Letters to the Editor
TomRitchford
Published Letters: 259 Editor's Choice: 11
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apparently I'm in the minority...
[Read the article: Anonymous no more]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but I made heavy use of Anonymous here at Salon to write about political things that I no longer dare to write about under my own name.
Nothing defamatory, very well within the canon of Salon readers -- but it wasn't the Salon readers I was worried about.
Could you not allow registered, paid viewers to not disclose their names when posting? If you had to pay, that'd eliminate 99.9% of the spam, and have full disclosure for the rest.
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"Making fun of ecologistis trying to save all life on the planet (NOT just human life)."
[Read the article: Curious George]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But you see, that's one of his most telling sketches.
I'm literally laughing out loud re-reading it -- it's so over-the-top.
"We're so self-important. So self-important. Everybody's going to save something now. "Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails." And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don't even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven't learned how to care for one another, we're gonna save the fucking planet? I'm getting tired of that shit. Tired of that shit. I'm tired of fucking Earth Day, I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world save for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a shit about the planet. They don't care about the planet. Not in the abstract they don't. Not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future, they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn't impress me.
Besides, there is nothing wrong with the planet. Nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doing great. Been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We've been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we're a threat? That somehow we're gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that's just a-floatin' around the sun?
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!
We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance."
*** If this makes you angry then get up off your ass and prove him wrong! ***
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"It doesn't work"
[Read the article: WayLay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He's falling, not flying!
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Do these people...
[Read the article: The super-bollworm cometh]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...have a supply of untainted food and water concealed somewhere that they can pull out when the rest of us are dead?
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There is no karma in the sense you mean.
[Read the article: Have I ruined my karma by sleeping with prostitutes?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Look at the world around you. People who do horrible, horrible things are rich and respected. Good people have terrible things happen to them. There is not necessarily a meaning for everything that happens.
I'd work on solving your employment issues - it might be hard or even impossible *through no fault of your own* but you should try.
I would *not* tell your wife, no no no no. You want to do it because it'll make *you* feel better; it certainly won't make *her* feel any better; and if you stopped seeing professional ladies then you'd be back to an earlier issue.
I'd feel guilty too. But you shouldn't be. It's a reasonable solution to a difficult interpersonal issue.
Good luck. You seem to have had a run of bad luck; remember that there's nothing intrinsic in this and you might suddenly start having good luck tomorrow.
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Do NOT consider a military career...
[Read the article: I only feel alive when I'm in danger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I love the advice above but absolutely do NOT join the military.
First and foremost, there's the blood of a million innocents on the hands of the US military right now. You do not want to participate in the murderous clusterfuck that is Iraq.
Almost as important, that won't even work for you. Working in the military is hours of boredom, punctuated by moments of fear. You're going to get really, really flipped out during those hours of boredom and you're going to do something needlessly risky that will eventually get you or your buddies killed.
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Thanks for another fascinating article...
[Read the article: The Okefenokee titanium dioxide blues]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People don't comment nearly as much because your articles are more thoughtful and less contentious but I always read them and think about them.
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I love Ubud!
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Denpasar is a dump; Kuta is beach mecca; but Ubud is a nice little place, even though it's a tourist spot. Real Balinese do live there, not even 15 minutes from the hotels; there are a lot of "home stay" locations, small, cheap, neat little hotel-lets run by families; lots of music, dance, art (again, commercialized but there's some real art there). And there's the monkey forest, which really is filled with monkeys (and old temples and even a graveyard).
I haven't been there since 2002 - I do want to go back, though I fear the impact of the bombings on the economy has to be terrible. But I can't imagine that Ubud could have gotten that bad.