Letters to the Editor
debaser
Published Letters: 652 Editor's Choice: 11
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@ vrakj
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You said "However, on average, the guys who make it in the major leagues have a hell of a lot more ability than those who did not."
I'm not so sure I agree with this. The players that make it to star status for sure have more ability, but I'm not sot sure the same applies for the journeymen of any sport. I know that in hockey (the sport I know best), that for every grinder on a fourth line there are hundreds of players toiling in the AHL ECHL, or Europe that have the talent and ability to fill that role. So why does one grinder get the roster spot over another? Usually it's an off-ice reason, the coach has a history with the player, or is seen as a good locker-room guy, or is friends with the team's star player etc etc. The point is, it's very rarely about talent at the bottom end of the league. The only real difference between 4th line duty in the NHL and 1st line in the minors is about $300,000/year.
as far as the team dynamic goes, I suspect it has less to do with "learning how to win" than it does with "coming close and hating how much it sucks to lose". Look at the Ottawa/Pittsburgh series this year, Ottawa, which has a history of losing met the hottest (and youngest) team in the league and smoked them.
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Cartoon Conservatives
[Read the article: "Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The standard refrain from the right-wing zealots always reminded me of that South Park episode.
The one where the friend keeps saying "Simpsons did it!"
"Clinton did it! Clinton did it!"
pathetic. Just pathetic. Politics my friends, should NOT be a zero sum game. What your guy did was abhorrent, and EVERYONE knows it...so stop with the bloody Clinton conflation!
p.s Keith Olbermann is the only thing worthwhile on tv. His commentaries are the best thing since Lewis Lapham's editorials a few years back (before he got kinda lazy)
p.p.s To the anonymous poster who posted all of those Democrats saying Saddam was a threat. Notice how not ONE of them said "we must invade them"? It says alot about the conservative mindset that when someone says "this person is a threat" they hear "we need to blow em up real good"
happy 4th of july...I guess.
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just to recap...aka the twisted logic of a neocon
[Read the article: "Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1)Keith Olbermann is nothing but a sportscaster who has no credibility to speak of such matters...
2)Keith Olbermann never spoke out against Clinton's pardons, so that makes him a hypocrite.
but wasn't he naught but a sportscaster in '98?
apparently for Olbermann to have any legitmacy he should've been screaming down the house at ESPN all about Clinton's pardons instead of telling us about Sosa and McGwire. However, if he was as insane to actually do that in '98, he would've been pilloried for not knowing his place...
oh the logic is beginning to implode...it's starting to sag under the weight of its sheer insanity/audacity. Maybe good times really are on the way!
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sheesh
[Read the article: In the wonderland of ruins]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let's all take a deep breath:
alright now...the Genocide of the Armenians was horrific, brutal, and a stain on humanity. The fact that the Turkish government has not owned up to it is also appalling, and the fact that western governments (United States and Canada at least) also haven't recognized it is shameful.
however....
To criticize Gary Kamiya for not mentioning it in a travelogue is simply preposterous.
Would you do the same if he had written something about his trip to Germany?
"Gary, how can you talk about how beautiful Berlin is in the spring without mentioning the horrors of Hitler? FOR SHAME!"
(seems kinda preposterous donnit?)
p.s. Gary, I'm beginning to suspect you are far and away the best Writer on Salon's staff...man you turn a good phrase!
cheers,
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important point
[Read the article: How did baseball botch its tribute to Willie Mays?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hey Joan,
I guess you should've been warned, if you take on King's beat you also take on his blow-hard posters...RealName's silly machismo thing, Wesley's irksome habit of posting one sentence notes...actually I kinda missed you guys in King's absence :)
(i'm just waiting for good ol' "Mikes Pace" to wade in with his glowing tribute to all things Ohio ;)
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@Steve in Buffalo
[Read the article: Rudy and Romney: Artful dodgers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Right on!
The point is that if you're gonna act like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Steve McQueen all rolled into one then you better be damn sure you can back it up!
It isn't sufficient to reply "well Clinton didn't serve either!" (really, that tactic is truly played out), after all you don't see Democrats beating the war drum like a pack of power-mad jackals the way the oh-so-manly men of the Republican Party do.
Democrat service really doesn't come in play because they aren't playing the bullsht alpha male card...
...you know, actually that REALLY irritates me. This whole false assumption that in order to succeed at international diplomacy you need not be anything more than a playground bully would be hilarious if it wasn't so prevalent. Do you REALLY think that international relations are on par with those between 10 year olds?? Gimme a break.
but I digress..good article Joe!
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@ Flyover
[Read the article: "40 Reasons Not to Have Children"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You wrote:
"A woman writes a book saying she regrets having children. So what? My parents regretted moving to the Southwest. Should they write a political treatise about it?"
Oh man, that's some comedic gold right there...thanks for almost making me spittake my pepsi at work!
cheers!
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yes "Eric Free"
[Read the article: "The Simpsons Movie"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You are.
(although I do like the meta-commentary you got going there - acting all superior because you don't like humour that acts all superior...now THAT'S post-modern man! :)
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where's the outrage?
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]now that America has seemingly turned it's back on cycling simply because of the actions of a few white, European men?
Has our long-standing hatred of our colonial forebearers finally raised it's ugly head leaving us to paint the inhabitants of an entire continent with the same brush?
For shame I say! For Shame!!!!
(sometimes a cigar, my friends, is just a cigar ;)