Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 146 Editor's Choice: 12
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Thanks for the reminder
[Read the article: Misbegotten "Moon"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Lonesome Dove" was the only book my father ever gave me to read. A fairly slow reader, I lived in it for about two weeks. It is one of those stories that can pull you in completely, with a landscape so broad and characters so vivid that you are no longer a reader, but a participant, in this case part of the trail drive. A man should be so lucky as to write one such book in his life. I was lucky enough to read it.
When the movie was being hyped, I didn't expect it to be worth watching. No one could measure up to the characters in the book, I thought, and even felt resentful. I watched it anyway, and was sucked in immediately. The casting was brilliant - except for a few. Chris Cooper, Robert Urich, and Frederic Forrest were unconvincing to me, but some of the others were strokes of genius. Rick Schroder was passable, but the strong performances by everyone else in the cast made his role work well enough. I think the best cast choices, other than Duvall and Jones, were Danny Glover and Angelica Huston, huge surprises. Diane Lane was pretty unbelievable too.
I'll probably watch this show too, not expecting much. I didn't read the book this time, so I won't be disappointed. Westerns are so rare on TV these days, that just about anything will do. I probably wouldn't know about this offering if I hadn't read this review.
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Slick Willie unmasked
[Read the article: Bill Clinton: The Chris Matthews of South Carolina]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm actually glad that Bill Clinton is doing what he is doing. He is revealing himself to be the low form of life that some of us have always known him to be. If there were no "Clinton fatigue" by the time he left office, there is now.
We won't be hearing "the first black president" anymore, thankfully. The loyalty of "African-Americans" to Bill Clinton is about as deep as a thimble, dependent on performance. He was more image than substance on a good day, and now the image is gone. Slick Willie ain't so slick anymore.
Lest we forget, it was Bill Clinton who enforced the sanctions and bombed "Iraq" well before the Bush criminal regime came to power. It was Bill Clinton who bombed Belgrade. It was Bill Clinton who gave us NAFTA and CAFTA, telecommunications "reform," and welfare "reform." He also gave us Waco, which was a debacle enough to rile the unbalanced among us, especially Timothy McVeigh.
One thing we might want to ask ourselves is what is so absolutely necessary for some to be elected president of the United States? What ego and survival needs make it imperative that they are "elected?" Why would a man or woman be willing to lose his or her soul just to be king for a day - which is what it amounts to in the grand scheme of things? Maybe Slick Willie can tell us.
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Look a little deeper
[Read the article: Republicans make Fox News sick]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One could almost get the impression from this story that "Fox News" has been "exposed." Though Eric Boehlert has been a top notch writer for years, he didn't take this story very far.
The real nature of Fox News is more vile than just a propaganda network. It is a con game, presenting propaganda as entertainment, with the goal being not just ratings, but an increasing monopoly role for Fox in media power, expanding its "empire" into areas before unheard of.
Hannity, O'Reilly, et. al. are really nothing more than performers. Entertainers. Not very good ones either. I've known a few people who have been their followers. They are not very bright. The way you can tell they are fans of these shows is that they recite what they heard as if it were knowledge that they figured out themselves, without citing the source of their "knowledge."
By now some of these not-so-bright people have gotten a hard dose of reality to challenge their faith: job losses, loss of house, no health insurance, a relative or friend killed or wounded in "Iraq" or "Afghanistan," high gas prices, flood, fire, tornado, or other effects of climate change. Continuing song and dance on Fox has no answers to these problems.
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Loaves and fishes
[Read the article: Enemies everywhere]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One sure way of knowing you are dealing with a fake pundit - in other words a pundit - is when singular people are referred to in the plural. In this case, we have the Vladimir Putins, Osama bin Ladens and Harry Reids. As far as I know, there is only one Vladimir Putin, one Osama bin Laden, and one Harry Reid. Referring to these people as plural is a way of generating an air of sophistication, of stylized expression of insider knowledge, of superior understanding.
This practice started in the 60s, when there really were plural actors on the political stage. We had McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, along with Walt Whitman Rostow and Eugene Rostow. They were in varying degrees officials in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. One would often read in those days, and days afterward, of the Bundys and the Rostows. Because they were like-minded, the plural grew to mean a type as well as more than one in actual fact.
Thusly the curse was cast. Nowadays just about anyone is referred to in the plural, no matter how singular the presence. In days to come, this practice will be put to the test. George W. Bush, for example, is one of several Bushes to be foisted on the public stage: Prescott, George H.W., Jeb, and Neil. When "the Bushes" are referred to in the future, it could mean people of the type of George W., of the member of his gang, or of the actual Bush family. It's enough to make you go nucular.
And, of course, we have the Clintons.
(Note: I don't mean this as a slam on Glenn Greenwald. He is only quoting someone else. If anything, we need more Glenn Greenwalds.)