Letters to the Editor
macha1
Published Letters: 16
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This is messed up
[Read the article: How is John McCain like John Kerry?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why is it necessary to conflate the Swift Boat smear group with anyone else that's not another smear group? Shame on you, Salon. The Tomb Raiders phenomenon seems sad and sorta gross, but not the manufactured political machinations of the right wing per se.
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what pilotlight said
[Read the article: I need a new dream]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Currently sitting here wiping away the tears. What a touching, heartfelt letter this is. I wish you the best as your journey continues. For what it's worth, I have faith that in time, a new dream will emerge for you. And though the scars from this unfulfilled longing may never disappear, they will fade, and assume a proper place in your heart as it fills with new treasures.
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bah
[Read the article: Panic in the pages]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It drives me nuts that history for most people started in the 1950s. While I'm glad to see the impact that comic books had on youth given their due, evidence of a generation gap can also be seen as far back as the 1920s (flappers, bobs), the 1900s (kids playing with wireless kits), the 1880s (woman's rights), the 1860s (abolitionists), and the 1840s (the gothic Romantic).
I'm not sure about prior to that but there seems to be a connection between industrialization and the breakup of the family economic unit to work in factories/away from home and youth control.
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Some weird kind of fantasy
[Read the article: My failed lesbian romance]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't care about the bisexuality or even the whole "oh, she's a codependent" sort here. What bothered me is how blithely the writer was to exploit Gisele -- having her comfort her in her time of need, fill her lonely house, run unsolicited errands, make the first move -- for her own gratifications.
I wondered why Gisele would agree to such a seemingly one-sided relationship; there was no mention of what Gisele was getting out of all this service. I guess I'm supposed to assume that there were good reasons why she chose the author to spend her time with but it's not clear.
Until we hear about Gisele's own addictive tendencies towards the end, the story reads like some kind of fever dream where an undemanding nymph appears to fulfill all of one's wishes. Can such a one-sided relationship be love? I'm not sure.
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Hooray!
[Read the article: My company wants me to move to California ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So refreshing to see someone appreciate the value of the "little things" like community, home, connectedness vs. chucking it all for a job.
(Of course, I say this as someone who, at one point, so desperately wanted to leave the metro area I grew up in but couldn't because of family commitments. Now I can't imagine leaving my garden, my friends, and a lifetime of personal history connected to a place. I was told that, as an academic, this labels me as 'parochial'. But I've made do. And I don't have one of those cross-country academic marriages, or have to live in some uncomfortable place where no one else remembers the Blizzard of '78 (or '96, or '97, or... well, you get the idea.)
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Funny thing is
[Read the article: My friend has gone bad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People change... either you change or she changes, and that's the way it is with living, growing organisms.
My story: I sorta idolized this friend from college. She had it all -- grad school, boyfriend, lots of long, curly hair. She bought a house before me; she got married long before I did. Something funny happened somewhere in there, where I realized that mostly what she talked about is how she had it all. My boyfriend noticed it immediately, and then I did. And once you know, it's hard to go back.
She's since divorced, sold the house, moved out of town, remarried, etc and still believes she's the cat's meow. I feel guilty that I was relieved when she finally moved. My attempts at trying to get her to be more thoughtful of me and other people just didn't take. I cringe when she calls, b/c they always go the same way: she asks me how I am, I say fine, I ask her how she is, and instead of the courtesy fine I get an earful. For an hour. We don't ever return to me.
Someone once told me to pay attention to not how interesting people are, but how interested in you there are. Some of the best advice I ever got.
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Thank you Michael Atkinson
[Read the article: Nostalgia for the Bush era]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... for letting me know I'm not alone in my distaste for the superhero narrative, which seems to be clogging every media artery. Why so much escapist fantasy? Wait, check that: why so much escapist JUVENILE fantasy in the theatres? I'm so sick of it, I've stopped going to the movies. To hell with the Black Knight, Iron Man, Superman, Spiderman, and the rest of them.
1). Where are the intelligent women?
2). Where's the cleverness? Same old, same old.
3). There are actual heroes in the world. They don't fly around in tights and a cape. They don't fill multiplexes.
Grump!
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Haffenreffer's not imported?!
[Read the article: The United States of cheap beer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In my small Massachusetts town, that stuff was known as the "Green Monster" (I didn't get the Fenway reference when I was younger) and was rumored to have mysterious properties. If you drank enough, sure, you'd hallucinate alright.
The night I graduated from high school, I sat in the back seat of an Impala while my BFF batted her eyes at some future boyfriend of hers in the front while we passed around a single bottle of Haffenreffer. Good times!
And, does anyone remember Swinkles? I think this might've been an import, but at the down in the heels convenience/packie store I worked at during college, it was the cheapest thing going. I think I have the name right -- Swinkles is a hard name to forget.