Letters to the Editor
dhadbawnik
Published Letters: 101 Editor's Choice: 3
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agreed
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... with both of the previous letters re. lebron. i'm surprised to see so much frothing at the mouth in the media about the non-call last night (hello, chris sheridan!). bottom line, lebron could've pulled up for a jumper, hughes should've made the gimme put-back, no one should count on a ticky tack foul being called in the paint at the end of a playoff game. been there, done that last year with wade's dubiously drawn fouls, and i thought we had all agreed we didn't want to see that kind of officiating again this year.
and yes, the spurs were sitting at home laughing their asses off at this game. no way they miss both of those end-of-game chances in the finals -- if it's even that close.
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Dear Shocked:
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I was livid last night after the game ended."
Please. I've now watched the clip on youtube several times, paying attention not to James/Hamilton but the other Pistons on the floor, ALL OF WHOM are sagging off their man and just waiting for Lebron to drive the lane (and again, Marshall is WIDE OPEN in the corner). It's clear that the strategy of having Rip guard Lebron (which I thought was strange at the time) was simply to have the quickest player on the floor try to stay in front of him and not leave his feet. Check. Then wait for help. Check again. At that point there were three Pistons concentrating on James, which allowed Hughes to grab a gift rebound, and could have allowed any number of teammates to slash into the lane for a pass or a putback. As others have pointed out, the Cavs don't seem to possess those players.
Granted, there was contact. But something else no one has pointed out is that Lebron has about five inches and 50 lbs on Rip. A turnaround jumper was there for him all along, but as he did most of the night, he walked right into a crowd of players simply waiting for him under the hoop.
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big in japan
[Read the article: Bush's European disaster]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... that's what i thought when i read about bush's "wonderful" reception in albania. no offense to the japanese, or albanians. but when the american media is trumpeting how popular our president still is in places like that, it begs the question of just how low we're setting the bar for not only his popularity, but effectiveness over these last 18 months.
he's remarkably welcome in crawford, texas, as well! look -- his mother loves him, too!
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mixed up messages
[Read the article: What "truly motivates" George W. Bush?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]glenn
thanks for this. having lived in texas when bush first got elected governor, then moved to san francisco and lived there through the first term, 9/11, the ramp-up to the war, and the emormous protests that took place there, this is largely the perspective that i've had. many on the left simply don't understand the simple fact that bush actually believes that he's in the right, that u.s. = good and everyone else = bad. and they don't understand the enormous attraction of this message for millions of people.
even the grass-roots campaigning for kerry in 2004 reflected this mindset. the strategy seemed to consist largely of demonizing bush as an evil, incompetent liar. the main message coming from the left was "we can't endure another four years of this regime," an opinion many of us surely shared, but which mirrored the scare tactics already perfected by the right. i believe there were more positive themes to run on, but they got drowned out in the general screaming about how horrible things were under bush. as you argue, the left has a much more difficult, nuanced, and ultimately optimistic message to get out there. the stakes are merely the future of this country...
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thanks andrew
[Read the article: Panic on Wall Street]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... for a lucid primer to a horribly complex fiscal mess. It's tempting to point to this notoriously hands-off (except when it comes to anything involving iraq, or women's reproductive rights, or ...) administration as being responsible, but clearly we've been headed this way for a long, long time. What I'm more interested in is how this ties in to our whole sick culture. Health care administrators whose job it is to make sure you DON'T get the treatment you need. Credit card companies whose primary goal is to make sure you DON'T pay off your balance each month.
What is the common denomenator here?
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Deodand
[Read the article: Why capitalism, like nature, is beyond good and evil]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wanted to chime in to say I agree with your letter; and "St. Lucid" is anything but. The analogy between the way the health care industry works and my understanding of Mr. Leonard's explanation of the mortgage fiasco is a valid and important one. I would add -- as I did in my original comment on his article -- the way credit card companies work (or don't work) under capitalism in this country.
The bottom line is that if we insist on the "force of nature" idea of capitalism, then follow that to its logical conclusion and admit that it's nature perverted, with ends that run almost totally counter to the interests of all but the privileged few. I don't need to bust out Heidegger or Hegel or Hume for this, I can point to medieval writers like Dante (whose dad was an Italian banker) who saw the potential dangers of this system. And where are the critiques of what profit (and money itself) actually IS? Can anyone explain this? I know it's getting all Marxist and shit, which is apparently so 19th century, but some of these questions have yet to be adequately answered. Put down your philosophy and economic theory and go back and read the Inferno, it's quite illuminating -- pun intended.