Letters to the Editor
Cocktailhag
Published Letters: 483
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The Shallow End
[Read the article: Republicans have become the credibility-free party]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]An AP story in my local paper reports this morning voter "impressions" of the candidates. In it, such nonsense as "strong", "manipulative", "inexperienced", "old", or "Mormon" are tagged to the candidates, and the article implies that these voters are "drawn" by personality. Essentially, it scolds voters for their shallowness.
This argument is, of course utterly discredited by the article itself, which drags on for paragraph after content-free paragraph discussing personality, never attempting to educate these benighted voter with any policy information.
Chicken, meet egg. The reason politicians have trouble taking stands on policy, even when they know the policy is popular, is that our ridiculous, dimwitted news media would skip right over it to write about their hair, outfit, or, at best, their imagined, but generally suspect, "motive."
Political reporters simply will not do the work it takes to read position papers, read speech transcripts, or anything else that would shed light on a politician's priorities, ever. Too hard. Too boring. And besides, all the voters care about is personalities, anyway.
Another easy story to write: "Voters are Shallow."
Pot, meet kettle.
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Fake is the New Real
[Read the article: Fun and games with terrorist threats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ondelette, the downward spiral of pruduct quality, and the planned obsolescence and frequent replacement it requires, can be seen in exemplary terms in the building industry. "New" products of vastly inferior quality flood the market, and though aesthetically inferior, they are relentlessly sold for ease of maintenance, installation, and good old newness. Existing products of demonstrably superior quality are simultaneously denigrated as tired, dated, and shabby.
Thus wood materials give way to composites, then aluminum, and finally to plastic. With each step, the design life becomes shorter, and the consumer is forced to continue to replace things that previously were expected to last a lifetime.
Once it becomes clear that the entire building will never survive its mortgage, some return to traditional materials, and others turn to creative financing to stay on the treadmill.
This is only my personal area of expertise, but it is a classic American example of the triumph of marketing over good sense that infects eveything from technology to politics.
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Fantastic Plastic
[Read the article: Fun and games with terrorist threats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]WT... I guess my point was that given their importance as an instrument for wealth creation, their contribution to quality and permanence to the built environment, building materials should have a much longer design life, as they do in Europe.
Also, mass produced materials built in far-flung factories are generally made by less skilled labor, with the exploitation that entails, and must be shipped long distances, with the attendant environmental costs.
Quality products designed for long life require skilled maintenance, but reduce waste while creating a sense of and attachment to place we have come to lack.
It is enormously depressing to see two identical 100 year old houses; one "neglected" and therefore a valuable gem with great potential, and the other busily "improved" over the years that might as well be torn down.
What a waste.
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To Err is Human
[Read the article: Today]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]WT.... The fact that Iraq was not just blundered, and is now a disaster not because of tactical errors but because it was a wrong, immoral, heinous, and above all STUPID crime to begin with cannot be emphasized enough. Those who would argue that it was a mere failure of execution should never be allowed to go unchallenged. Any fool (me, for instance) could see that needless death and destruction, a proliferation of enemies, and a long, sad, expensive, humiliating and divisive quagmire, ending in defeat and ignominy, could be the only result.
There was never any possibility of a good, or even neutral, outcome. Violating basic American principles, defying world opinion and choosing violent means to force one's will on another country is the most profound rejection of human decency and common sense one can imagine, and the inevitable and deserved outcome we are all suffering was absolutely predictable. The risibly rosy predictions, shifting and interchangeable justifications, and blatantly false threats that were necessary to "sell" such an evil enterprise were evidence enough of the inherent indefensibility of the whole enterprise.
Those who failed to see this then, and would lament mistakes made since, may be many things, but "decent" is not among them.