Letters to the Editor
joshkidd
Published Letters: 56 Editor's Choice: 11
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How does it end?
[Read the article: "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was curious if the movie ended with a lot of the weirdness that was in the book. Does Bacchus show up to go on a rampage with Aslan to destroy all Narnian infrastructure? Do they destroy the boarding school where the female students are liberated from their uniforms?
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Less power to The People
[Read the article: Are you too dumb to vote?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm smart enough not to buy the myth that the "The People" (whoever that is) chose the current president. We should remember that ignorance takes power away from the people and we should not respond to that by taking away one of the few remaining powers that people have, their votes.
The reasons why the left (and I don't include all democrats under that umbrella) is big on empowering people are ideological ones. I believe people shouldn't have to be subject to the whims of an individual or for that matter fifty percent of everyone else plus one. And yet, "The People" (them again) continue to hand their power over to our leaders. Even if they hate the president, they still prop up the presidency because if only the right person were president... I've heard some people talk about the Obama Effect. There is some anecdotal evidence that donations to non-profits are down because people are giving money to the Obama campaign. Well, what happens when we have President Obama and he can't solve our problems.
Empowering people is hard work. In large part because those who already have power in this country don't want that to happen. We need election reform, we need better education, and that's just the beginning of the list. Books like this are downright harmful. Less power to the poor and uneducated, more power to the wealthy and educated. Isn't that the status quo?
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The End of American Brewing
[Read the article: The king of beer mergers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Chris O'Brien (aka The Beer Activist) breaks this down pretty well on his blog here: http://beeractivist.wordpress.com/2008/06/13/will-bud-light-become-belgian/
The long and short of it is that if this deal goes through, 95% of the beer in the US will be sold by foreign companies. A-B has about a 50% market share. Then there's SABMiller Molson Coors (a joint venture) that controls Miller and Coors. In case your wondering, the SAB stands for South Africa Bavaria. It's headquartered in London. Last year they teamed up with Molson Coors which is (at least partially) Canadian. Add to that about 15% of foreign brands sold in the US. The only remaining American breweries will be small craft brewers. About 5% of the market.
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what is local food?
[Read the article: Is local food really miles better?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The example of tomatoes in the UK brings up an interesting point about local food... that you can't make a decision to eat local and not expect your diet to change. If people in the UK want to eat local, they'll have to live with eating fewer tomatoes.
Eating local should mean more than a miles calculation. It should involve eating only foods that can be grown locally by sustainable means. It should involve eating in season, which means it will involve canning and the like.
The fact that the local food movement doesn't automatically mean these things tells me that this is a fashion for many people. Something that they can take on without any real lifestyle change.
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what to compare orgy with
[Read the article: Citing Google, pornographer claims orgies are bigger than apple pie]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You mention that "apple pie" might not be a suitable search comparison for "orgy", but you don't go anywhere with that. Why not?
Is "orgy" as american as "baseball"? Not by a long shot. We could include other vices. How about gambling? Compare "orgy" with "casino". Again, "orgy" is a big loser. Heck, compare "orgy" with "porn". Not even close. So what is a good point of comparison? Compare "orgy" with "swinger". The results are almost identical.
There you have it... Orgies are as American as swinging.
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Election reforms
[Read the article: Is Ralph Nader losing it?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this already. I'm not going to read through all the comments here. But I often wonder what the best way is for those who would prefer a candidate more progressive on some issues than the Democratic nominee typically is. I often have voted for third party candidates who couldn't win just so my voice could be heard. In one way, Nader has made it a little easier on me this year now that I can strike him off the list.
In any case, I think our best bet lies in Instant Runoff Voting or Fusion Voting. We need a system of election that isn't so binary and both of these options break us out of the either/or choices even within a system dominated by two parties. I'm open to other suggestions along these lines as well.
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Not turning on their agenda
[Read the article: The religious right warms up to McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Religious Right has been upset with McCain for a while because he openly dissed them in 2000. However, the agenda of the Religious Right has always been (or at least has primarily been) to get conservative judges on the Supreme Court bench. McCain will undoubtedly deliver that for them. Yeah, this is an about face on McCain, but it's not exactly a turning on their ideals.
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It's important to remember that he's outside the norm
[Read the article: My interview with murderer Hans Reiser]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's tempting when we read about someone like Hans Reiser to want to make some connection between his computer "genius" abilities and what he did. But I don't buy it. There are too many people out there doing amazing things with computers. How many of them have killed people? Likewise with the narcissistic personality disorder.
We want to believe that we could have seen the signs. He was arrogant, overbearing, ambitious; he didn't seem to care about people. This describes a lot of people in the technology industry (e.g. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates.)
There was something else that drove Hans Reiser to kill his wife. We will likely never really know what it was.