Letters to the Editor
tomreedtoon
Published Letters: 802 Editor's Choice: 81
-
Mark, I think she was being deceptive.
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I believe in honesty, even to the point of painfulness. When you have a pile of clippings to throw together in a column, you say that much. There's no shame in taking a bunch of wood splinters, compressing it with glue and selling it as particle board. But don't try to sell it as curly oak paneling. If the Social Advisor to God (which Hav has called herself in a previous column) was an honest critic, she'd have done that.
In fact, since she did have an exceptionally large hunk of wood for her particle board project - the end of Friday Night Lights - she could have made that the centerpiece of her column and stuck the article up front. After all, she loves the series (for inexplicable reasons). Leading with that would have given the piece a theme and a frame. Why did she make people wade through the chaff and dust to get to it? Was she afraid that nobody would read the whole column if she led with the good stuff? Does this betray a lack of confidence in her own ability to hold an audience?
Salon's graphic editor was smart enough to create that frame for her article, with the FNL picture in the article. She should have done it as a writer.
I also think it's deceptive, or at least disingenuous, for people to attack me and post as "anonymous." Are they afraid I'm going to come after them and strangle them and their kitten with piano wire? As I think I've said before, I'll only do that after I win a sufficiently large lotto jackpot, and it'll only be a hobby.
I would really like to meet Havrilesky in person and discuss this politely. No, I wouldn't slam her into a concrete wall and go at her face with a cheese grater; that fate is reserved for that promoter of sadism, Anne Rice. I would just like to see how Havrilesky thinks, if she thinks, and if she gets most of her writing coaching from a mouse named Algernon in her pocket.
-
Oh, and "one letter wonder" ojoshua...
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If I wanted fame, I wouldn't do it here. I don't troll other boards, or other places on Salon, to attack all kinds of people. You can click on my "other letters" links and see that only Havrilesky gets this kind of attention. Hell, I'm not being paid for this. So why do I do it?
Did you ever read a book called Trapped: Michael Jackson and the Crossover Dream? Music critic Dave Marsh criticized and critiqued the pre-kid-scandal Jackson, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. He saw a great talent being wasted and had to do something, even if it was writing frank, open letters to Jackson that Jackson would never read.
I see the TV discussions on Salon that way. When other people do TV columns here, their level of discussion is so far above Havrilesky's stuff that it reminds me of the best critiques of television I've ever read - and shouldn't Salon promote the best in writing?
I have no hope of helping Havrilesky herself, any more than Marsh could stop Jackson from the egotism and self-delusion that destroyed his talent and his career. But you can't stand by and do nothing, not if you give a damn and have a soul.
-
Do you remember college? Why are you surprised?
[Read the article: University officials waited two hours to warn campus, students say]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Did you ever know the administration of any college, private or public, that had the competence to boil water? In the 1960's, colleges were paralyzed by New Left demonstrations that a little applied force could have stopped. At Kent State, the campus cops were incompetent to handle the problem, and the administration called in the undisciplined National Guard - and the result was history, especially when Gary Trudeau commemorated the anniversary in his Doonesbury strip.
Like most educators, college administrators are supposed to intimidate the student body and look intelligent. But give them a genuine crisis and they fold. Just watch as this particular group of flakes announce their dynamic plan to address the problem and keep from being fired: they will convene a study group. They will protect their students with coffee and danish.
It would be stupid to say that the school could have predicted this incident. No one is expecting them to be psychic, any more than the people at Columbine High could have predicted the existence of their shooters. But after Columbine, many high schools developed procedures to handle emergencies like this. Why didn't this college? Did the dunderheads assume that their college students were more "mature," that they would "never" have a shooting incident?
Even a Wal-Mart has a flip chart on the office wall with instructions for all varieties of emergencies. It's asking too much for a university, with plant and buildings worth approximately twenty times as much as a Wal-Mart Supercenter, to take a basic step like a flip chart and emergency instruction for all personnel.