Letters to the Editor
Susan Wood
Published Letters: 333 Editor's Choice: 26
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Murtha gets Swift-boated
[Read the article: What's that adage about the first casualty of war?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, it had to happen: Ann Coulter has implied in print that Murtha's Purple Hearts are fraudulent.
http://www.anncoulter.org/cgi-local/welcome.cgi
I'm bummed. She published that on Wednesday, and I had a wager of two dozen donuts in the pool for Friday.
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What color is the sky in Wilson's universe?
[Read the article: Oscar castrates himself]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This woman did not see the same broadcast I did, and certainly not the same one Roger Ebert did. John Stewart was one of the best hosts in years. It's true the audience took a little time to warm up to his deadpan style, but when they did, they were laughing as hard as my husband and I were at home.
As far as I can tell, Wilson is gnawing the furniture because she wanted an excuse to rip everyone for their "embarrassing moments," and they didn't give her any. Aw, cry me a river.
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Fox News/Bush White House
[Read the article: Funny, they didn't look like Hannity and Colmes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe both Fox News and the Bush administration have forgotten that there is any difference whatsoever between the two entities.
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Pledge of allegiance
[Read the article: Oh, say can you care?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Since at least my own high school days, Latin students have been learning and reciting the Latin version of the pledge of allegiance. You'll find a grammatically accurate version here (there are a lot of really bad ungrammatical versions floating around as well):
http://www.mythfolklore.net/harriuspotter/supp/misc.htm
What's next, will Bill O'Reilly start one of his jihads against the Junior Classical League, and vow to bring horror into the lives of anyone who says the Pledge of Allegiance in anything but Ammurrikin?
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Conservative songs
[Read the article: Sex, drugs and a federal government small enough to drown in a bathtub]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There was a song in the late 70's that belongs on this list. I don't remember the exact title, but I believe it was called "Strange way to tell me you love me," which was the first line of the recurring chorus. The song is addressed to a depressed woman whose crying and sad moods have bummed out her lover. He advises her "If you just want to cry to somebody, don't cry to me." Now, having suffered from depression myself and also dealt with some depressed relatives and close friends, I would be the first to admit that depressed people can be a pain in the derriere. On the other hand, expressing your burnout in song is a rather odd choice. Songs usually proclaim their devotion to the loved one in good times and bad, promising to be a "bridge over troubled water" and inviting the other party to "lean on me when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend." So, I would say that "Strange way to tell me you love me" celebrates the ethos of encouraging self-sufficiency and of disclaiming one's own responsibility to help others. One could easily imagine Bill O'Reilly singing it to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
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P.S. to my previous post
[Read the article: Sex, drugs and a federal government small enough to drown in a bathtub]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The song I was trying to think of earlier is "Strange Way" by Firefall:
That's a strange way to tell me you love me
When your sorrow is all I can see
If you just want to cry to somebody
Don't cry to me.
Gee, what says "personal responsibility" better than a song in which the singer essentially tells his lover "Who cares about your problems? Go away and don't bother me." No nanny state for this macho man, that is until he needs a little comfort and sympathy himself, one suspects.
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Why should this be the end?
[Read the article: Is this the end for Ann Coulter?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So Coulter said Murtha should be fragged -- why is this any different from every other offensive thing she's said to boost her career? She's already called for the assassination of a sitting president, a secretary of transportation, a Supreme Court justice, the entire staff of the New York Times, and the execution of John Walker Lindh as a lesson to all liberals that they too could be executed for daring to disagree with her version of truth. What she has never done and obviously isn't capable of doing is to make a rational argument in favor of any conservative policy she supports; what she does is give voice to the screeching id of American jingoism. What's scary is that there are so many people who take her seriously. What that says about America isn't pretty.
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Well, "she" should know, shouldn't she?
[Read the article: Coulter: Bill Clinton is a "latent" homosexual]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A lot of people had Coulter figured for either a transvestite or a transsexual long before Andrew Sullivan (who knows a thing or two about these matters) called her a "drag queen pretending to be a fascist." It's hard not to notice that Adam's apple, those big, bony hands, and that deep voice. So, "she" was "glued" to the Starr report, was she? I'll be "she" was. Give it up, Ann, your secret passion for Clinton is just another hopeless crush and you'll have to go back to swooning over your picture of Bush in a flight suit.
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May-June romances
[Read the article: I'm a teacher who went too far with a former student]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Snarling Coyote has a good point. I know many happily married couples in academia who have had long and productive professional as well as personal partnerships, and who met when one was a student enrolled in a class taught by the other. When universities have tried to formulate "sexual harrassment" policies in recent decades, they have often had to tread carefully so as not to denigrate the marriages of many senior faculty members. An eighteen year old high school graduate is legally an adult, and a former teacher is, well, a FORMER teacher. Let's not assume, furthermore, that the teacher is always the instigator of these relationships. Male students have been known not only to make advances to female instructors, but to be quite persistent about them.
That said, however, it should be added that a teacher or professor doesn't stop having authority over a student the minute he gets his diploma. She still might need to write letters of recommendation for him for college admissions or jobs, and wouldn't want to be accused of conflict of interest. So one should always think very hard and carefully about accepting this sort of a romantic advance, even if it's technically ethical and legal. LW's problem appears to be that she didn't think carefully enough beforehand, and then had panicky second thoughts. She's quite young, so let's hope she has learned from this experience.