Letters to the Editor
ELYDOG
Published Letters: 497 Editor's Choice: 43
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Not There
[Read the article: Why are Bluetooth headsets so lame?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What irritates me about "blue tooth" users, iPod users and some cell phone users is that they are 'not there'... literally. They are in 'tech' land. Spaced. Gone. Out of touch. Our society, even in a 'crowd,' is now just a bunch of 'wired' individuals. On a plane, in an airport, on the street, wired to the internet, but to no one around them.
The second part is the usual class character of the people with the 'blue tooths' on. As other posters have noticed, they are upper middle class male businessmen. Most people with cell phones are kids blathering away about nothing, or uncomfortable with being alone, or uncomfortable with reading or the situation around them. These guys want you to believe they are selling a load of cement to someone every minute. Maybe they are. Then fuck 'em, because I don't want to be in their 'office.'
No amount of 'hidden technology' will get around the talking-to-yourself-in-a-crowd problem, Farhad. Public and private space has now collapsed into one space, and and I for one don't want to be in these petit-bourgeois creep's private space. Like Hummers, maybe the headsets just need to be ripped off and stepped on.
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Pants Down
[Read the article: Arthur M. Schlesinger's playbill for the American century]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, Blumenthal certainly pulls his pants down for this one. Ah, the Kennedys! The Bourbon! The beautiful winners! The historic pedigree! American Politics and fun! Do you know who I know?
The history of any age is not the history of it's presidents.
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Population Rise
[Read the article: Earth to PETA]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am a fish vegetarian that quit eating meat, partly for ethical reasons and partly environmental.
It is always funny to see the fulminations of the American greedy when their beef is threatened, as you see here in the letters column. This article, while making fun of PETA in the headline, actually embraces their main point, which was also made by "Diet for a Small Planet" ... in 1970. I have stopped drinking milk and gone to soy. But eggs are a product of chickens, not cows, which is the only mistake I see in this article.
The development of oil-driven agriculture is what has lead to the large population rise. This agriculture has given a turbo boost to meat production at the same time. That and the idiocies of various religions, which oppose birth control methods, have lead to far higher populations.
People who want a 'die off' are not much different from Nazis. Peak oil will shut off the petro-agriculture so much of the world lives on. It will work to reduce populations. To avoid mass starvation, birth control has to be promoted and a sustainable agriculture, done most notably now by Cuba, has to be developed - now.
Living the way we do now is over. Chuckling about the Hummer PETA was using (sarcasm on their part?) doesn't suffice.
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Democracy
[Read the article: Chris Floyd for Glenn Greenwald: The Democrats' year of living disastrously]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Looking at the last many years, I'd have to say, we do not live in a democracy. It does not surprise me, of course, but it is nevertheless too obvious to overlook anymore.
Being voting cattle for the corporate Democrats does not work. And it never will. That Party has to split. The right is working to split the Republican party. I would say the left should work to split the Democrats.
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Back to the past
[Read the article: Earth to PETA]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Remember when meat was a treat? There was a reason for that...
Mr. Riddler,
The question of eating food from other countries is somewhat up in the air. Generally I think it makes sense that eating locally is better. But I think there are studies that show ocean tankers using less fuel than disel or gasoline trucks. Of course, with peak oil, we will be forced to eat locally.
I don't think any vegans or vegetarians or fish vegetarians think you can eat out of your backyard alone. Where did you get this? The simple rule is if they don't have to cut down forests to plant cow food, in Brazil or elsewhere, that is a net gain. Or cover 60% of the midwest with corn for ruminants that eat grass... I.E. waste of land, gasoline, inputs, and the animals themselves.
No one is forcing someone who can't do without meat medically to do so. That is silly. But the myth that you cannot live without beef is just that, a myth. You have to eat more intelligently, and get your protein from other sources, but then, that is what vegetarians are asking. Somehow India developed a vegatarian culture of many years, and somehow survived as a society. If they return to meat in a major way in that country, they would truly overload their landmass.
The massive meat diets we have are a product of the cheap oil fiesta, and it's going away, folks.
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Wet ... and dry
[Read the article: Why does Glenn Beck hate California so much?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Up in the northern tier, Minnesota, our fall too was semi-truncated, due to the drought, which made trees turn early, then massive rains for weeks, which are the most in 103 years. The trees still think it's summer down here in the southern part of the state due to the rain, and only now are changing.
Then across the whole southern U.S. - California to Arizona, there are 10 year droughts, and to Georgia and northern Florida, severe drought threatening Lake Lanier, Atlanta's source of fresh water. Only Texas gets flooded. You'll remember the fires that burned in southern Georgia for weeks earlier in the summer.
Can you say odd, extreme weather?
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Caught
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While we all knew the military has for years been political since Korea and Vietnam, Glenn has teased it out of them in public again.
I think the American people need their OWN army - and it is not the one we have now. Even the state-based 'national' guard has become a tool of the federal government. This actually happened under Reagan, during the attempt to overthrow the Sandinistas.
We need people's militias!