Letters to the Editor
Anna68
Published Letters: 158 Editor's Choice: 2
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Why is Michael Moore being held to bipartisan standard when he makes no pretense of bipartisanship?
[Read the article: "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Michael Moore is creating agitprop. He is making a case for a particular point of view. If he emphasizes some points and de-emphasizes others, that's perfectly legitimate.
There are plenty of people out there making the opposite case that nobody holds to such lofty standards. It isn't as if he were the only voice. It isn't as if someone going into a Michael Moore movie doesn't know perfectly well they are going into a Michael Moore movie.
This is what I find truly annoying about all the criticism of Moore's work, Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, etc ... Even people who agree with his general points pick at him for being something he's not. Thomas Paine was never asked to give credence to the Tory point of view, yeah?
Pick at Moore if he is inaccurate, or wrong, or if you genuinely disagree with his position, by all means, but not because he isn't "fair" to the other side. The other side has LOTS of people who have no scruples about fairness and nuance and Moore's cranky rebuttal is a necessary corrective, goofy cartoons and all.
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Ooh, all these letters and not one plug for The Artist's Way?
[Read the article: Midlife crisis: I could have been a singer!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Okay, go down to your local bookstore or library and get a copy of The Artist's Way. If you can't find one, try Amazon. Don't bother with Julia Cameron's other books, they're just a rehash of that one.
Sing. It will make you happy. For GOD sake don't listen to the guy who said you should give up singing to explore your problems in couples therapy. You might need couples therapy. You might not. You might find that your husband's lack of ambition annoys you less when you stop giving up on your own ambitions.
But sing anyway.
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oh, sorry, can't stop the giggling ...
[Read the article: "Fringe liberal bloggers"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The male writing voice, on the other hand, tends to address phenomena as viewed through the lens of universal applicability.
I'm sorry, but there are letters all over Salon that refute this. The male writing voice in this forum is just as likely to be all about how women won't sleep with them. Not that they'd want them to. Because they must be fat.
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no, no, no!
[Read the article: Comics fans, grow up!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Please keep my counter-culture counter! Don't legitimize and analyze and academicize my beautiful, beautiful trashy-wonderful spandexy brilliant comic books!
Some of the best and most innovative storytelling is done in this medium and they get away with it precisely because it is trash!
Sandman! 100 Bullets! Hellblazer! old 80s era X-Men! Please, please, please leave them alone!
Or else, come into the scary flourescent-lit shops and enjoy them with us. We're actually pretty friendly and some of us even bathe.
(PS, from someone who has worked in comic shops on and off since the 80s, the plastic covers are to protect the comics from casual readers who do not want to pay for them. And if you don't know what is good, ask the girl in the Nightmare Before Christmas t-shirt behind the counter ... and be prepared to listen for a while because the people who work in comics shops typically LOVE comics and know them upside down and will talk until the Rapture about the relative merits of Ultimate X-Men versus the Classic X-men.)
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What was that quote from High Fidelity?
[Read the article: Single women eat babies!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you can't tell by looking and you don't want the emotional stuff what WILL be the basis for the decision? Compatible hobbies and artistic tastes?
"It doesn't matter what you are like. It matters what you like."
(Isn't that it? I'm paraphrasing)
Books, movies, music, these things do have meaning. Shared enthusiasm. The same sense of fun or humor.
Not Insta-Intimacy, just add water. Guys, you just come off desperate that way. And if you don't like desperate women, it follows that we don't like desperate men.
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Two thoughts ...
[Read the article: Hillary is from Mars, Obama is from Venus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First: The really interesting thing to me is that both Obama and Clinton are kind of androgynist, actively subverting gender stereotypes and reinterpreting what leadership can be.
What the article could have said ... and didn't ... is that some psychologists regard competence across gender lines as a strong indication of emotional strength.
In other words: it takes a big, strong man to take up cross stitch as a hobby. It takes a strong, passionate woman to stand up to bullies. People who are sure of themselves are less hung up on "what is masculine" and "what is feminine" and just do people stuff.
Second: I think the Democrats are truly confused by the anger on the Left and how to respond to it without pulling a Gingrich. But then maybe they just watch too much TV.
Personally I think we should impeach Cheney and Bush, but I'm always told that "The American People Don't Want Impeachment" Well, I'm the American People. I know more American People who want impeachment than don't ... and some of them are Republicans too!
I felt better about our Republic when I stopped watching TV altogether. Maybe the Dems should do that too!
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Lemme get this straight ...
[Read the article: U.S. to merge with Mexico and Canada?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This man is nostalgic for the LIRA????
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actually ...
[Read the article: You are now free to pollute about the country]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Acquiring rights of way, for one thing. You have to buy land from someone below, at or above market rates and whichever you choose someone is getting hosed.
They do this all the time. For highways. It's called something domain. (immenint? emminant? LMNOP? cant' remember)
The real reason we don't do it is we don't have the political will to do it. Right after 9/11 ... Oh, (GAH I'm growing senile) help me was junior senator from SC until Strom Thurmond finally died ... well he was trying to push investment in Amtrak and the nation's railways as a Homeland Security issue ... which was smart and made sense and would have created jobs all over the place but we all know perfectly well we were too busy invading Iraq to do anything like that ...
But if a bunch of people all stood up at once and said "I Want Trains" we could totally have trains. Well, if they were very rich people. Or Rupert Murdoch.
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No. Really.
[Read the article: You are now free to pollute about the country]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where do you think we got the interstates? Whole neighborhoods came down. It was just a long time ago, most of it in the 1950s, so few people remember it.