Letters to the Editor
wwolfe
Published Letters: 53 Editor's Choice: 6
-
Re: "Cheers for tears"
[Read the article: Cheers for tears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ms. Berry writes: "Public tears feel liberating, an act of defiance against those who would subdue me with decorum and logic."
As a shameless defense of self-indulgence, emotional manipulation, and just plain rudeness, this essay convinced me that what we need more than anything in our society right now is a lot more decorum and logic.
-
Thanks for introducing me to the Toms' song.
[Read the article: The best downloads of 2005]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That was my fave.
The melody for the M. Ward song sounds an awful lot like "Help Me Make It Through the Night." Sammi Smith sang it better, though.
-
What to call a resident of Anchorage.
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How about "Anchorigible"?
-
It seems to me...
[Read the article: Topless bodies found in brainless magazine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...the one clear winner here is Rachel McAdams.
-
Ah, irony.
[Read the article: "Jen" Doe]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"[T]his piece speaks to the compromising of ones individuality and ones principles that are necessary for having a successful career in certain areas."
Does Nancy Balbirer realize that she's talking about herself, much more so than 'Jen Doe'?
Or maybe she was talking about Salon, come to think of it.
-
Put him on paid suspension.
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He wouldn't suffer any harm in the form of lost wages or benefits, and we wouldn't have to watch him break records he only reached by cheating.
Regarding two points from other letter writers. First, Paul N. Henry wrote, "There are several player who have been banned from the [Hall of Fame], but they all knew that their actions...could result in a ban when they were commited." That wouldn't be true of Joe Jackson, since there wasn't a Hall of Fame in 1919.
Second, Melody wrote, "More fundamental to competitive sports than anything is the understanding that every player and team on the field is doing their best to win. (Steroids, though illegal, does dovetail with that assumption.)" I disagree. A player taking steroids isn't doing his best; he's doing his best plus steroids. That's why it's unethical and a violation of what you've correctly defined as fundamental to sports.
-
Darling Billy
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Whatever his faults, Billy Packer has one huge plus: he's not Dick Vitale. I've never actually had my gonads chomped by a wolverine, but I can't believe it's any worse than suffering through Vitale's lunatic, imbecilic ravings.
I do second the suggestion made by another reader: make Len Elmore the color commentator for the Final Four. He's by far the best in the business.
-
"What a game!!"
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I loved Gus Johnson's call. In fact, it might be my favorite classic sports announcer's call, first because I actually got to hear it live (something that's never happened before, as far as I can remember) and second because it was so unself-conscious: unlike Al Michael's "Do you believe in miracles?," it didn't feel as though Johnson had been writing his call in his head for the last ten minutes of the game. On the contrary, he was, like most of the viewers, completely caught up in the rush of the moment, and he managed to capture all of our feelings perfectly.
One factor that's contributed to the excellence of this year's tournament has been the good officiating. The UConn-Washington game is the only one that I've seen which was at least arguably decided by a bad call - in this case, the silly technical on Brandon Roy in the second half when he seemed to be taking control of the game. On the one play, he was given a personal foul, plus the T, which counted as yet another personal foul, taking him from two to four in no time flat. As soon as he left, an 8-point Washington lead vanished. I'd like to have seen how that game turned out if the refs hadn't overreacted.
-
Conference-wide standings aren't a problem.
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"[G]iven the balanced schedule and the fact that the top eight make the playoffs, there's no need to have divisions at all, except that standings showing all 15 teams in one long list would be aesthetically unpleasant."
The Los Angeles Times' sports section doesn't list divisions. In each conference, the standings show the fifteen teams in order of won-lost record. For each team ranked 2 through 8, the number of games by which the team trails the first-place team is shown; for each team ranked 9 through 15, the number of games by which the team trails the eighth-place team - in other words, how far from qualifying for the playoffs each of the 9-through-15 teams is - is shown. This really isn't aesthetically unpleasant at all, plus it has the great bonus of conveying information that matters.
-
Re: Rasheed Wallace
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You left out one important item in the recent history of the relationship between Rasheed Wallace and Cleveland Cavaliers fans: on February 26 of this year, to quote the CBS.sportsline.com story I just googled, Wallace "split open Zydrunas Ilgauskas' head with an elbow during Detroit's 90-78 home win." The penalty? Rasheed was fined $5,000 by the NBA. Since $5,000 means next to nothing to a player making multi-millions per year, Rasheed essentially got away scott free despite committing a truly thuggish act.
With this important fact added to the context, I think the scales of boorish behavior remain tipped heavily toward Rasheed Wallace, not the Cavs fans. Maybe Mother Teresa or Gandhi wouldn't have cheered, but us less-saintly folks can be excused, I think, if we let loose a little when a punk like Wallace tweaks his ankle.
-
Wow, this is bad music criticism.
[Read the article: Forget the Haight and Woodstock]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The lasting legacy of the '60s may wind up being nothing more than its music, and nowhere in America -- not Jerry Garcia's Haight or Bob Dylan's Village -- generated more of it than Laurel Canyon.
Bull. Berry Gordy's Detroit generated about a thousand times more good music than Laurel Canyon's residents could ever dream of doing.
And let's not forget Don Kirshner's Brill Building, while we're at it.
Or Curtis Mayfield's Chicago.
Or Allen Toussant's New Orleans.
I assume that all of these locations were sent down the memory hole because each subscribed to a division of labor among songwriters, producers, arrangers, musicians, and singers that serves as an inconvenient rebuttal to the myth of the solitary poetic genius that drove the Laurel Canyon scene.
Whatever the reason - I suspect it's plain old ignorance - this is a prime example of the kind of blinkered, uninformed music criticism that creates a totally false image of music in the 1960s.