Letters to the Editor
jk rowling
Published Letters: 30 Editor's Choice: 1
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The Idiot
[Read the article: Does Oscar hate his own smell?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dostoevsky said to the niece to whom he dedicated, The Idiot... "I want to portray a truly beautiful soul." Cintra called him on it and remarked, "Fyodor, puhleeze!!!!"
You yanks only have two ways to deal with art in that vast, materialist culture of greed and violenz - IN or OUT. Yes, it applies precisely in the case of Oscar because... well, there is no other place to "portray" the art of cinema than trailers or reviews or crass hypemedia.
Which is not such an evil thing as it seems to be mistaken. It is as if an incorrect ID were hung on the whole affair - that we might watch it purposely instead of as more simple entertainment - about something I know steadfastly.
Who are "The Academy?" As I understand this to be merely a bunch of old fogies and industry hacks with some sort of "art- guilt" that packs into their choices, the winners are quite reasonable, perhaps even reassuring to the entire lot of them.
Someone has to win - why not the provocateurs who will most probably not empty out the theaters and destroy American culture that depends on the movie, instead of thoughtful, decent, community-based policies for humans and planetsharers?
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The Meritorious Answer
[Read the article: It's OK to vote for Obama because he's black]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gary is saying what needs to be shouted out - It is GOOD to be a Black presidential candidate! Why?
Because African-Americans have Succeeded Beyond Racism - from the White mainstream pandering culture, without support from an elite Apartheid "old boys" club, sans validation as smart, hard-working people with a common culture of discipline and talent applied against all odds...
Because his real life is hit with racial discrimination every day in America, Barack Obama demonstrates to the rest of the White race (around the entire world!) that the most powerful position in world history is at his command. Black fears and fears by Black persons are also projected onto this man, a United States Senator - who arrived at his position in life purely and exclusively on MERIT - because as a friend of mine from Baltimore says, "He ain't there by skatin' on privilege, or by gettin' some o' that smack LUCK that goes on at the country club wit' all those c-o-n-n-e-c-t-i-o-n-s."
Then again, he has been a law professor, instead of a manual laborer... is that OK for a U.S. Senator to be? I guess so. Americans watch bigtime, rich, over-the-top, record-setting African heritage persons in the traditional professions, journalism, politics, entertainment, sports and even top corporate society (if they are aware) without rejecting or commenting on race at all.
I have witnessed this all over the world, and the question now becomes, "Will White Americans elect a man who is going to determine the direction of their personal stake in democracy, their children's future and the very existence of the greatest source of hope for greedy, militaristic types AND all the peoples of the world who are sane?"
Will you? Brits believe he will be the new JFK once again - that the doors to Camelot may fly open - this time starring a Black genius who got there The Hard Way, Part II. My good friend, who is a doctor, proclaims, "No Daddy-Money."
And I don't know if you noticed it, but his partner is a real sparker - dark as Oprah, smart as Hillary or Bill and all those cheap-shot pundats - and she just might be able to teach The United States that it is very important to have No Human Being Left Behind.
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Obama out
[Read the article: The unsung heroes of Iraq war coverage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Taking a stand against this war, Barack Obama risked his very candidacy for senate. That has not been clearly promoted by U.S. media. War reporters are also up against the networks' machine to satisfy their viewers' nationalist self-concept.
Other than PBS, no major media have dared to penetrate the old culture of "America is Right due to Might" since Vietnam. In the European and Asian press, Empire tactics are immediately seen as bullying, promoted to further the greedy capitalists in America that control world markets to a degree.
The entire point to the "underground" nature of web reporting and blogging is that we are a global enterprise now - these old dogs of war cannot bark without being questioned on their facts and context any longer. Not only are the named persons heroes of the highest order, they are harbingers of the world that refuse to accept lies/ignorant pap for good journalism.
In a sense, far wider than narrow nationalism can envision, the real sendup of this engagement with "terrorism" is an equally resounding confrontation of self-aggrandisement that has crippled the States since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution launched a war against communism in Vietnam.
It is The 60's once again... we pray that leaders will learn.
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We love those young, sexed-up, smarmy white women, don't we?
[Read the article: The best-laid plans]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not about writing... not about fear or lifestyle or anything at all to do with craft.
The feedback is consistent with Kind Green Jealousy. Yes. Oh the boys don't want sex with the author - they want notoriety and drinks with her - then praise. They wanna' get paid too!
If you can pick a topic to write about, and then get such published in Salon, maybe everybody already knows you can get LAID. It really is the "publishing come-on" that chokes in their little gizzards, you know. I know a little bit about jealousy - my books sell more than any author's on the planet, and all I do all day is... treapse about my house - half naked, horny - obsessing about fame and billion-dollar Enlightenment.
She may as well have been Heavy Oprah, at war with Normalsize Oprah - all the good it would do to promote "bendover" fiction and "What-you-know-about" writing mythology - to satisfy these guys.
Whatever happened to watching a football match instead of simply leering at an intimate, obsessed, soft-dorm account of "tentative litchick" life?