Letters to the Editor
jcnighs
Published Letters: 7 Editor's Choice: 1
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Ortiz? Come on! Youkilis is getting robbed!
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How can you ignore the controversy at first base in the American League? Kevin Youkilis, the every day Red Sox first baseman has been stellar defensively - he has yet to commit an error this season, and is only a few games away from tying the all-time Red Sox record for consecutive error free games. And his offensive numbers compare pretty well to Ortiz -
Youkilis: 8 HR, .415 obp, .333 ba
Ortiz: 12 HR, .449 obp, .332 ba.
I can see an argument for Ortiz being an all-star, but are his offensive numbers really so much better that you can completely throw Youkilis defensive play out the window? It's not Youk's fault that there's no DH spot. Youk is clearly the best first baseman in the AL this year.
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Pat Patriot ditched for commercial reasons
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I had always heard that "Pat" was ditched for Elvis because the Krafts do not hold the trademark for Pat, and thus would get more licensing revenue by creating their own new logo.
Alternatively some say the old logo is too "complex" and too difficult to reproduce on the myriad items that get stamped with logos these days.
It's also odd that the fans love the old logo more, but the Boston media seems to hate it. When the Pats played the Lions in throwback jerseys 4 years ago I remember the Boston press making snide remarks like "throw those red jerseys away."
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Think pragmatically
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I see a lot of moral posturing here, a lot of people saying Wahoo and other native-American logos "need to go". Really? They need to? So what will happen if they don't? Explain to me just how anyone's life will be improved by destroying these logos. How will Native Americans benefit from being made even more invisible in US culture? There was a time when Native Americans were seen by whites as a symbol of strength, self-resilience and pride, a time reflected by names like the Braves and, yes, even the Redskins. I can appreciate that most people would rather not be saddled with other people's stereotypical assumptions, even if they are positive ones, but this whole crusade strikes me as misguided. If you really care about Native Americans, instead of wasting your energy crusading against logos and nicknames why don't you try to learn some Navajo or Iroquois, or learn Cherokee history, or do something to keep the dying embers of Native American culture alive for the next generation in the USA?
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Almond is green with envy, hah!
[Read the article: What's worse than watching your teams lose? Watching them win]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]99% of Boston fans are overjoyed. I personally have been waiting for this moment since 1975, the year I first became a Pats fan. Never once, not for a second, have I even considered that it was more fun back in, say, 1992 when Hugh Millen was QB, or looked back with nostalgia on the tragic waste of talent that was the 1976-78 Patriots, or missed the drug scandals of the mid 80s. Not once.
I realize non-Bostonians love to pretend that New Englanders are tortured self-loathing fans, I am sure that is a nice story that Almond tells himself as the As choke again or the Raiders complete yet another pathetic performance. And sure, a few tweedy Harvard professors and literati like to claim that mantle, but they don't speak for most of us. The truth is we in New England are simply loving life. In fact, the knowledge that not a single one of you non-Patriot fans will ever, ever in your lifetimes get to root for a football team as talented and special as the 2007 Pats just makes this run that more exhilarating.
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Anna Grant
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm a Pats fan, and from NH, and I thought it was cool that Anna got booed - I bet she did too. Just more evidence that the Patriots are on top of the football world. Any fan who is sincerely upset at the Colts fans for booing is probably a little too sensitive to be watching football games in the first place. And, for the record, I don't think Kraft was sincerely upset by Grant getting booed at all, this is just an excuse to posture and take another dig at the Colts - which in my book is just fine.
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<i>La Jalousie</I> - Excellent
[Read the article: The man who ruined the novel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let me just add my voice to those who think this is simply a ridiculous article. Robbe-Grillet was not even a particularly difficult author to read - La Jalousie is actually quite absorbing, and accessible to almost anyone - it's also a very short novel - concise and to the point, which is a quality today's wordy 19th century novelist wanna-bes should consider emulating. I wonder if Marche has ever even read La Jalousie, or if he's basing the whole article on watching the Resnais film of Marienbad.
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The younger Lieberman was a lot wiser
[Read the article: Joe Lieberman, ideological turncoat]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anxious I guess to deflect any hint that Conason might have leftist sympthaties, he calls this uncontroversial statement by Lieberman in 1970 "naive":
"One of the primary causes of the failure to achieve international atomic control and the concurrent failure to prevent the cold war was the inability of America's statesmen and people to see through the avalanche of Communist rhetoric and deal with Soviet foreign policy as something shaped by Russia's unique history and guided by the Russians' conception of their national interest. In this more accurate light, Russia's goals are seen to be more limited and less in conflict with America's."
Actually in hindsight the younger smarter Lieberman looks a lot wiser than the modern Lieberman (or the defensive Conason). By the 1950s the USSR was much more interested in spreading Russian influence than in fostering true Marxist revolutions. Russia has since discarded Communism and adopted a more or less capitalist style oligarchy, yet it still butts heads with the US. Because, as Lieberman correctly realized in 1970, ideology was never really the core issue behind the conflict, just another layer on a struggle between two great powers anxious to expand influence in a limited world. Just goes to show, experience is not everything and younger people are often more perceptive than the old.