Letters to the Editor
DurianJoe
Published Letters: 1310 Editor's Choice: 69
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Question for Farhad and the other tech savants here.
[Read the article: $1, $2 or $5 -- how much would you pay to watch TV?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I could follow what you all were writing with regard to downloading TV shows and playing them over your TV, but it's obvious that I am a tech idiot compared to you all.
Can any of you recommend a website, or even a book (gasp!), that explains in simple terms what the heck you all are talking about? Something akin to an idiot's guide to using the internet to get TV shows and movies?
Thanks.
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Fliddly-Wadiddly
[Read the article: Burqini creator hearts "Opus"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]TrudyB, you're the one who listed the secular mass murderers of the 20th century, so it was valid for me to point out that had the religious mass murderers throughout history had access to modern weapons, for use on (yep, highly dense) populations, it would have dwarfed the body counts created by Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao. I left out Hitler because he was informed by some kind of twisted religiousity.
You make a good point that religion is not the only motivation for spectacular human carnage. That's indisputable. However, I'll wager that if somebody bothered to do the research, they would find that the incidents of mass killing and war motivated by religion far outnumber those motivated by secular ideology.
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Dario Argento: Overrated
[Read the article: Toronto Film Festival]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a blood-dyed in the wool horror fan, I have tried to like Dario Argento's movies. He's got a wonderful visual style, and his best films, like Suspiria, come off as incredible fever dreams that really hit the horror sweet spot. He's also pretty good at the old ultra-violence.
Unfortunately, his films suffer from lousy acting, inane dialogue, cheesy music, and most importantly -- as with so many other Italian horror directors -- plots which are either nonexistent, or riddled with more holes than Bonnie & Clyde. With all that going against it, you need some damn good visuals and gore and cheap explotative nudity to make the film worth sitting through, and IMHO, Argento does that perhaps 50 percent of the time.
Maybe Mother of Tears will be better. I'm not holding my breath. Alas, though I appreciate Mr. Argento's efforts, his films are highly overrated. And don't even get me started on Fulci.
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The actual problem.
[Read the article: Burqini creator hearts "Opus"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with you, TrudyB. Underlying it all is the essential problem, which in my opinion is that there is no species as cruel and murderous as homo sapiens. I'd like to believe we will actually evolve into better beings, but I think that instead, we'll just destroy and kill ourselves and everything around us. Hopefully something better will replace us.
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Eating the flesh of tortured animals, and what the real animal activists do.
[Read the article: Feminist blog goes to the dogs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Fetboy, I'm glad that you support efforts to improve the terrible treatment of animals in the meat industry. By coincidence I watched a documentary last night on New York public access television about the pig industry. Pigs, who are smarter than dogs, suffer from birth until death. The scale of suffering is astounding and should be illegal in any country which considers itself civilized. By that test, the USA remains a barbaric and backwards hellhole. As for your own experience, while I understand your desire to treat your host with respect, I cannot understand how you could eat the flesh of an animal which you know suffered horribly prior to its death. I am reminded of the Alice Walker short story, "Am I Blue," in which she realized that the steak she was eating came from an abused steer. She concludes by stating, "I realized I was eating misery, and spit it out."
Purplegirl, I appreciate your points, but disagree with your conclusion. Real animal activists don't work with "stock," they work with animals who were considered stock (property), but who were fortunate enough to be rescued from that situation. The animal activists with shit on their boots can be found at places like Farm Sanctuary (www.farmsanctuary.com).
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Fetboy & Allie
[Read the article: Feminist blog goes to the dogs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Fetboy:
You're in luck. They do sell humanely raised meat. Look in stores like Whole Foods, if you have them near you. Look for words like "free range," or "cage-free," or even something explicit like "humanely raised." There is a growing consumer demand for this kind of meat, eggs, and dairy, and the more people like you who buy it, the more mainstream it will become. Besides being better for animals and the environment, it will be better for you, as the quality and wholesomeness of animals raised outside of factories is much higher than otherwise.
But hey, aren't you Buddhist? What's up with that and eating meat?
Allie, I don't know about Vietnam, but in the Koreas dogs are often abused first before being killed for food, e.g., by slow hanging combined with being beaten with sticks. The International Fund for Animal Welfare has documented this. The theory is that the abused animals excrete adrenaline, thus making their flesh taste better. Needless to say, I have certain feelings about this practice which would probably result in homicide were I to be in the vicinity.
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Anonymous, you misunderstand the criticism of puppy mills
[Read the article: Feminist blog goes to the dogs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People do not criticize puppy mills because they produce cute dogs, or big dogs, or small dogs, etc. They criticize them because they are usually large, filthy, abusive of the breeding dogs, and indifferent to the health of the puppies. It is this negligent and cruel quality which renders such operations "mills."
If your Indian relation is a breeder who cares well for all the dogs, he is not a puppy mill owner and wouldn't, by myself and the animal rights advocates I know, be accused of running a puppy mill.
However, I don't know what the homeless animal situation is like in India, but if it's like the United States and the rest of the world, India's animal shelters are probably filled with good puppies and dogs who need to be adopted; otherwise, they will be put to death to make room for the new animals. In that case, why would your Indian relative intentionally breed more dogs when so many others already alive need homes?