Letters to the Editor
Bluefelix
Published Letters: 16 Editor's Choice: 2
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So true, so sad.
[Read the article: Think you know how to read, do you?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I earned a masters in english from a R1 university last year. I didn't realize how much of my course work was badly misguided until I took a Victorian literature course with a professor who really loves books. I learned that semester what an english department is SUPPOSED to be. That said, a whole heck of a lot of what goes on in the english department is just pseudo social science. Yeah, I'm bitter. I wasted years studying trendy, feel-good "social theory" baloney. I'm just now going back and reading everything I should have read in undergrad/graduate school (this salon article has been a great help!).
Here's a true story. When I asked one of my tenured professors how she came up with my GRADUATE course reading list for gay and lesbian lit, she said she got it from looking at the top gay and lesbian book purchases on Amazon.com. Huh? What is this? How does a tenured professor not have a decent sense of what is worth reading and what is crap (I mean, what the heck are these people paid to do if not pick out some of the good stuff?). Turns out this professor has a masters in linguistics and a Ph.D in American Studies. She had never read much literature until she applied for a job in an english department. She's a *tenured* professor in an R1 english department! It's ludicrous.
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Let's Stay Focused.
[Read the article: The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm a 29 year old woman who just graduated from a big university. During my time at the university (and at the anti-war rallies and such I attended), I had a slightly different perspective than my young peers. My dad was a WWII combat veteran (my dad was 55 when I was born). When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, my father joined the marines. He wasn't drafted. My dad joined the marines because Japan ATTACKED us. My dad fought JAPAN in the south pacific. So when 9/11 happened, I understood why people joined the military, and I supported the idea that perhaps we would need to go to war with whatever people were responsible for the attack (a point on which me and my completely anti-war friends differed). As someone said earlier, not everyone who is serving over seas is a blood-thirsty moron. In this country, not so very long ago, people who joined the military out of a sense of duty directly following a major attack could expect to fight the people responsible for the attack.
BUT we can't say "imagine if after Pearl Harbor we went to war with China instead of Japan." 9/11 was not carried out by a specific country. And there's the rub, isn't it? It's hard for people to wrap their heads around the idea that we're not fighting against a country as much as we're fighting against a shadowy network of religious extremists. I suppose the people who joined the military after 9/11 were working under an old fashioned sense of duty and patriotism, the kind where when one country declares war against you then by god you fight. It just isn't that clear-cut anymore, and it hasn't been since Vietnam. It's sad that so many young people got caught up in that recruitment sweep. It could have just as easily been me if my circumstances had been different. But let's be clear. There's something really wrong with your government when you have to have an advanced degree in history in order to make an informed decision about whether or not to join the military directly following an attack. Yeah, maybe a lot of people who have been around for the last 80 years knew, and maybe people who have studied history knew, but a whole heck of a lot of us didn't, and rather than say "well, ignorance isn't bliss, is it?" to the people who joined out of a sense of duty, I think we need to keep our anger and outrage focused on the people who started this war (our elected representatives, republican and democrat alike!).
I think my father's decision to serve in the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor was an honorable one, and it makes me sick to see the current establishment take advantage of that very same desire my father had, that desire to defend the country after an attack, in order to recruit MY generation into this terrible war. When my father went to war to defend this country it wasn't so a pack of blood thirsty jackals could send future generations of Americans into friggin' Iraq like this. Seriously, I can't even talk about this anymore.
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I'm curious...
[Read the article: Why can't gay dwarves get married in Middle-earth?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]will female dwarves in the game have beards?
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Wow...
[Read the article: I feel terrible about leaving but I have to go]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now it's just getting nasty.
/popcorn
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Hmm...
[Read the article: I feel terrible about leaving but I have to go]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW, If you ever write another letter to an advice columnist (I know, I know), remember... your first mistake was opening your original letter to Cary with an insult to Cary. We like Cary. Viewing Cary as a "last resort" that you're "desperate enough" to consider is just insulting, and calling him a fellow dreamer doesn't make it better. It makes it sound like you're seeking life altering advice from a crazy person living in the woods behind your house.
I can't say that opening that way accounts for all of the stuff you're seeing in these letters, but I think it contributed to it because it made you sound arrogant and rude. So people read you as arrogant and rude through the whole letter. Know what I mean? It put a certain spin on things. I'd be careful with that sort of thing... that's why they say sit on angry emails at least 24 hours before putting them out. ;)
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LW has had the misfortune...
[Read the article: I feel terrible about leaving but I have to go]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]of being published on a weekend. Now she is going to be picked apart for days. I'm pretty sure the horse is dead, folks. lol Anyway, I hope the LW took someone's advice on page 17ish and walked away from the computer.
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I see...
[Read the article: My boyfriend is nice, but I fantasize about wilder times]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]a flame war brewing.
/popcorn