Letters to the Editor
Joel_Grant
Published Letters: 174 Editor's Choice: 13
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Feedback for Glenn
[Read the article: Interview with Aaron Brown on NYT "military analyst" story]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just listened to the interview with Brown. He comes off as fairly reasonable, and kudos to you for setting this up. But I think you need work as an interviewer.
If I were Glenn...
1. I would see if I could get Bill Moyers (I was going to say "someone like Bill Moyers" but he is sui generis, IMO) to critique my style. Bill has a way of asking the toughest of questions in the nicest of ways. Bill starts out by establishing a rapport with his interviewee and works inward from there.
2. For example, you might have started by asking Brown a bit about his current job and move from that to get him to talk about his views of what a journalist should do and what journalim is. His answers on this could guide you in building up to questions about the ways in which wartime journalism differs from other types of journalism - you get the idea.
3. I would have made notes when I read through the transcripts of Brown's shows and counted the number of pro-invasion vs. anti-invasion guests. Numbers tell the story of balance or imbalance.
4. And don't let him squirm out of tough questions. He essentially changed the subject when he started talking about how the anti-war movement didn't have the kind of focus you need to make it "easy" (Brown's word) to cover. So what - Brown and his producers should have known about Scott Ritter, Noam Chomsky and others who would have provided balance. The issue was not whether it was easier to show bombs going off than demonstrations in the park. The issue was why they were using almost exclusively pro-invasion people to spout government propaganda.
I got Glenn's latest book, read it and loved it - great job. I think Glenn is on the cusp of very big things.
But I sure hope Glenn gets some professional feedback on interviewing. I am sure it is tough to do, tough to focus on what the other person is saying, and also focus on the questions you want to explore.
But it can be done.
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Obama needs to hammer the warmongers and the right wing thug
[Read the article: Whose fault is the Clinton-Obama stalemate?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]McCain is a thuggish, corrupt, flip-flopping warmongering right wing fool with a seriously adolescent anger management problem. His slight differences with Bush and Cheney are tactical.
He didn't like the agents of intolerance until he did. He didn't like the tax cuts for the rich until he did. He was open-minded about abortion until he wasn't. He didn't like the influence of so much money on politics until he started using his foundation to skirt the laws.
He has nothing constructive to offer about any problem we have - healthcare, the economy, education - nothing. He is a great big zero.
What's more, he is a condescending ass who talks down to people who are right as often as he is wrong.
This is the guy that Clinton praises to the skies, intimating that McCain is qualified to be "commander in chief" while Obama is not.
Obama should be hammering McCain night and day, relentlessly pointing out what a phony he is. But no. He tapdances around the issues and plays right into Clinton's hands.
As for Clinton, how about this: she is a warmonger. Don't vote for her unless you run a company that sells bombs and bullets.
Man up and take them down. They are ruthless and you better believe it.
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If the Salon gig doesn't work out...
[Read the article: Why Jeremiah Wright is so wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...the Karl Rove machine might be a place where Joan Walsh could land.
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Wilber not yet fully evolved
[Read the article: You are the river: An interview with Ken Wilber]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ken Wilber is definitely on to something. He is quite wrong of course, but it isn't his fault he cannot reach my level of lepra-rationality. He just hasn't quite gotten there yet.
Some of us have gotten in touch with the leprechaun reality. True, we have not yet found the pot of gold, but let us not despair. In fact, despair is not part of lepra-rationality.
People at this higher stage of lepra spiritual development report a "non-dual awareness," a type of awareness that transcends the dichotomy between subject and object. The lepra-rational state is often (not often enough, say some) beyond words.
It is lepra-rational because you have access to rationality but it's temporarily suspended. A 6-month-old infant, for instance, is in a pre-rational state, whereas the mystic (that is, the "mystic" who has not yet achieved lepra-mysticality) is in a trans-rational (i.e., pre-lepra-rational) state. Unfortunately, "pre" and "trans" get confused. So some theorists say the infant is in a pre-lepra mystical state.
Some people say that those with a trans-rational orientation cannot make the distinction between their reality and the lepra-reality.
But I say that when people look at mystical or trans-rational states, they often confuse them with pre-rational states. People like Sigmund Freud take trans-rational, oceanic states of oneness and reduce them to infantile states of unity.
How silly is that?
I feel a little sorry for those unenlightened trans-rationalists, the integralists who are like flatlanders, psychologically and metaphysically stunted, quite unable to climb to our level.
We lepra-rationalists are typically kind enough to reach out to the trans-rationalists, meta-rationsists, rational rationalists, trans-fatty acidists and point the way to a yet higher level of consciousness and awareness.
"I want to take you higher" said the Sly sage. The lepra-rationalists are there. Will Ken Wilber be able to follow?
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Walsh STILL doesn't get it
[Read the article: I was wrong about Wright]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jeremiah Wright has absolutely nothing to do with what kind of president Barack Obama would be.
This is a gigantic red herring cooked up by right wingers and spread by right wing collaborators like Clinton and Joan Walsh and vapid media talking heads who prefer to talk about Britney Spears and Jeremiah Wright.
Totally and completely 100% irrelevant in every single way.
Shut the hell up about this crap.
Unbelievable that so much ink and press is wasted on this nothing issue while everything else in the world goes to hell, virtually unmentioned.