Letters to the Editor
E.Z.
Published Letters: 5 Editor's Choice: 3
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Half-Hearted Recommendations
[Read the article: To teach or not to teach? Campus politics has got me twisted around]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Conflicted, do you realize that writing a qualified, in your words a merely "nice," letter on her behalf is probably one of the main things that kept her from getting the job? In academia departments expect to get glowing, unqualified praise for the applicant, anything less is seen as a serious flaw. In fact, it is better to simply admit that you are unwilling to write the kind of letter that is needs, thus giving her the opportunity to get a recommendation that won't doom her application. When you say that a faculty member " despite my recommendation, declined to offer her the position,"[emphasis mine] you should be saying, if your are being frank, that a poor review by a faculty member and your lukewarm letter combined to keep her from getting the job.
Further, do you have any evidence that she is incapable of reigning in her personality inside of a classroom? I'm willing to bet most professors curse (the horror) when they are not in front of students. Teaching is a performance. (And no, I don't think that a second-hand account of an informal lecture supports your position.)
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The South really is pleasant, it's not an act.
[Read the article: Terms of endearment]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not from the South. I'm from Miami. (Ah, the Magic City, imagine NYC as a banana republic.) But right now I'm living in northern Florida just about an hour south of Georgia. Let me tell you, southern hospitality is genuine and sincere. People down here really do care about each other, even strangers. Tell a group of Southerners a sad tale and there will be a torrent of kind words and no end to the offers of help. It's quite amazing.
It is easy to see these displays and assume that they aren't genuine. How could they be, you might ask yourself. This behaviour is so foreign to the northern, urban mentality that the only reasonable conclusion for a Yankee to reach is that it must be insincere; It's not. Come down to the South and sit a spell. You'll find out just how nice it is to have truly neighborly neighbors.
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So much for these play-offs.
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm a big basketball fan. I've watched almost every game of these playoffs. But this ruling will end all of that. I have no interest in supporting a league that doesn't care about fairness and good competition. I'm simply going to boycott the rest of the games.
But there is one silver lining, I can concentrate on the MLS season now.
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Unintended Consequence
[Read the article: How scalpers hoard "Hannah Montana" tickets]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One problem with the proposed solution is that it would keep me from surprising my nieces with tickets to a Montana show. If I know next to nothing about an artist but I want to buy tickets for someone, what recourse do I have? And if there is some way for me to overcome the so-called security feature, why wouldn't it be available to scalpers?
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Don't deceive yourself.
[Read the article: The accidental heretic]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I took this quotation directly from phillip-pullman.com.
But organised religion is quite another thing. The trouble is that all too often in human history, churches and priesthoods have set themselves up to rule people's lives in the name of some invisible god (and they're all invisible, because they don't exist) – and done terrible damage. In the name of their god, they have burned, hanged, tortured, maimed, robbed, violated, and enslaved millions of their fellow-creatures, and done so with the happy conviction that they were doing the will of God, and they would go to Heaven for it.
That is the religion I hate, and I'm happy to be known as its enemy. (emphasis mine)
There is no way to read this as anything but a condemnation of the Catholic Church (and any other religious organizations). His works have a religious theme, they may even be soaked in spiritualism. You may feel that, as you interpret his writing, that it is actually, and unintentionally, enlightening. But don't kid yourself, it is explicitly anti-Church.
You are of course free to try to reconcile your faith with your love of a book that condemns your religion. But don't pretend that the book is really just misunderstood. Post-modern interpretations of texts doesn't allow you to simply fabricate the meaning of a work so that it suits your pre-existing preferences.