Letters to the Editor
kevred
Published Letters: 92 Editor's Choice: 8
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Sounds like a marketing gimmick that's at the same time more genuine than any other diet book
[Read the article: Hey, skinny bitch!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm a vegetarian who respects vegans, and to whom cries of "sanctimonious!" sound like the cries of the slacker kids in school against the smart kids who actually work and try things that are hard.
It's pretty obvious, through the examples mentioned in this piece, that the angle and tone the book is taking is just another variation on modern and edgy marketing--it stands out, it grabs your attention.
To single it out as having some kind of sinister agenda seems a bit unfair, though, especially when you stop and think about what the "agenda" really is. The book's "agenda" is to get you to consider where your food comes from, what processes are involved in creating it, and what effects that has on those people and creatures involved in those processes.
In other words, its agenda is to put your consumption into a larger, honest context, instead of solely focusing on what makes you fat.
Viewed in this light, it seems to me that most other diet books come off looking bad, because they're completely selfish and self-obsessed in nature: what is good and bad for me, what will make me look good, and so on. No talk about anything beyond the opening of your own mouth and the supermarket.
So, which is a worse agenda: educating people about what actually is involved in the food they eat, or an author's pursuit of personal profit by focusing solely on the narcissistic vanity of someone who'd rather remain ignorant of the messy realities behind our sanitized food consumption?
The writer seems to have fallen into the same knee-jerk reaction that much of society has to truths it doesn't want to have to deal with--demonize the source, reject the notion that what we do unthinkingly can be wrong, and make hapless victims out of people who are perfectly empowered but prefer to remain ignorant.
It's only natural to feel this rejection reaction--it's the same thing that addicts feel when confronted--but it should be a signal to open a door of understanding, not to slam it shut and blame the messenger.
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Rest in peace, Mr. Gygax!
[Read the article: Gary Gygax's final quest]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Add me to the list of those who spent many an hour happily engaged in imaginative campaigns with friends, boxes of pizza, and lots of laughs. Everyone who "gets" D&D knows exactly how special and significant this game has been for multiple generations. And those who don't...well, we never had much use for them anyway, did we? :)
Among many other benefits to playing the old game, one I always come back to is vocabulary--for a kid, playing D&D was a great way to expand your library of words, concepts, and references to history, literature, and mythology. Of course a lot of the cultural/historical references were translated somewhat for use in the game, but you can still learn an awful lot from, say, the old Deities & Demigods book.
Speaking of those old books, they still hold a special place for me. Anytime I pull one of those old, time-worn editions off the shelf, with their marvelous black & white ink illustrations (especially those by Dave Trampier), I get a good feeling.
Thanks for everything, Gary. Hope the transition to NPC is a good one.
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The defenders of China here make me sick.
[Read the article: An Olympic disgrace]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's cruelty. It's a universal language, not one that can be excused by culture. This type of behavior is simply primitive by modern standards. We can look at it through the misty eyes of history--ah, the rich grandeur of ancient China!--or through the amoral eyes of the Cultural Defender--who are we to question other cultures?--eyes which have, through history, always excused the messy details and abetted the perpetuation of suffering (which happens all the time in our Land of Denial, the USA).
But let's not let the issue get lost in equivocation and relativism. Cruelty is cruelty, whether it's horribly mistreating cats and dogs, great apes, elephants, livestock, or for that matter, people--human trafficking, mass mutilation in Sierra Leone, Darfur, Congo, genocide of native peoples in the US, child abuse in any one given household anywhere in the world. It's all precisely the same thing--disregard of another being's suffering for one's own selfish gain.
There's no excusing it. Anyone who tries is a dangerous fool.
Personally, I'm glad to see the news of this type of thing, the recent flare-up in Tibet, and other such stories spreading across the media. The Olympics is providing an excellent reminder of how the world has sold its collective conscience for money. China, with the Olympics and a myriad of world trade issues, has been let off the hook for a disgusting assortment of atrocities, both human and animal. Let this be part of a wake-up call that our leaders have sold out their principles, hence our principles, for the sake of their greed and fear.