Letters to the Editor
thehappychickenwillsmile
Published Letters: 17
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Fourth... and huh?
[Read the article: "First!"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, since I don't post often, I'm just not sure what's being satirized. Is the first posting often superficial? Are other posters jealous someone else got there first (and grumble, "he's not even serious," to themselves?)
I posted a video on youtube... I kinda wish someone would post first... hi, or something... It probably shouldn't be me...
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Geez, Bill
[Read the article: Say it loud: I'm elite and proud!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bush Hires Incompetents: Let's Celebrate Our Own Prejudices!
Seriously...
Left-wingers like us see the ugliness of the implied racism, etc., in right wing attitudes; we can see it clearly from afar. But everybody can fall into that kind of lazy, self-aggrandizing thinking.
Just because Bush hires clueless loyalists is not an excuse to embrace our own prejudices.
To throw out language like "redneck" and hayseed," etc., is just as narrow-minded as dismissing inner city trash, or whatever.
Second, Republicans are as elitist as they come. Let's not celebrate that stupidity either.
We all know the "elite" college degrees are about as good an indicator of intelligence as a cow is for wind direction.
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Creativity and Outreach
[Read the article: Deadly prose]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To interject into the Anonymous v. Sugarman debate...
Well, when I read about this guy, I see someone who was terrible at connecting with people to start with. Unable to draw out warmth or admiration, in all that awkwardness, he found he could intimidate instead (and so get a kind of status.)
Like anonymous, I'm uncomfortable with the way the creative writing teachers freaked out and held him at arms length... because that fed into the game that he was playing: intimidation to replace lack of friendship and status, which lead to more alienation, thus more need to intimidate, etc.
He needed to be shown the human connection. He needed to see more positive ways to stand tall in the eyes of others. Before he became a murderer, he must not have understood some of these basic social mores. People who are socially adept don't always understand some people need to be shown these things.
Sure, a councilor could have done that, maybe, or the mental institution. But, intentions aside, we all know those things come with stigmas (that, again, play into the cycle.) Now, a creative environment is a place where people help each other work on something very personal. In other words, it's a perfect place to reach out to someone like this.
It would be stupid to judge the teachers and administrators. They faced other demands, which only seem small knowing what has happened. Plus I've never been in their position.
But speaking in general, I want to believe I would have put someone like that in a 24/7 human connection workshop. I mean, no matter how he acts, just constantly reaching out, showing how his self-interest in non-alienating behavior.
Being the creep who freaked out the poetry professor was like a dress rehearsal for becoming the murderer. How can anyone embrace those frightening, negative identities, seemingly for their own sake, without hating themselves? Writing, or some kind of creative expression, is a tool to bring someone out of a place like that.
From what I read about his meetings with the department head, he must have been hard to like. And maybe referring such people to the proper authorities is all you can do. But it seems so sterilized, so bureaucratic. They aren't a problem to report. Each is a person, and people need human contact. You don't have to be a professional to provide that. Or to be determined to keep at it until you break through the cycle and find the sympathetic person, before the cycle takes over.