Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 43 Editor's Choice: 1
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In what sense is the pack dragging the best runners back?
[Read the article: How Oprah ruined the marathon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here][Y]ou'd think America would be turning out faster and faster marathoners. Instead, the opposite is happening. The more we run marathons, the slower we get....
It makes me ask: Has this country's marathoning spirit been trampled by hordes of joggers whose only goal is to stagger across the finish line?
Why does it make you wonder that? Are you trying to reduce your undergraduate logic professor to tears? There have to be better goals for your life.
It's unclear to me why the author suggests slow winning times are due to an increased popularity of the sport, or even the mindset that finishing the marathon itself is a landmark achievement everyone wants in their lives. I get that he's angry that people without his excuse not to run a marathon at all -- and the average runner now beat him when he did run one -- aren't killing themselves trying to minimize their time, but I don't see the connection to the fastest runners.
I don't know why the-ryan-that-lived is running a slower time than other people. It's a suspect statistic, but I'm not researching it. I would suggest that there are a lot of non-Americans in the world, and running has a low barrier to entry. This might have something to do with why we don't always win international competitions.
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It's just possible
[Read the article: Kansas O'Flaherty ... Secret Agent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That in addition to page loads for the comic, the editor looks at activity on the letters page. Not, of course, for content, but just for a count. She feels her readers are engaged by the comic if there are many letters. So, while 'if you don't like it, don't read it,' carries a certain amount of punch, there's also 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.' As web sites get better at measuring out attention, we have to be more judicious with it.
If you want the strip gone, try to ignore it. What, do you want WayLay back on Tuesdays? Maybe it's just an unlucky day. It's not like there's another feature waiting in the wings -- Fridays were empty since that periodic about, what was it? An undead political consultant? went away in the 2000 election cycle. Until WayLay was relegated there. Saturday's still empty -- Opus has shown that if Salon had anything to put on a weekend, they'd do it.
The bar's raised pretty high by "This Modern World" and "Tom The Dancing Bug."* But, it's not like there are more strips like that out there. There are plenty more strips like WayLay. Now, you and I might prefer empty space, but the comics editor has to fill the space, and experimenting with independent comics is a fine way to fill it.
So, maybe Kansas O'Flaherty isn't a disjointed mishmash with self-conscious style references. Maybe it's art. It's really impossible to tell if it actually is innovative, so I'd give it some space. Maybe it's getting better as a narrative vehicle. Maybe it was all written six years ago and it's you that's changing.
But, if you don't like it, the best way to kill it is to ignore it. But, if you want to kill it, you have to accept that you're probably not going to get anything better subsequently.
Thanks!
RFM
*I don't mean that as an attack on the K Chronicles, which I always enjoy. I find it hard to evaluate Opus without reference to Bloom County and Outland, which is to say I won't evaluate it as I don't think I'm seeing it for itself.
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Congratulations, Mr. Knight!
[Read the article: The K Chronicles]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I look forward to single panel meditations on the minutiae of child rearing!
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Modifying?
[Read the article: WayLay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]WayLay's got the typical convergence of power and petulance, but then adds restraint. So, no huge disasters driven by pettiness this time. I'd ask what the point was, but if you can make bebop-o smile without effort, I guess it's all worthwhile.
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So this is an old strip
[Read the article: WayLay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was going to remark on how uncharacteristically together and pointful it was. That this is what she was producing a decade ago addresses the riddle of why Salon keeps publishing her.
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What kind of world is it where we worry about angering cartoonists?
[Read the article: Kansas O'Flaherty ... Secret Agent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seriously, when has that every worked out poorly for anyone?
"The Mossad made up this country." I'm not sure if the strip even had internal logic up to this point, but that's definitely a break. Other people's fever dreams are pretty uncompelling, and that's what this is reading like.
I guess I can just not go to Salon comics on Tuesdays, but I hate having to change my routine on a given day of the week. On the other hand, Salon only had four daily strips (three if you don't count WayLay) when I subscribed, so it's not like I'm losing money, and Opus is a bonus.
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I agree
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We should really try to put conventional wisdom man out of our heads.
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Giuliani beat Huckabee!
[Read the article: Earliest exit poll results from Florida]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My world is topsy turvy. Let's hope later results right things. Hey, do the absentee ballots get counted before or after the polls?
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The Greens are transforming, not defying, the system
[Read the article: Make your own candidate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We're standing in possibility that a government can be responsive to the people and driven by values: specifically non-violence, economic justice, ecological stewardship and grassroots democracy.
Democrats object that we're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. But, the system is set up to force you to compromise to the interests of people who can buy television advertisements. If the Democratic Party got behind Instant Runoff Voting, where second choices count -- an element of their primary process in many states -- it wouldn't be forcing you to make this choice.
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jjm152, thanks for explaining what's going on
[Read the article: Story Minute]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nice tie in to today's XKCD, though. (follow my link)
And I bet she gets six letters today.
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Huckabee's a lock for the nomination!
[Read the article: John McCain's Panama problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Democrats aren't going to pursue this issue. But, Mike Huckabee can! And Ron Paul just may!