Letters to the Editor
Toronto
Published Letters: 9
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Simple solution to the movie problem that no one is doing!
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The simplest solution to the drain on adult human beings going to the movies is to provide everyone with headphones. This happens on planes, but no one seems to have the wit to do this in movie theatres. At one stroke, the following problems are solved:
(1) the ridiculous sound levels in movies these days;
(2) the fear that the people near you will talk, babble on their cellphones, whatever, and you will be forced to make a scene
(3) babies.
It is also possible to keep the ambient sound of the audience reaction (part of the experience) by putting a microphone at a moderate distance, and feeding it into the headphones.
Why does no one do this?
yours,
Toronto
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Tacitus, as ever, has the best comments on the foreign policy/Congress spinelessness....
[Read the article: Mike Allen and Hugh Hewitt on the politicization of the military]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][The time of Tiberius, when the empire swelled] -- "It was a tainted, meanly obsequious age. The greatest figures had to protect their positions by subserviency; and, in addition to them. allex-consuls, most ex-praetors, even many junior senators competed with each other's offensivley sycophantic proposals. There is a tradition that whenever Tiberius left the Senate house, he exclaimed: 'Men fit to be slaves'!! Even he, freedom's enemy, became impatient of such abject servility."
(Tacitus, the Annals of Imperial Rome. III.64)
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Tacitus on imperial foreign policy/Congressional spinelessness....
[Read the article: The foreign policy community]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][The time of Tiberius, when the empire swelled] -- "It was a tainted, meanly obsequious age. The greatest figures had to protect their positions by subserviency; and, in addition to them, all ex-consuls, most ex-praetors, even many junior senators competed with each other's offensively sycophantic proposals. There is a tradition that whenever Tiberius left the Senate house, he exclaimed: 'Men fit to be slaves'!! Even he, freedom's enemy, became impatient of such abject servility."
(Tacitus, the Annals of Imperial Rome. III.64)
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Low blow
[Read the article: TV Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Battlestar Galactica (Razor)
Making the hard-ass Admiral of the Pegasus a lesbian was unworthy of the Galactica team -- she couldn't just be misguided or tough in the wrong places, no, she has to be guilty of lesbianism.
Tricia Helfer must be getting tired of all that torture makeup (is there a Geneva convention about makeup?)
At least there was lots of fighting and things being blown up. The regular series was becoming far too fixated on weird genetics.
yours,
Toronto
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fittest of the year
[Read the article: Salon Book Awards 2007]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cheating a bit -- the paperback came out in 2007 -- but Sean Carroll's The Making of the Fittest is one of the best science books I have ever read -- clear, beautifully written, and full of astounding information about the maps in our genetic heritage. It edges out Jessica Snyder Sachs' also excellent book Good Germs, Bad Germs (2007).
I was disappointed with Alex Ross' The Rest is Noise -- it is just a long survey with a few hundred names: nice, but nothing special. There is really no in depth analysis of any work. There is more real analysis in (for example) Eric Salzman's standard 20th Century Music.
Toronto
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Baffled
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remain baffled why the movie theatres don't do the simplest thing to get their audience back: install headphones. The "talking" and other miseries (like too loud sound) would be instantly gone. You could even have some audience noise feed from a distance mike.
Baffles me.
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The blank cheque of "weapons of mass destruction"
[Read the article: The fun and excitement of civilization wars (fought from afar)]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The essential element missing from Glenn's analysis is the blank cheque provided by the threat of "weapons of mass destruction" (which is a dangerous vagueness all by itself). The segue is from the possibility of a nuclear terrorist attack -- the sum of all fears (where have we heard that) -- to the need to do whatever it takes to stop it. This is the universal blank cheque, drawing upon that fear. The interesting question is -- dare I say it? -- how to defuse this? Given that it is some kind of possibility, and related to that, the idea that, unlike in the days of the Soviets, the nukes are supposedly out there wandering around in the murkiness, so not under "rational control" -- this seems to me to be a political puzzle for people trying to retain some semblance of the traditional restraints on executive power.
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they handle these things better elsewhere.....
[Read the article: The unsung heroes of Iraq war coverage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Anyone reading something other than American media twigged to the difficulties a long time earlier. British media: The Guardian, the Independent, hell even the right-wing Spectator (!) had big question marks about what was up. French, German media: full of doubt. Why do you think Canada never went to war? -- our media raised questions early on.
If you persist in reading nothing but The New York Times (on a good day), what do you expect?
You forgot Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks.
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character
[Read the article: The U.S. establishment media in a nutshell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Bowling story is entangled in one of the basic assumptions of contemporary media/politics -- that a person's political capacities can be illuminated by character hints (clothing, bowling, how they look on television, etc.). This is supposed to be more revealing than policies or actions. (It was all explained very well in Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity long ago). The problem is that some part of this assumption is likely true, and some part of it likely isn't. In the meantime, the bowling story is what we could call, echoing "character assassination", "character insinuation".......