Letters to the Editor
Foodle
Published Letters: 45
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@Jeanette
[Read the article: AT&T, other telecoms, buy victory in lawsuits]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Neither am I counting on the bill being innocuous, Jeanette; but I would like to see the actual text of the bill, and I would like some better understanding of what constitutes demonstrating that a wire-tapping directive was legal before proceeding to sweeping generalization and condemnations. Call me interested, suspicious, and engaged, but not yet convinced.
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Kos has game, but he's no Glenn Grenwald.
[Read the article: Kos vs. Rove: Who won the Newsweek primary?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]n/t
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Hate to break it to you
[Read the article: Has Starbucks lost its soul?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But the great majority of Starbucks' pastries are not produced in a factory, but rather in a local bakery. Those bakeries are all using the same recipes, so there is a great deal of commonality. Few, if any, of those recipes are for really great pastries, but the blame for the really awful results lies mostly with your local Starbucks-contracted bakery. A lot of those bakeries either never were capable of maintaining both volume and quality, or they were unable to keep up with Starbucks' rate of expansion. Add to that the fact that most of the night-shift bakers and assistants are lesser talents at most bakeries that also produce and sell during the day (often more directly and under their own name, not Starbucks'), and it should be pretty obvious that quality control is going to be a problem.
All of that aside, Starbucks does seem to tolerate poor pastry quality. That tolerance of poor quality is directly the fault of the corporate giant. The actual production of the pastries is not.
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Another political reality?
[Read the article: John Yoo's war crimes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The political reality is that high government officials in the U.S. are never going to be held accountable for war crimes.
If we accept this as a political reality, is there not still room for another political reality and another form of accountability: Trying the alleged war criminals in a moot court of high enough profile that it could have some intellectual, academic, and even political import? Would such a mock trial be advisable, or would it be too close to vigilante justice?
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Are you really so sure?
[Read the article: Thank you, Rush Limbaugh!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some examples of supposed sexist attacks on Hillary are decidedly less clear cut and persuasive than the "iron my shirt!" variety. Why is highlighting Clinton's problem with perceived prickliness and lack of likability any more or less inherently sexist than the highlighting in a previous election of George W. Bush's advantage in being perceived as the friendly guy that everyone would like to have a beer with, or Kerry's disadvantage of appearing aloof? Whether too much attention is paid to such personality traits of the candidates is a legitimate issue, but it doesn't appear to be inherently sexist.
Similarly, female politicians don't even have a monopoly on being called whores (cf. http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/r/Y/bush_whore_prez.jpg), so it would seem that more than just noting the application of the word to a female candidate is needed to make the case that the inflammatory appellation is sexist.
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Another YouTube challenge
[Read the article: My last word (for now) on sexism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How about you put together a YouTube video montage, or even an old fashioned textual list of quotations, showing prior female heads of government playing the gender card and making explicit, gender-based appeals to selected groups of female voters. Here's a start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Female_heads_of_government
That's a fairly long list of female heads of government, but there are damn few gender card playing examples by them that come to mind. Iron Ladies like Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, and Indira Gandhi didn't whine about how awful and damaging the sexist bigots were to their political careers. The closest they got to that was not by claiming heroic champion status from their fight against outdated and unfair notions of femininity and women's roles, but rather by embracing those stereotypical notions for political advantage in much the same way that George W. Bush pretends to be an ignorant West Texas rancher to mislead and gain advantage. On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of Hillary, her campaign staff, and her political backers making explicit gender card plays and complaints over the past year.
Here's a hint: People will tend to be much more sympathetic to your complaining about the disadvantages of being seen as the woman candidate if you refuse to try to advantage yourself through gender-based identity politics that set you apart as the feminist woman candidate. Heads I win, tails you lose is not a game many will be willing to play, nor will they respect you for proposing it.