Letters to the Editor
farnsworth
Published Letters: 449 Editor's Choice: 21
-
I don't know what exactly happened, but...
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Say there was a school administrator who felt that the school board had created a policy that was highly inappropriate. Rarely would such a policy be successfully contested through official channels. So the administrator decides to point out how ridiculous the policy is by enforcing it to the letter. This gets all kinds of publicity, and will almost certainly lead to a revision of the policy. There might even be a sympathetic parent involved, to help arrange a situation that would allow the policy to look as bad as possible.
Is this what happened? I dunno. But it could be. Not all school administrators are incompetent idiots.
The majority reaction could be correct. The administrator in question could be a fascist martinet. But there is a plausible logical alternative that would actually make the administrator a hero. Until we know more, let's give that person the benifit of the doubt, and reserve our venom for the school board that implemented the policy.
Remember Mark Twain's famous observation:
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
-
Anonymous whiners
[Read the article: Got complaints? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hate the fact that so many people are such cowards about their complaints. There are so many people, like the first poster in this thread, who whine and carp and bait and exaggerate and impugn and make straw-man arguments and ad hominem attacks, but lack the courage to put their Salon Letters handle on their posts.
dimbulb's posts may be annoying and fact-challenged and infantile, but at least he owns up to them.
-
Um, you know, uh
[Read the article: Beyond the Multiplex: Can an actor still carry a movie? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have watched a couple of these, and they are not worth it. These people are writers, they are not actors or talking heads. They have no talent for this, and no one has bothered to try and get them any skill.
The two commentors on this particular video would not have seemed out of place on something produced in a high school. It is absolutely pathetic to have people saying "um," and "you know," and "uh." Was there no script? Was there no rehearsal? These two clearly don't have what it takes to just improvise such a commentary.
So far Salon's experiment with video blogs has been a failure. You have people who are reasonably good professional writers. Why are you exposing them to a medium that just makes them, and by extension your web site, look bad?
-
Here we go again
[Read the article: Macs are cheaper than PCs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another Salon writer who has no talent or skill for talking head video blogging.
OK, Salon, we get it. None of your writers should be seen, only read.
-
Spine?
[Read the article: This Modern World ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wouldn't bet much on spine.
-
dimbulb, makin' stuff up again
[Read the article: Got skirt?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Word History: The resemblance between testimony, testify, testis, and testicle shows an etymological relationship, but linguists are not agreed on precisely how English testis came to have its current meaning. The Latin testis originally meant "witness," and etymologically means "third (person) standing by": the te- part comes from an older tri-, a combining form of the word for "three," and -stis is a noun derived from the Indo-European root stā- meaning "stand." How this also came to refer to the body part(s) is disputed. An old theory has it that the Romans placed their right hands on their testicles and swore by them before giving testimony in court. Another theory says that the sense of testicle in Latin testis is due to a calque, or loan translation, from Greek. The Greek noun parastatēs means "defender (in law), supporter" (para- "by, alongside," as in paramilitary and -statēs from histanai, "to stand"). In the dual number, used in many languages for naturally occurring, contrasting, or complementary pairs such as hands, eyes, and ears, parastatēs had the technical medical sense "testicles," that is "two glands side by side." The Romans simply took this sense of parastatēs and added it to testis, the Latin word for legal supporter, witness.
So, it meant witness first, and testicles second.
Balls is a synonym for courage, because the testicles are the source of testosterone, the hormone responsible for the development and maintenance of male secondary sex characteristics. The source of manliness.
Do you have the manliness necessary?
Do you have the balls necessary?
But let's not let facts get in the way of a whiny rant.
-
Oops, forgot to attribute
[Read the article: Got skirt?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/testis
-
Life is WONDERFUL
[Read the article: My boss forwards fluffy kitten e-mails!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If this is the only problem you have that merits writing to an advice column, your life is wonderful.
Get down on your knees and thank your preferred power-greater-than-you for your blessed life.
-
There is more than one way to fight the teaching of evolution
[Read the article: The evolution of creationism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In the small Oklahoma town where I taught high school last year, they do not teach intelligent design or creation science or any of the other forms of stealth-creationism.
But.
They don't teach evolution either.
A large enough number of the parents in the school district would object to exposing their children to such teaching. I don't know if it is a majority or a sizable minority, or even a tiny minority. I just know that the superintendent forbade the biology faculty from teaching evolution.