Letters to the Editor
collision
Published Letters: 4 Editor's Choice: 1
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don't be so ashamed of gossip
[Read the article: Goodbye to the Fix, for now]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]With Glenn Greenwald busy showing us how essential and important online journalism and blogging has become I think Salon just got embarrassed with its little gossip column, even after making a half hearted attempt to cut back on Britney Spears coverage, a preoccupation a lot less defendable in elite circles than Alec Baldwin I'm sure.
I'm going to miss it. There are lots of places to go for gossip, but I suspect a lot of us won't go there, because, after all, we only read essential and important online journalism.
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Fox's big red cancel button
[Read the article: "Anchorwoman" canceled]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While I wouldn't want to argue against the comments above the fact that it got cancelled after one episode says nothing except that Fox continues to stop any new show getting a chance to breathe. Even with the Daily Show and Colbert Report at the "smart" end of the spectrum, broadcast news remains ripe for satire and perhaps they ultimately had a redeeming message in mind. We will never know.
It has gotten to the point where it's pretty much pointless investing any time in any new show on Fox.
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vote with your wallet, not with hacks
[Read the article: If you care about your rights, don't buy an iPhone]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If I buy a Ford Explorer, with the understanding that I am not allowed to drive it to Walmart what grounds for complaint do I have when they slash my tires ? I should have purchased from a car company that has no superstore restriction, even if that car had fewer cup holders. Enough people do that and market forces dictate that no car companies go around slashing tires. And then they move on to competing on cup holders. That's how this stuff works.
You buy an iPhone with the full understanding it works with AT&T. You don't like that, don't buy it. That is the only consumer vote you get. Your $15 hack doesn't buy you a technology company to do your bidding.
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too good for its own good
[Read the article: Beyond belief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]joshkidd is right. All the most satisfying shows like BSG, Buffy and Firefly have the smallest audiences. If they are brave and interesting enough to defy convention they hemorrhage viewers. The only genre shows that survive on network TV ape conventional shows, for example Medium which is a police-procedural with dreams instead of CSI, or a bait-and-switch (it's people Lost on an island... oh but we didn't tell you about the smoke monster !).
And of course so called sci-fi fans can be the hardest of all - witness tomreedtoon and his dismissal of the show sight unseen because "Starbuck is a woman". It's in the moments when BSG is furthest from Cylon vs Viper dog-fight action that it shines. But it's always going to fight against it's genre. When Tigh and company find out they are Cylon, it's not their emotional devastation so much of the audience worry about, it's the technical stuff about how their memories and motivations were faked or hidden (for the record, it's clear that Boomer was a sleeper agent, Tigh is something completely different, mysterious and spiritual even to the Cylons).
It's too much to expect a mass audience to embrace the show, but for those of us willing to invest here is one show that can truly teach us what it means to try and keep true to ourselves and our "humanity" in the face of a world gone mad.