and "how do we clean up the system," Salon responds by praising its author for thrusting these key issues into the national limelight, correct? Wrong.
Instead you've given us a piece (complete with hysterical headline) that "debunks" two assertions that the author never made: that new evidence has come to light, or that evidence proves that Kerry received more votes in Ohio. "You can't prove that Kerry actually won" screams Manjoo for what must be the tenth time now.
Folks, that's not the point. This problem is bigger than one state, or one election.
The real story here is the lack of adequate protection for America's democracy. Our system is vulnerable to partisan attacks, ones with real potential to change the outcome of elections. The Republican party is taking advantage of that weakness, using underhanded tactics to keep Democrats from voting, or from having their votes properly counted -- and the mainstream media has been totally averse to investigating or reporting that when it happens.
I had expected Salon to offer a serious examination of these problems. Instead, your article ignores them entirely and attacks straw men instead. I count on you for more than this, and I'm bitterly disappointed.
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A long-awaited, much-needed wake up call
[Read the article: Hack the vote? No problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you, Salon. This is the study (and the Salon article) I've been waiting to see for years.
Friedman understands the most crucial concept here, even if Farhad Manjoo has always been distracted from it: in our current system, elections can be stolen with relative ease. It should go without saying that this is totally unacceptable.
For every election, the burden of proof should indeed be on our government: to establish fair and secure election systems, to provide independent verification that these systems are not prone to tampering, and then to demonstrate convincingly that each election was accurately decided. "Trust, but verify."
Of course, that's a lot of work. It will take a lot of money to replace equipment, a lot of effort to train poll workers and observers, and a lot of time to conduct statistically valid, randomly-sampled recounts of every election to make sure the votes have been counted properly. I'm sure many Americans would rather just tell themselves that everything is fine, and that "you can't prove any election has been stolen recently." That's much less scary and less costly.
But consider the costs our government is authorizing to (purportedly) bring democracy to Iraq. Surely it's worth a fraction of those costs to safeguard our democracy here at home?
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Let's hear them all
[Read the article: Song Search celebrity judge]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Amen" to posting all the songs online once the contest is over! Surely, out of 500 songs submitted, more than 10 are worth listening to.
For unsigned songwriters like me, the real prize isn't a check or praise from a music blog -- it's the opportunity for our songs to be heard by people who might like them.
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Re: Cheating
[Read the article: The last contenders]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yikes, Kevin Mason's right. It's quite easy to make Vizu think you're a new person it hasn't seen before, and it'll let you vote again. To be fair, Vizu doesn't really seem to be designed for serious voting -- go to vizu.com, look at their "what's hot" list and you'll see that Salon's contests are getting 10 times more votes than anything else on Vizu.
There's another problem with the voting: it's open to anyone and everyone, not just Salon members. Because bands can email everyone they've ever met and say "go vote for us," Song Search becomes just like any other battle of the bands contest -- what matters is not how good your song is, but how many of "your" people you can get to show up.
These problems are easy enough to avoid -- Salon could use their own database to keep track of what Salon member voted for what band. When voting is over, only count votes from valid Salon member IDs, and only count one vote per member. Surely Salon has a database administrator that could set this up?
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One more anecdote for the pile
[Read the article: The udder truth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems you've got to drink raw milk while it's fresh. I found this out the hard way in Switzerland last year.
One day just before noon, I felt like a horse had kicked me in the stomach. I vomited for hours and then spent the next two days in bed and in pain.
My wife was fine. We'd been to all the same places and had eaten the same food, with one exception: she'd put yogurt on her cereal that morning, whereas I'd used milk.
We had opened the milk a week earlier and hadn't touched it for a few days, but it had smelled very fresh still, not at all "off." But then we looked at the fine print on the milk carton -- turns out it was unpasteurized and said, "Consume within three days."
Silly American that I was, I thought all grocery store milk was pasteurized and stayed drinkable for 10 days or so.
If you do buy raw milk, may I recommend that you take the fine print's advice and drink it quickly?