Letters to the Editor
PaulBC
Published Letters: 238 Editor's Choice: 24
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I think it's OK to show some enthusiasm
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anyone who thinks their candidate has no flaws isn't paying attention, but you need one that people will rally around. I think it is unrealistic to expect elections to be a fully, or even mostly rational process.
But I agree with his "maybe especially then" comment. E.g., I never understood how someone older than four could rattle on about "Blame America first" liberals. Obviously, you hold your own side to a higher standard, because you expect the most from them--otherwise why would you choose sides in the first place? This was obvious to me until some point in early adulthood it dawned on me that large segments of the population had it backwards and really held their own side to lower standards. In fact, maybe this is the norm of human bonding and I've been fighting my own instincts. If so, we're all probably lucky to have made it this far.
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Bees' Mamet link
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Unless Mamet is practicing some advanced form of irony, it just sounds as if he's conflating being liberal with being naive and conflating the practical understanding of human imperfection with being conservative. I expect this kind of strawman picture from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, but I guess I thought our alleged intellectuals could do a better job. The writers of the constitution were pragmatic in pitting interests against each other, as Mamet notes. They were also great enlightenment thinkers and by definition liberal, as was Adam Smith, one of the first people to explicate market forces (but not expunge them of all moral responsibility as is commonly thought).
Yes, humans are imperfect. Liberals believe that therefore sometimes we need to help each other. Conservatives believe that we should allow people to wallow in their own mess.
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Aye, a mite stronger than I care to be...
[Read the article: George Bush's reality distortion field]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...like the guy says in that old Irish Spring commercial (dating myself). Our financial institutions are not merely strong, but downright pungent. And our capital markets? I cannot imagine a more efficient or effective knackering than the one that took Bear Stearns from race course to glue factory in one restless weekend. What part of Bush's statement does not reflect reality?
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And Wright isn't a product of his time and place?
[Read the article: Was Obama's speech enough?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought that Obama's comparison of Wright and his grandmother was not only fair, but a rather shrewd reframing.
Let me try to understand Walsh's view though. Obama's white grandmother, born 1922 in Hawaii had absolutely no choice but to adopt white racist views, so prevalent in that former slave state, while Wright, born all of 19 years later in utopian Philadelphia should by all rights be color blind, and made a cold calculation to become an incendiary minister of hate. That's it, right? Because there was so much advancement between 1922 and 1941, because Wright never had to deal with discrimination and could not possibly have been aware at the tender age of, say 20, that parts of the US were segregated and black people were sometimes treated unfairly even in the city of brotherly love.
I'll take Obama at his word that Wright was always personally courteous to people of all ethnicities despite his rhetoric. If the facts prove otherwise, then somebody please supply them. If not, we have only insinuation.
I think Obama's speech was more than enough. It was a surprisingly detailed analysis of race relations in America, and a mature discussion of why you don't disown the people you care about just because you don't always agree with them. I'm not sure how well it will play, but the only questions that were unanswered were ones that probably ought to go unasked.
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correction
[Read the article: Was Obama's speech enough?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OK, Obama's grandmother was not born in Hawaii. But I still fail to see why she is a product of time and place while Wright is somehow more culpable for his views.
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All wasted energy is converted to heat
[Read the article: The light-bulb wars switch on again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First off, I'm not saying it's a good idea to keep incandescent bulbs. A clear problem occurs in warm weather when you don't need any extra heat and may even be running an air conditioner to remove the heat from the inefficient light sources.
But in the winter, there is no obvious way to improve efficiency by switching between electric heat sources. Electric heat is inefficient already because so much of the source energy was wasted in generation and transmission. But by the time it gets to your house and runs through a heat pump, heating coil, or light bulb filament, the energy consumed by the device will eventually be dissipated as heat in your house. So any inefficiencies in your light source--difference between input power and output light--is converted to heat. Even the light is going to be converted to heat rapidly when it is absorbed by an opaque medium.
The only efficiency argument for a space heater is that you can direct the heat exactly where you need it. This has some validity. For instance, your ceiling light bulbs are going to heat the air above your head and much of that will rise out through your roof (depending on how well insulated it is). I'm not sure how an electric heat pump improves matters, but I'd have to do some research.
The issue with incandescent bulbs is not that they are inefficient heat sources. All electric appliances are equally efficient converters of input electricity to output heat. The main issue is your control over where they put that heat.