Letters to the Editor
Kevin C
Published Letters: 142 Editor's Choice: 23
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Meh, chablis is mostly chardonnay
[Read the article: Don't blame San Francisco for Obama's "Bittergate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So I'd think the stereotype--while kind of 70s--is probably kind of apt.
As long as it isn't the Merlot that was demonized by the independent film watching set after Sideways. Although most of them allegedly hated merlot before the movie.
Why must I start to loathe my own class of college educated progressives?
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@hlc3333
[Read the article: Don't blame San Francisco for Obama's "Bittergate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your quote: "It's one thing to criticize legitimate issues, for Hillary to make the case about experience, or policies. It is quite another to latch onto a thin thread, and purposely attack the likely candidate for your OWN party in the hopes you can capsize his nomination and take it for yourself."
Actually that is the way that primaries work. As you may recall the Republicans were attacking each other on whether Mormons were Christians, whether each other were varmint hunters or flip-floppers, etc.
The only difference is that the Democratic primary system is designed in such a way that it can create chaos. Proportional representation and some non-elected votes--look how stable it makes the Italian government.
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@ AKA Smith
[Read the article: Don't blame San Francisco for Obama's "Bittergate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Don't be bitter. The proverbial dog that is your argument just won't hunt.
Annie Oakley would've used a six shooter. Thus the analogy is consistent even if there might be a duck blind in the middle.
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@ Taritac
[Read the article: Don't blame San Francisco for Obama's "Bittergate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your quote: "Because I am African-American, attended a prestigious university, make more than the median household income, single, care about public transportation and fuel efficiency in cars, live in an urban area, interact with people who look different than I do, and occasionally drink lattes, how am I somehow considered a negative demographic? Why are my votes considered less desirable than NASCAR watching, suburban or rural living, wife and kids having, SUV driving, cable-instead-of-Internet news gathering, white skin having Midwesterners? Not that there is anything wrong with that, but how did I get to be chopped liver?"
You are not a negative demographic--you just aren't a sufficient demographic to win an election. E.g. most people are white, high-school educated, and live in suburbs and/or exurbs. So you can't carry the country by carrying your (and mine aside form the black part) demographic.
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@ AKA Smith
[Read the article: Don't blame San Francisco for Obama's "Bittergate"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Forgive me, you are right: you are dumb. And trolling.
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This just shows the bias at Salon
[Read the article: Obama is wrong about the gas tax]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have been reading Salon since the 1960s and Joan Walsh's pro-Clinton bias has bothered me since then!!11!!
I will never read Salon again!!!!11!!! GoBama!!!11!!
Whew, that's out of the way.
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Why get married?
[Read the article: Reader, she married him]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ok, you can have a committed, monogamous, romantic relationship without getting married. However, as someone who can't get married (oh, and "naturalness" isn't a good counter argument by the way, since gayness is exhibited in other animals), the benefits of getting married are quite obvious.
Marriage gives one a universal contract with established rights. If I want my bf to inherit things or be able to equitably distribute joint property in the case of us breaking up, I have to contract for these things individually. Not to mention that neither he nor I received a stimulus payment even though we would have as a married couple.
Now perhaps it isn't as big an issue for Male-Female couples, since most states assume that you are married after you live together for enough years. But at least the civil union parts of the arrangement should be available to all (and the state can then get out of the business of sanctioning weddings altogether).
(Oh, and by the way Leona Helmsley left $12MM to her dog--the $8 billion was to her foundation to support the welfare of dogs in general)
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Marketing schmarketing
[Read the article: American epitaph: "More is more"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As others in this thread have stated, it is price signals that Americans have been responding to. Taxing the externalities associated with gas would have been a good start (even before carbon was bad, the dependency on foreign oil and exposure to price shocks were serious enough).
Do people not remember the 90s when US auto makers were awash in cash? Buying up the rest of the world? All that was accomplished on selling trucks and SUVs--which is what the market wanted. It would have been idiotic for Detroit to voluntarily switch to fuel-efficient cars that people wouldn't buy from them (i.e. Detroit lost the environmentally conscious market to imports years ago). Now if the government had stepped in and priced oil appropriately for conservation then things would be different (including perhaps less of an exurban development boom).
So now US auto makers are on the ropes with $5 gas--despite all the marketing and $2.99 gas promises. If we'd never had $1.00 gas return perhaps this wouldn't be happening. As to this being a cultural thing, that could be true--but note that Japan and Europe are far less responsive to their electorate than in the US. There is a consensus on energy policy--if someone ran in Europe on lower (individual) gas taxes they might win, although nobody does. Note, however, that Labour in the UK faced its first major crisis over fuel taxes--and backed down, and fishermen are rioting in the EU over subsidies to their (already tax free) fuel that they use to overfish in deep water fisheries. We all have areas in which "more is more," they just differ based on price signals...