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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Andrew Leonard
Published Letters: 269 Editor's Choice: 82
I have to respond to a letter complaining about "titillation" posted anonymously below, because comments like this have become a pet peeve of mine.
I've been employed by Salon for nine years, so I can say this pretty authoritatively -- stories about sexual issues have been a staple of our coverage from the very beginning. We've had at least three columnists who wrote about nothing else but sex. Our founding editor, David Talbot, wrote a book called "Burning Desire: Sex In America."
Alas, advertisers tend not to like sex, even if readers manifestly do, so it's always been a struggle to keep writing and reporting about what we want, which, in addition to politics, technology, entertainment and everything else, includes SEX!
As the person most invested with ensuring that Cory Doctorow's work continues to run in Salon, let me just assure everyone reading these letters that I'm doing everything I can to keep this serial going. I take great pride in the fact that two of the stories I agreed to publish from Cory, "Ownzored" and "Anda's Game," have been widely recognized by the literary establishment as gems, and I hope the same is eventually true for "Themepunks."
Running a science-fiction serial, however, does not generate the kind of page-views that, say, a piece about condom patent disputes or real life dolls or mysterious bulges underneath a president's jacket does. So it's not necessarily easy to get editorial buy-in from all concerned. But I think in general that most of the editors at Salon consider Cory's presence in our pages to be a feather in our cap, so I am personally hopeful that when Cory has more chapters to deliver, we'll be ready to publish them.
Sorry! Will fix immediately.
Good lord, if the world ever needed any proof that hockey is not the sport I follow most closely, this litany of errors provides it. I stand by my position that "it is what it is" is usually used in a negative sense, but I regret the use of the phrase "scene of the crime." And I will demur from commenting about whether Bertuzzi's punch was actually justified retaliation.
Thanks for the sharp reading. And from now on, I will only use NBA metaphors.
Occasionally, some weird glitch in our publishing system results in duplicate paragraphs. I'm not sure we've ever figured out what is really going on. The article should be all cleaned up now.
Jeffrey's conclusions to the contrary, I don't think this is an issue that belongs on either side of the left/right split. I think cultural censoriousness crosses political lines with great ease. I'm no fan of criminalizing "hate speech" either -- if I saw someone with a t-shirt that said "Fuck the Dykes" I might find myself bold enough to address that person directly but I certainly wouldn't attempt to have him or her jailed or thrown off a plane.
wow -- 22 letters about my rant about bad tv! fantastic. sorry not to check in earlier -- I basically wrote the piece and then skipped out of town for thanksgiving. and I'm embarassed by getting Horatio's last name wrong. I've fixed it in the text and thanks for pointing it out!
I really, really wish I could say that the title of this blog was a clever play on our fumbling President's words, but alas, we aren't quite that smart. It was much more haphazard -- a catch phrase used around the office to describe a work-in-progress that somehow ended up etched in stone. I resisted it at first -- I mean, come on, philosophically speaking, I'm not sure it it even possible to fully figure out how everything works, but now I kind of like it.
As for the RSS feed -- it should be working shortly -- today I hope. Our tech department has been scrambling to deal with unexpected fallout from some hardware upgrades we did over the weekend, and their list of priorities to address is huge.
Rob,
I'm not sure you read to the end of the piece, or if there is some other disconnect. Because a: it is clearly not my prescription, but that of an columnist who I disagree with. And b: the last line of the piece agrees with exactly what you say in your letter... So... huh?
I do not regret for one second teaching English to Taiwanese children. I agree with the longtime stance of one of my best and oldest friends, who runs a translation company in Taiwan (pristine.com.tw) -- the more communication there is in the world the better off we all are. And in the overall globalization debate, my sympathies tend to lie more with people earning a dollar a day in the developing world than with laid-off workers in the West, as well.
I also tend to use strong language to make a point. So, no, I don't really view aspiring Chinese as my "nemesis." But I think I can take strong satisfaction in teaching kids to read and write English, knowing that I have made a difference in their life, and at the same time wonder what the macroeconomic effect of such behavior might be on myself and my own kids. This is much more obvious a question, I think, when we look at venture capital funding going to China, than it is when we talk about teaching English.
Hi Simon,
Thanks for taking the time to come here and post. I'd just like to note that it is my perception that you too are fan of snark and sarcasm as you chronicle your corner of the world. So think of my tone as homage!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
