Letters to the Editor
The Professor
Published Letters: 421 Editor's Choice: 26
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End of interview
[Read the article: God and gorillas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A few letters have commented on being a bit put off by the end of the interview. Paulson does seem to be attempting to push King into talking explicitly about her own religious beliefs, which she refuses to do. Paulson's series of interviews is the product of work funded by the Templeton Foundation, which (among other things) has been active in trying to resolve tensions between the communities of science and religion. So, many of Paulson's interviews seem geared to getting people to say, "I am a scientist, and I do believe in God." With King, he failed (he didn't event try with Dawkins). I'm happy King refused to play along. Though I like Paulson's interviewing generally, it's a bit uncomfortable when an interviewer seems to be trying too hard to use their interviewee to promote their own personal/political/intellectual agenda. As others have said, I think this is the source of the unfortunate and inaccurate line about how King explains "why it's OK for scientists to believe in God." It's Paulson's agenda to get across that notion, but not King's. She says no such thing.
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Public figure as friend
[Read the article: Molly lives]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Rarely does the passage of a well-know person, whom I've never met, make me cry, but I burst into tears last night when I heard about Molly Ivins. Her voice was personal and immediate - as if she was talking only to you. No crap. No formality. Not being able to read her each month in the Progressive will be missed like not having a regular coffee with a good friend.
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Paris lures me into a dark place
[Read the article: Paris: F-bombs, n-bombs and a "public school bitch"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is all ripe - all the complaining about Paris coverage from people who are obviously spending a LOT of time reading about her. I also care don't care to follow this young woman's career, but was intrigued by the number of letters written about this clip and had to check it out. Regarding Lauerman's posts, I find them fun. Many magazines (The Nation, NY Review of Books, Harpers, ...) allow writers to respond to attack letters. That it occurs nearly in real time here is much more exciting. Ah, the good old Salon, with sex columns and porn reviews, you sure have fallen. Kind of miss the pre-lapsarian Salon.
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Re: attack letters
[Read the article: Paris: F-bombs, n-bombs and a "public school bitch"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dear Dr. Tense Sphincter,
My comment wasn't intended to be an endorsement of the *content* of Lauerman's posts (which, yes, leave something to be desired), but the mere fact of their existence. Some of the objections to those posts were grounded in the idea that an author shouldn't be allowed to join in on these forums (fora, for you literature professors), which would be a dull rule to follow, and a bit unfair. Why should readers be allowed to post whatever hateful drivel they want about a piece, but call the writer thin-skinned for responding? As I mentioned before, writers regularly respond to letters published in magaizines, and I don't see why that shouldn't happen here. Yes, this venue is different, but I think it only makes it more exciting to imagine the author of a piece I'm writing about reading my post, and perhaps responding to it. That this sort of elecronic space allows potential dialogue between reader and writer is a fascinating development, not 'bad form.'
On Gilligan's Island,
TP
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Cancel Subscription?
[Read the article: Camille's back!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've got to admit to generally agreeing in the past with those who mocked the 'cancel my subscription' crowd as childish whiners. But in this case, with such a monumentally stupid decision, I'm with the quitters. The decision to bring Paglia back is a real screw-you to the vast majority of Salon readers who replied following her last piece here. The problem is NOT that she is right-of-center - her ideas are so incoherent and random that they fall in no particular ideological space. I've subscribed to Salon for about five years, but once my current subscription runs its desultory course, I'm not going to re-up.
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Editor's pick?
[Read the article: Camille's back!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact that CP was chosen today as the 'Editor's Pick,' following 24 hours of outcry over the decision to bring CP back, adds to the 'screw you' message that Salon seems to want to send its most committed readers. I guess they want different readers.
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What is god?
[Read the article: My daily bread]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hidden in this debate is the fact that god means so many different things to different people who say they believe in god. Like a mathmatical variable, you can say god=just-about-anything (hope, mystery, the unknown, that-which-is-better-than-ourselves, etc.). Once you're beyond god=old-man-with-beard-in-sky, you're in the relm of the empy signifier that you can fill with whatever you want. For example, if you believe that god=the mystery of the universe, when it is shown that there is some mystery in the universe, that is your proof of god. Logically, it's not much more than saying, "let god=tacos; there are tacos, therefore god exists." That being said, I do understand the position that rationality alone cannot be our sole guide through life. From "should I have two cups of coffee or one?" to "should I leave my partner?" we operate from a deficit of sound data with which to make decisions. We are often having to supplement data-based decision-making with something else, something less rational and more intuitive. I think the problem we have as a culture is a lack of agreement on what questions can be answered rationally based on data, and which can't. It was news in the paper this morning that an increasing number of Americans don't believe in evolution. That's an example of a question for which we DO have enough data to make a rational decision (YES, virginia, there is evolution). On the other hand, I might not have any good data that I should be good to my children, but I have decided to be. I have filled a gap in data with an intuitive belief in goodness. I choose not to call that god, but maybe someone else would.
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Thanks, victoria
[Read the article: My daily bread]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Christians are persecuted by atheists in the same way that heterosexual marriage is threatened by gay marriage.