Letters to the Editor
mattozan
Published Letters: 11 Editor's Choice: 1
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Leave it up
[Read the article: Anna Nicole Smith dead]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's no point in averting our eyes from who Anna Nicole Smith was, which is to say, what we made her.
For me, this video clip does not give rise to feelings of derision or belittling. Rather, it elicits a pity for this woman who tried her damnedest to cope with the poisonous celebrity culture with which we suffocate our heroes.
I don't laugh and sneer because she's appears drunk here. I cry for her because, in the midst of having almost everything, it is pretty clear to the outside observer that she had almost nobody.
I want to believe that I would deal with that situation more gracefully, but I probably wouldn't. Watch the video again, and consider that it is you and your proclivity for celebrity dirt that is responsible for this slow motion wreck.
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Brilliant
[Read the article: Buzz kill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you for this beautiful piece.
I worked with honeybees at UC Davis for a summer many years ago. I got stung three times, far enough apart that I never got comfortable with it.
I remember how fascinated I was with the drones, who held to such a high standard of absolute and utter laziness. I would bring my friends by the hive just to show them, "Look! They don't do anything! They just lay around and get fed, waiting to make their move on a queen!" (ahh, the low budget dreams of young male undergrads!)
In your two short pages those memories re-awoke in me. I should look into starting a hive of my own.
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Cristina's post-wedding breakdown
[Read the article: Finale wrap-up: "Grey's Anatomy"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think it was half-relieved at all. She realizes all at once that she is free from the maddening forces of conformity and compromise that came with being with Burke, but that the cost of that freedom is being completely alone.
TV shows these days try to slather irony onto everything, but this one is particularly well-constructed. She gets what she wants, only to find it wasn't what she wanted at all.
Cristina has been terrified of trust, dependence and vulnerability--of what she would lose in a relationship. Now Burke and that pressure are gone, and she expects to feel relieved. But instead she is horrified to find that she is still haunted by the specter of loss; this time it's the loss of what might have been--a new Cristina.
Alex, of course, is in a parallel story with Eva. He also is given the opportunity to take a terrifying turn in his life, to risk becoming a different, and perhaps better, person. And his realization is also too late.
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Mr. Breathed is doing Salon illustrations now?!
[Read the article: "The Sopranos" prediction pool]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yay! Seeing his unmistakable artwork grace Salon's pages is like getting hit with a ray of sunshine. Color me pleased!
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Panel 8
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Love the little nod to Salon there--Binkely looks like he's reading Farhad Manjoo!
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Hoist *by* his own petard
[Read the article: In defense of Larry Craig]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not to be a grammar fascist, but I think Salon should be true to The Bard.
A "petard" is an explosive charge. You can be blown up ("hoist") *by* this device, but it is not something that you would be "hoisted on."
The fact that "petard" derives from the French word for "fart" makes the phrase particularly apt in this essay!
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Making a real budget
[Read the article: My big, fat, unpaid credit card bill]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I kept getting frustrated with the lack of a usable budget feature in the mainstream personal finance programs (Quicken, MS Money, etc.)
I finally found youneedabudget.com and got a budget that works. When I was a little kid, "budgeting" meant divvying my allowance up into envelopes for various categories. If I didn't spend everything in a particular category, I could "carry it forward" into the next month. YNAB is the only budget program I've found that lets you carry unused balances forward in this same way.
Without this capability, the other programs' "budgets" are really just frustratingly irrelevant measures of how closely the current month is following the pattern of previous months. Useless.
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The video is good, vut the column MUST remain
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You are King of the written word. I am not a big sports fan, but I am a big fan of your column because your it makes me feel sports-smart. You strike a careful balance between in-depth commentary and helpful explanation, and you do a great job of contextualizing sports headlines which would otherwise be hard to grasp. [I now have strong opinions on the BCS, for instance :)]
Now this video clip is good. Both fantasy managers and their spouses will find it funny-because-it's-true. And I love your dog! But I would be sorry to see it replace your column.
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to update Karl Marx
[Read the article: The awesome experience of Grand Theft Auto ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"GTA4 ist das Opium des Volkes."
If video games really affect us as deeply in real life as Jack Thompson alleges, what we really need next from Rockstar is a "WTO Protest" game. You roam the streets of Seattle with a bandanna, some bricks and a megaphone. To win the game you must smash every Starbucks window along Pine Ave, infiltrate the Sheraton Hotel and turn the ideology of each delegate through Socratic dialog.
Now that's some escapism I could get into!
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@ BASummers
[Read the article: Where's the girl horse?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ever since Barbaro I've been trying to figure out why distressed animals have such an emotional lock on me, while distressed people do not. I think I've come to the same conclusion as you--it is some combination of their innocence, their lack of comprehension, and their lack of resources.
Even though I know the image is largely apocryphal or mythic at this point, seeing a polar bear foundering on a melting ice floe does far more in galvanizing me against human-caused climate change than anything you could tell me about the number of people who's coastal homes will be inundated.
I feel bad about that, but I can't seem to change it.
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Humiliations Galore
[Read the article: Canseco KO'd]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mr. Canseco's humiliation was deepened by his claim of having a "martial arts background," which was nowhere in evidence.
And also by pre-fight gestures he made toward Mr. Sikahema's corner, which included drawing his finger across his throat.
Oh, and also by Sikahema's post-fight comments: "He's a very impressive looking guy...but the guy is a walking corpse because he's rotted inside out. He's a pathetic figure"
Earth to Canseco: Get a new agent.