Letters to the Editor
Stellaa
Published Letters: 186 Editor's Choice: 14
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Love it!!
[Read the article: Bad news dad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I love to watch 50+ year olds who start a second family after divorce . They are so wonderfully in pain.
All I can say is take them in a room and scream: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? Where were you the first time and how did you forget?
Heh, the little kids stuff is not as bad as living through teenhood one more time. I could not imagine being in my 60's, and having to wait up for the little delinquents to come home, worrying about high school, graduating and college. Playing little kid games is piece of cake, just you wait for the teens.
One thing and only one thing ever kept me from thinking about a secon set of kids, my own or adopted, 8 years of school science projects. Any parent knows what hell that is. And if you forget that hell, and do it again, man you are really fucked.
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Romantic Comedies: Disasters.
[Read the article: "License to Wed"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hollywood has managed to take one of its great inventions, the Romantic Comedy, and mangle it beyond recognition. The stock characters and the repeated pranks have created a genre that is a way below in stature than the laugh track sit com. As television gets better, the Hollywood formulaic industrialized movie is the most dispicable of genres. Take Diane Keaton depicting the ditsy 60+, sex starved mom over and over again. Gads, give us a break. The slapstick idiocy in every movie is beyond redemption. Packaging includes some gimmick with the same story line and slapstick over and over again.
Who would have thought that this genre shares the same name as It Happened One Night, My Man Godfrey, Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, Annie Hall and Love Actually, one of the only good recent Romantic Comedies. If you see Jenifer Aniston, Diane Keaton, Robyn Williams, etc, you know its the kiss of death. These actors are pataking in the junk movie industry that replicates the porn movie model.
I say lets start a black list of actors, writers( are they writers or just movie execs) directors, etc. and shame them into never making another one of those dogs. Or just watch TMC and enjoy the ample supply of old ones.
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Complexity
[Read the article: In the wonderland of ruins]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The ruins, the ruins are of a people that maybe do not live in Turkey any more. Or maybe they are a people that co mingled with the Turks that came from the east. Some Greeks and others converted to Islam for accomadation, some did not, some left, some stayed in Turkey and many were killed. The churning turmoil of populations that flee and stay. They left a historical record, icons, columns and temples. Yet, that record also exists in our food, music and our collective history.
My Greek grandmother who fled Izmir to go to Egypt, survivied with her six sisters but her parents did not. Later we had to flee Egypt. We came to America thinking that the conflicts of Christianity and Islam would be far away, but alas, they followed us. People have faces, they have histories, they have lives...yet these conflicts persist. Utlimately, all people want a nice quiet life, to thrive, have families, enjoy some meals, listen to music and die a good death. Yet, these pesty conflicts keep interfering. No one has the monopoly on suffering or on making others suffer. We are all guilty and we are victims. And all we want is a nice holiday trip with our family and to feel safe.
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The Edible Garden
[Read the article: Why I pick lettuce for the Black Panthers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Alice Garden, the Edible Garden, is at MLK middle school. Many of the other Berkeley schools, including Malcolm X, have different gardens with local people, not international foodie stars, putting in hours and hours to work with the children. LeConte even has farm animals, (at least they did when my kids were there). Many vollunteers beyond Alice bless the Berkeley/Oakland schools with gardens, salads and valuable lessons. Even Semifreddies the bakery teaches kids about good breads and how to bake with whole grains.
PS, the Berkeley schools are not segregated, the Berkeley neighborhoods are, but not the schools. We fought for many years to keep them integrated.
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Cry Babies.
[Read the article: Panic on Wall Street]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They created this mess. They want government out of their way. They have to suck it up. But no the Fed and the National banks stepped in to save their little skins. You want free market, here boys, take it. But they are cowards when it goes sour, their little get rich scheme.
You don't want government restrictions free marketeers, take the China lead based paint toys. Go ahead, imagine that government regulations are not necessary and that lending standards are not important. I think this is a great time.
This is proof that all the restrictions and all the requirements (lending etc) serve a purpose and they need to be imposed on the world market. Labor standards to environmental and so on, I was amazed at how much of this junk the world market bought into. Making loans just for fees. I would not be amazed if the same boys that brought us the S&L fiasco did not reinvent themselves and brought us this debacle.
One question I am no genius but I saw this coming years ago when I saw the lending products they were advertising and the push for refinances, and Bush telling people to shop after 9/11. People shopping with money they got from taking out their equity to buy crap made in China.
So now what? What is the next bubble from our bubble boys in Wall Street. I know, green investing, watch my words.