Letters to the Editor
healthyskeptic
Published Letters: 671 Editor's Choice: 14
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-- wetnap
[Read the article: Why Blockbuster is gaining on Netflix]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Have to agree with "wetnap" about why Schlockbuster sucks. Everything about BB is "Orange Julius" mall crap, to the core.
I only tried them at a point when I was PO'ed about Netflix's slowed return policy. I have the minimum plan with BB only reluctantly, only for the in-store Schlock they rent which is about 1/3 of my DVD watching.
Also, BB is from what I've heard a crappy place to work much like WALMART. I knew an assistant mng at a store in the early 90's and he told me horror stories of low pay and BS policies designed to squeeze employees. All video store work is low pay, but most are at least owned by decent people. BB is low pay + all the corporate BS you can imagine.
Like those lame uniforms for example, that are never clean or well fitting anyways. They're always unwashed and covered in dandruff and don't fit the pimply teenager underneath. But some corporate douche bag won't let the teenagers they employ wear their own clothes with some guidelines, which would probably at least be clean and fit. Nor do they pay anyone enough to give a shit, including managers.
Then there is the copious amount of crap and bad lighting in all the stores. Who buys Redvines and all the crap they sell anymore? It's probably due to some khaki clad fossil executive's romantic notion of a "family video store." Ugh.
Blockbuster certainly is the WALMART of video rental in many ways. It's just a fundamentally bad, tacky, Machiavellian, company.
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-- saustin
[Read the article: Why Blockbuster is gaining on Netflix]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yep, Shortbus is one Schlockbuster doesn't stock. And it was a pretty highly acclaimed film, as viable for business as many other indie films and more than many.
Since having both, I've found it's fairly common though for BB to lack DVD Netflix has. Beyond the "blockbuster" movies, unsurprisingly, Schlockbuster doesn't have much inventory. Somebody somewhere probably tracks what BB doesn't have.
What I've found to be a far more common problem, is that BB gets movies late, or the waiting list is seemingly endlessly long. Plenty of times I've found Netflix gets cool movies on the day they're released, and BB gets them months or years later, if ever.
All Blockbuster really does well are blockbuster films.
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causation and correlation
[Read the article: Casual hookups cause "gray rape"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Causation and correlation. Does Flory know the difference?
Hookups in sketchy situations don't "cause" rape, but they do predictably "correlate" with increased rape and place the participants outside the bounds of what law enforcement and evidentiary standards are capable of adjudicating. It's by nature in a gray area where the likelihood of rape is increased, and defense, both physical and legal, are more difficult.
Also, placing oneself outside the reasonable and known limits of law enforcement is to some extent taking on a responsibility for for whatever may come of that, or at least removing law enforcement from the responsibility of rectifying the situation.
For example, if one is into S&M, and frequently incurs injury consensually with strangers, it will be harder to claim rape later, as evidence of injury is not necessarily, or even likely, the result of non-consensual acts; as would otherwise be a reasonable assumption with someone who never incurs injury consensually.
To most people I'd think this is patently obvious. But not to Flory or her Dworkin-like fans.
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-- AKA Smith
[Read the article: Miss dumb blond USA?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are a lot of idiots posting to BS incapable of making a logical argument or putting forth a reasonable hypothesis for anything. Don't take it personally. It's intentional, due to the idiotic columnists whose only real purpose is to generate tabloid controversy for clicks.
And as bad as Lyn Cheney is, the idea America's problem with geography, which goes back many decades, is due entirely, majority, or even significantly to her, is patently idiotic.
There are many reason's, primarily that we're a huge country isolated by vast distances and two oceans, where people travel internationally very little, and we have tremendous leisure time spent on frivolity with ever decreasing academic scores. By comparison, most developed countries in Europe and Asia have many countries on their borders which they frequently travel to, and share international events such as European Football. Also, average and median European and Asia academic scores have long been higher than American.
Apparently you don't have much information in your head, and notions rattle around eventually sticking to what little data you have, much like tumble-weeds and brambles on a barren landscape. Which produces something resembling an epiphany in you, which you then type down, because you're too ignorant to distinguish that from a well considered hypothesis, never having experienced one.
Which means of course you're the perfect job candidate for Salon's click generating tabloid sections. You should apply.
Though I imagine the Salon events must be an uncomfortable mix between the tabloids like BS and Manjoo the clueless, and Salon's real journalists, with functioning brains.