Letters to the Editor
AJCalhoun
Published Letters: 964 Editor's Choice: 127
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Fresh Air
[Read the article: The marriage industrial complex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for a reasoned and sane look at weddings, what they used to be and what they've become. I'm a veteran of a few of these events:
1969 - Four of us, stoned, go to the courthouse for the ceremony, then to a local Marriott-owned (now long-dead) chain "family" restaurant for the "reception." Post-nuptial question raised: "What was that crackling noise during the ceremony?" Answer: "The cellphane wrapper on the Moon Pie in my coat pocket." ("Coat" an electric blue silk thing found in a ghetto clothier's). No honeymoon. Duration of marriage, 5 years in hell.
1977 - Famous "Thousand Dollar Wedding" of Graham Parsons' imagination, minus the ghastly parts. Actually worked really well, a full-dress church thing with garter removed from about as far up her leg as it could go, cake in the face, etc. Dry reception. Dope at the house party. No honeymoon again! Most durable marriage so far, though. Oh, no limo, no helicopter, but it did look like a wedding. You could tell. And it lasted 23 years. Thank you Bill Burroughs.
2004 - Another cheapie, adjusted for inflation, but the prettiest one yet, overlooking the blue Pacific from a bluff in SoCal, the bride in a variation of Hallie Berry's oscar dress, limo this time, Salt Creek Grille, and a trip up the coast to Big Sur via Santa Barbara. The marriage only lasted a couple years, but the wedding will last forever
My point in sharing all this meaningless BS? We make our own traditions (my most significant one being the divorce: "Marry in haste. Repeat at leisure")and it doesn't have much to do with the cash dumped into the thing. Also, that it does continue to evolve. In a nice way, at least in my experience.
I liked Ms. Mead's views on the evolution of this barbarous practice and since I've found it can be done consistently on the cheap I may just do it some more. Next time we'll have someone risk life and limb trying to put little tiaras on the cats and herd them down the aisle before us. Whoever "us" may be. I know you're out there. You know who you are.
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I Meant Halle Berry
[Read the article: The marriage industrial complex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but was thinking of my first wife, Haile Selassie. Sorry.
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This is Why I Remain a Republican
[Read the article: When Democrats collapse]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]At least I can cling to the hope of reclaiming some part of my party once it implodes. Those guys on the other side of the aisle, the ones I want so much to like, have once again turned out to be nothing more than the Eunuch Choir. I'm not sure there's anything over there to save.
How the hell can a bunch of sociopaths cow the majority party in both houses? How can anyone cow an 80-year-old ex-President with absolutely nothing to lose?
There is only one way to stop this seemingly endless slide off the edge of the melting planet: slay the ghost of Woodrow Wilson, who continues to haunt the Hill and possess the bodies, minds and spirits of those Democrats I vainly hoped had ridden in to help rescue America from what's become of my own party. Hell, when you've got Chuck Hagel on your side there is no excuse, no possible reason for a collapse of this magnitude! There has to be some sort of genetic code that draws people into the Democratic party and, ultimately, causes them to turn themselves into human duds, little, faulty suicide bombers, kamikaze pilots in balsa wood planes, mules passing themselves off as donkeys but really just looking like a bunch of asses.
Good help the Republic! We have on one side the equivalent of the bus in "Speed", with Dennis Hopper at the wheel, and on the other side the passengers on that bus. We all know who Sandra Bullock is playing here. Where the hell is Kianu Reeves when we need him? And would it be impolite to laugh when Hopper gets his head knocked off? Because it's politeness that's killing the Democrats, We the People, and mainly our troops and the citizens of Iraq. Dubya does need his ass kicked, and the next person who threatens to do it shouldn't let his mind write a check his body can't cover.