A longstanding peeve first, not at you, but which a phrase you used ironically happened to trigger. What is it the bumper sticker says, Practice acts of random kindness and senseless beauty."? Something like that. Have always hated that line. It cedes far too much to meanness and ugliness, by saying that kindness is random and beauty is senseless. What would be wrong with acts of deliberate kindness and meaningful beauty? Wouldn't that be better, really.

Okay, now for the story. True story.

Monsoon season in Santa Fe. Five o'clockish, the off-work rush just as a huge cloudburst hit, flooding the streets. Like an idiot, I'd chosen that very moment to run somewhere, I forget where in my car. The storm was so violent you couldn't see. We were all stuck in place. When it cleared a little, it developed that all the traffic lights in the area were out. I sighed a sigh at my foolishness. I was sure to be stuck in traffic a long time.

Pulled up at the intersection of St. Michael's and St. Francis, the one with the overpass. No traffic signals. Long lines of traffic from four intersecting directions.

Total chaos, right? No. What happened is the drivers from each direction took turns. About as many cars would go as would have gone on that light, and then the lane that would have gone next would go next. About as many cars from it would go as would have gone with the light, and so on, the right-of-way rotating through all the directions by comment consent.

All this with no communication other than perhaps waves or nods (though I didn't see any).

See why I'm telling this story in regard to traffic? Self-organizing behavior. Each individual driver understood the situation and understood what sort of behavior would be necessary to make the situation work. The behavior had a template, the dynamic structure provided by the lights, but it helped that the template was reasonable, obvious, that everyone could see its utility at a glance.

My point is that in making plans for traffic flow, it would be wise to learn how to encourage (and allow for) the emergence of such highly functional behavior.

While personal compassion is highly desirable, and one should always be as kind as possible, bad writing is bad writing. One would not encourage a person with no math skills to become an engineer. One would not applaud the performance, in a ballet, of a person who cannot dance.

Fine writing is not therapy. It is not feelgood personal liberation. Those uses of writing have definite value, but if the only value we allowed for music was that attempting it helped people with their psychological difficulties, we would be seriously mischaracterizing it.

Writing is a special case among the arts. It is key, essential, takes years of discipline and effort, and yet everybody and his or her sibling is convinced he or she is capable. Why? In my opinion, because everyone uses language every day, and as a result no one understands she or he is not a master.

I don't know how many times I have had a nonwriter say to me something like, I have great ideas, I'm just too busy to write them down. Hey, maybe you can look over my stuff.

The latter is code for "Tell me what a genius I am."

I do not mind bumptious ignorance, but it is rather insulting to be treated as if that discipline to which you have given your life and your hardest work amounts to nothing, to have it implied that just anyone can do it.

Anyone can't. Let's get that straight.

Like Helix said, good writers in this culture are underpaid, disdained, ignored. In my opinion, if you fix the incredible lack of esteem in which true writers are held, you will fix most of the slush-pile awfulness. A proper reverence for mastery makes it clear what mastery is.

You haven't picked up a brush in forty years, and you just took up painting? Odds are your first painting is not a masterpiece. Same way with writing.

Let's see some understanding and respect for those who recognize, understand, and promote clarity, liveliness, and effect in words, then I'll worry about the feelings of bad writers.

There is one good reason not to become angry and remonstrate, however. Nobody but nobody likes to be told they can't write. No matter how true it is, never ever say that to anyone. You will never be forgiven. You will be visited with vituperation as one of the meanest-spirited people alive.

Fine ideas all. Thing I love most is the head-to-head athletic competitions, especially track and field. Especially distance.

Especially like the ideas of having permanent sites, doing away with the IOC (useless buggers), nationalistic uniforms, flags in the stadia, and crowning with laurel.

Wish there was a way your ideas could be adopted. Afraid they are too reasonable and make too much sense. I never even used to watch bowling on tv, back when I watched tv. It's hard to imagine as a true sport, much less a spectator sport.

Okay, true, it takes a certain sort of physical skill. So does making ugly faces or farting a given note.

I love the idea of "entertainment sports." That's would I would call bowling, equestrianism, curling, and yes, even though I know it requires a certain athleticism, synchronized swimming--or what we used to call water ballet.