Letters to the Editor
jdmonaco
Published Letters: 16 Editor's Choice: 3
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18-25
[Read the article: Karl Rove's big election-fraud hoax]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Disclaimer: I just exited (time flies) the coveted 18-25 demographic.
Yet, and now I spend a lot of time amongst these "young people today", I just don't see this huge wave of discouraging apathy. We are the avid Daily Show/Colbert watchers, we're on the blogs, we're organizing protests (World Can't Wait and MoveOn aren't run by aging hippies). Hell, I'm here reading all your letters and I'm just as angry at the total usurpation of our government by a cabal of power-hungry neowhatevers.
Certainly there is apathy out there, maybe due to the seeming inevitability of everything that's happened. What can a single voter do in the face of Rovian mischief? In the face of a press that has relinquished it's proper role? An entire Justice Dept infected with the rot of Regent University? I'm sure this apathy cuts across other demographic dimensions; but the flipside is that the egregious mishandlings are indeed causing more people, of all ages, to wake up to what's happening.
However, I do feel like I am among the last of a generation that received anything approaching a proper public education. My high school, in one of the richest school districts in D.C. suburbia, was on a sharp downhill turn by the time I graduated. Maybe the 18-25's out there now don't realize the stakes because they were never taught about the stakes. Might that be the fault of the previous generation, you boomers, who neglected the importance of an educated populace in pursuit of tax relief from your new Reaganite/neocon leaders?
I'm optimistic that there is an upswing in interest, activism and potential voter turnout. Just surviving this administration (and so many haven't) has provided the harshest kind of education to the entire voting population. I just hope the overlong campaigns don't dull everyone's senses. Anyway, the voter/election fraud distinction must be made, and it must be shown that the Rove machine is trying to do it again, all to perpetuate more of the same.
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Ron Paul explains cause and effect...
[Read the article: What you missed while watching "Dancing With the Stars"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The libertarian was alone as a reasonable voice here, so I guess that means he doesn't deserve mention. He explained well that it was interventionist policies that fueled the hatred that led to the attacks. Giuliani interrupts to call this absurd and demands a retraction (they hate us for our freedom of course!).
Hannity brings it up afterwards and Paul wipes the floor with him, even as the blowhard refuses to let him speak.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0LRM57k038c
(Somehow, foxnews.com didn't put that clip online, just the McCain and Giuliani "reactions".)
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Just got back ...
[Read the article: Columbia to be punished for hosting the new Hitler enemy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just got back from the Ahmadinejad speech on campus (I watched the outdoor screen they had setup). Lee Bollinger sung his praise of freedom of speech, but it came off as if he only did so grudgingly. He recited a bunch of claims against Iran and Ahmadinejad and finished with seriously loaded questions, without letting him begin his prepared remarks or answer the questions. Regardless of the veracity of the claims, it was not respectful or gracious at all of his own invited guest, tyrannical leader or not. You don't invite a speaker, give him a platform, and malign him with a long diatribe before letting him speak. Bollinger, I think, came off looking like a jerk while getting in a number of Fox News Sunday-worthy applause lines. The preemption and antagonism was just not warranted.
Ah...'s speech was pretty restrained, and he seemed careful not to say anything too outrageous. Though he did say that there were no homosexuals in Iran, that that "phenomenon" just doesn't happen there. That got more than a few laughs. And apparently he's all about peace, love, and harmony, which he mentioned a few times. (Except for some "regimes" like the Zionists.) And he said Iran was still a little pissed about "big monopolistic powers" (guess who?) supporting Iraq in the Iraq/Iran war and now supporting Sunni groups which have historically terrorized Iran. He's a bit of a nut, but not a completely irrational nut.
Sig links to some pics I took of the crowd... one of the biggest I've seen on campus in a couple years at least.
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The latest entrant...
[Read the article: All the candidates' books]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is Salon completely ignoring the day-long candidacy of Stephen Colbert? Certainly I Am America (And So Can You!) deserves mention here.
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Well...
[Read the article: Their terrifying sounds]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't understand atonal music.
Far as I can tell, Schoenberg and his disciples destroyed the grand tradition of Western music. This book sounds like a great way to get a better handle on the context of the stuff though. I'll probably pick it up, but I don't think I can ever enjoy atonalism as music per se.
I almost booed Maurizio Pollini at Carnegie Hall after he played some minimalist atonal piece of crap. Several people actually did. I think it might've been Boulez, but it's all the same.
Composers like Golijov are starting to revive things though. Music that embodies the flavor and complexity of the contemporary world AND it's fun and pleasing to listen to. Imagine that.
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bonerici
[Read the article: Their terrifying sounds]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's defined as "classical" music by people like you who dismiss all of it is exactly stagnant. What it is in actuality is (or was until the mid-20th century) exactly what you said it should be. It was a continuously evolving form starting at the end of the middle ages essentially. If you say Bach and Wagner were writing the same kind of music, you don't know anything about either's.
It continued to adapt and change and bring in audiences until the idea of writing truly great music that could be widely enjoyed became utterly passe (thanks to you know who and friends).
And no thank you, I do not want James Brown samples in the middle of Beethoven anything. Are you crazy? Why don't you listen to the new Pletnev/RNO recordings of the symphonies and see how much variation and flexibility is possible with this stale old music.