Letters to the Editor
Cocktailhag
Published Letters: 483
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For the love of Ada...
[Read the article: Why doesn't the 9/11 Commission know about Mukasey's 9/11 story?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sysprog.... The incomparable Ms. Huxtable was a voice in the wilderness, indeed.
I am looking out over a view, with Mt. Hood still visible in the twilight, of a vast sweep of buildings she would have hated, but it's still beautiful. Right in the center is Charles Luckman's First National Bank tower, which for all its 1970's flashiness and vulgarity, is still a charming icon, although she derided it as "corn" in its day. That only reminds us how far we've drifted downward since. What's wrong with a white Carrera marble, vertically striped box that flares out a the bottom, which I called as a child, "the bell-bottom building?"
Today, a combination of modernist dogma and profit-driven reticence would make such a daring gesture, rendered in such fancy materials, a fantasy left on the drafting room floor.
Poor Ada couldn't see how much more cheap, banal, and dreadful things would get, once the thin reed of corporate vanity was subtracted from any artisitic impulse in the "develpoment" industry.
But her books are still there, and decidedly worth a read.
The excerpt to which I previously referred, about the WTC, was "Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Buildings?" In her last sentence she wondered whether these behemoths would turn out to be "the biggest tombstones in the world."
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Lake Powell?
[Read the article: Why doesn't the 9/11 Commission know about Mukasey's 9/11 story?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]JackieBinAZ...
Have you ever read "A Story that Stands Like a Dam," or "Cadillac Desert?"
I suspect you have. Worse than, and blindly compounding, these stories of environmental destruction and hubristic stupidity, are the rapid development and unconscionable waste of resources since that time.
Admittedly, such massive government projects bear a kind of dignity, class, and noble purpose unimaginable today, but their heedlessness and unsustainability will haunt us forever.
Thanks for you perspective.
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Spring Chicken?
[Read the article: Why doesn't the 9/11 Commission know about Mukasey's 9/11 story?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry, Sysprog...
She has only dropped out of her writing career, not off the planet. My lamenting her passing was based on her voice no longer being heard, lamentably.
And the lack of suitable replacements,of course.
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Being Right, Cokie style....
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've just now realized a surefire way to make my own opinions into the will of the people!
Go on television, say it, and make it so.
Now that I've discovered this, I no longer have to pay attention, vote, or as a last result, escape to Canada, because....
The American people clearly would rather pass a kidney stone than vote Republican.
The American would never want Bush to escape impeachment and prosecution.
The American people are up in arms over the erosion of their civil rights.
The American people clearly believe that the Iraq war was the worst strategic mistake and moral blunder of this century.
The American people would never watch Cokie Roberts, much less believe the lying twit.
The American people ardently believe that Happy Hour should be 2:30 pm, and 11:00 am on weekends.
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Good Celery....
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've requested all those things, along with a mink coat to wear over my pajamas when I go out for my newspaper.
I'm sure that when I arrive home this afternoon, everything will be waiting with the doorman, wrapped up with a big red, white, and blue ribbon.
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Reputation?
[Read the article: Cokie Roberts speaks out on the war on behalf of the American people]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"You are a good smacker." Good Celery
As anyone I've ever smacked realized, once they came to. The key is to wear a large, costume cocktail ring. I gave one to Pedinska; she knows how to use it.
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Upside Down World
[Read the article: Public opinion on Iraq ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Looking at the four sets of graphs was kind of like watching "one of these things is not like the other" on Sesame Street. The first three show overwhelming majorities in one direction, the last just the opposite. Is it somehow part of being a Republican to ignore reality, hold extreme and unpopular views, and cling to them longer than anyone else?
Clearly, that 65% of Republicans who still support the war are that irreducible core of the right that stuck with Nixon through Watergate, are frantically rewriting the history of Viet Nam, and will someday be blaming "liberals" for losing Iraq. In short, this group, which includes a troll or two here, lacks the ability to process information rationally, and has been taught or otherwise "knows" that Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and such are the only "honest" sources of news. All others are liberal liars, trying to put one over on them, or shake their resolve.
I think this is part of the reason they, and their beliefs, are treated with kid gloves in the media. They may be less than 30% of Americans, but they're that 30% that is literally too unstable and deluded to face the truth without losing it, so their irrational fantasies must be handled with care. The media recognize that this group is most likely to write angry (albeit poorly spelled) letters, harass advertisers, and, I hate to say it, but own guns, bomb buildings, and mail anthrax.
Though paralyzed by fear themselves, they are the scariest Americans, and on some level, no one wants to tangle with them.