Letters to the Editor
PaulBC
Published Letters: 240 Editor's Choice: 24
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Nitpick: "Anything is possible" subsumes "He can do anything"
[Read the article: Obama: The Chinese version]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I realize we're talking about the idiomatic meaning here, but if anything were possible, then it would be possible that Obama could do anything.
My point? Maybe nothing, but if English weren't my first language, then I would be hard-pressed to choose one formulation over the other, since both are nonsensical. What does it mean anyway? I guess: don't rule out possibilities that seem very unlikely. It's good to have idioms, but it's also good to know what we really mean.
It also reminds me that a few years ago while in China I saw a large advertisement that said "Impossible is Nothing." I got a chuckle out of the mangled idiom, but now when I look it up, it seems it's an actual Adidas slogan. So anything really is possible.
P.S.: I'm dead serious about megazord. Obama's got the gift.
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For book bag deniers
[Read the article: How 1968 changed Hillary]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remember having a book bag in grade school, but that was the 70s. It was sort of obvious to me that there were bags called "book bags" in 1968, but I did a search to confirm it. These may not have been the day-pack style I'm familiar with--nor the wheeled airport style lugged about by today's overburdened grade school kids.
Anyway, the remaining doubters will kindly stop smoking their book bags and look it up (NYT 1960).
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C10FC3F5916738DDDA80A94DB405B808AF1D3
For Paper-Back Textbooks; Weight and Cost of High School Reading Matter Criticized
GERALDINE E. McGAUGHAN.
March 21, 1960, Monday
Page 28, 442 words
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES: Anyone who has attempted to lift a high school pupil's book bag recently must have staggered (and been staggered) under the weight of it. What, in the revered name of education, is he carrying around with him?
...
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Is it even the right question to ask?
[Read the article: Through a bong, darkly]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Arguing whether the counterculture movement achieved anything treats it as a cause of change, good or bad, when maybe it is more useful to see it as an effect, ask why it happened in the first place or what could reasonably have happened in place of it and whether that would have "achieved" anything.
I'm not a historian and was too young at the time to speak from direct experience (and probably would have been too unhip anyway), but I see it as an outgrowth of a general trend over the 20th century. Much of 19th century thinking is marked by the idea of perfectability through rational progress. This applied not only to politics, but mathematics and science as well. Eventually, a long list of results in every field was sufficient to point out the limits of human reason. This was true at the beginning of the 20th century.
I think what happened was a rejection of reason based on disappointment over the fact that it would never solve everything. By the 60s, this had percolated through the culture to the point that otherwise sane people were claiming that everything was subjective and malleable. I don't even know if this was particularly leftwing--the most extreme neoconservatives today seem to believe that reality is a normative belief enforced by power. Somehow the idea of self-expression took over as the greatest good--at least among a small, influential, and relatively privileged group.
To claim that the beats were better or the lost generation was better is also to miss the point. It was part of the same trend--each generation clinging to some past notion of reason, but less so over time.
The 60s could not have accomplished much directly because it was not undertaken with planning or empirical testing. But I wonder if this is really the right question to ask. Young people were testing a cultural belief that they could shape reality by looking inward. It turns out that it is not true, but what could have stopped that test from happening?
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And a narrow track it is
[Read the article: Tancredo's one-track mind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I read the headline, I was trying to guess where his was going. I thought maybe his question would be about pleas for asylum by Iraqis. That would be bad enough, but it sounds as if not only did he work in a question about immigrants, it was particularly about Latino immigrants. True, to large swaths of the US population, "illegal immigration" is a code word for keeping out "Mexicans"--a broad category that includes Central and South Americans. But not in my wildest imagination could I envision Tancredo working this line of questioning into an Iraq hearing. Really amazing.
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aw, give gramps a break
[Read the article: McCain confused about Petraeus' job, chain of command]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe he defers to Petraeus on everything.
Who do you like on American Idol?
I have my preferences, but first I'd like to see how Gen. Petraeus voted.
Coke or Pepsi?
I'll just have whatever he's having.
God knows, he wouldn't be the first.
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hglass: personal ignorance is not proof of absence
[Read the article: House Republican blasts Obama as "that boy"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ash v. Tyson Foods, 2006
http://www.elinfonet.com/casearticles/1394
"In a brief unanimous opinion, the United States Supreme Court ruled on February 21, 2006 in Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc. that the word "boy" without any words modifying it, can be a racial epithet depending on the context, inflection, tone of voice, local custom, and historical usage."
There is a much longer history that you could research as well, but maybe you can ask Antonin Scalia to explain it, if he's not too much of a "blame whitey" liberal for you.
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God forbid we run a rock star teflon Jesus in the general election
[Read the article: Did the "bitter" flap affect the race?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...because then, you know, Democrats might actually win I don't think I could handle it, and plus we'd have to cancel plans for the big "Sorry Mother Earth" global pity party.
Look, I don't think Obama is Jesus. As I alluded once, I think he is more on the order of a Power Ranger, ready to ride the DonkeyZord to victory in November.
But whether you share my views, why do you mock the fact that people feel honest, gushing, sometimes juvenile enthusiasm towards this man? Enthusiasm is usually something that wins elections. Show me someone who votes based on their superior, detached stance, and I'll show you someone whose candidate always loses.