Letters to the Editor
masaccio
Published Letters: 237 Editor's Choice: 16
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Clothing is decisive
[Read the article: And then there were two]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have always hated aquamarine, but lavender is a color us white guys can't wear, and it looks great on black guys, so I think I have no choice but to vote for Obama.
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GFY
[Read the article: Alice in Fashionland]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cintra, we want the real news: did you see Heather and Jessica from Go Fug Yourself?
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Why don't they mention the other stuff?
[Read the article: Why McCain provokes paranoia on the right]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He is old: Reagan was 69 when he took office, and look how that turned out.
He isn't bright: fifth from the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy.
He is susceptible to aggressive melanomas, the deadly form of skin cancer, that gets worse with age.
He was part of the Keating 5, and would never have lasted if we actually had a competent justice system.
But, we all know: IOKIYAR!
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Partnership
[Read the article: My shame at being single -- it burns, it buuuurns!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The point Gottlieb seemed to be trying to make is that in the long run, marriage is about partnership. When you are young, the point of relationships is that helpless sensation you get when you think about your lover. As you grow older, hopefully you have had that feeling, and what you need is a partner to handle the complex lives we live and want to live, with family, friends, work, and social action. The feeling of true love isn't going to do you any good if your spouse doesn't hold up the other end of the stick from youra. It goes away with familiarity anyway. So, what Gottlieb calls settling may mean nothing more than moving directly to the partnership stage of a relationship, without the necessity of that movie sensation.
I have been business partners with the same guys for many years. We pull our share of the plow, and starting from nothing have developed comfortable working and friendship relationships, that have proved profitable. Gottlieb points out that running a marriage is a lot like running a small non-profit business, and you need that set of skills and relationships to make it work. Men and women would both benefit from this kind of calculus, rather than assume that their needs at 40 are the same as their needs at earlier ages.
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Charlotte Rampling, anyone?
[Read the article: Sex after 50? Mais oui!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]See, The Swimming Pool, a 2003 film drenched in sexuality, now in rotation on one of the cable channels. Rampling is nothing like the French Actress described in the article. She wears her age as we all can.
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My daughter
[Read the article: Papa or the whiz kid brother?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]recently told us she was voting for Obama because she was sick to death of baby boomers. It dawned on me that I am sick of baby boomers too, and I am one.
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Buckley was intelligent
[Read the article: The "father of modern conservatism," dead at 82]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I occasionally watched Buckley's tv show, Firing Line. It was fascinating to see him and his guests genially discussing complex issues with nuance and civility. It was fun trying to come up with responses that I would have given on a number of subjects.
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Who really thinks skinny is pretty?
[Read the article: On the runway, still needing a sandwich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Certainly not the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit editors and their millions of readers. Those women look fabulous, not cadaverous.
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Hot or not?
[Read the article: Women ARE funny. And foxy!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tina Fey: Hot
the rest of them: warmish
Hot is in the eye of the beholder.
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Comparable to Siegelman?
[Read the article: Who cares if Eliot Spitzer hires prostitutes?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is this just another part of the Department of Justice program to rid the country of those troublesome democratic governors?
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Great Speech, Great Ideas
[Read the article: Obama's speech on race]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This speech holds the key to understanding why people think Obama is a progressive. He makes the argument of Thomas Frank in What's Wrong with Kansas, and Diane McWhorter in Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. That argument is that we get sucked into arguing about race when the problem is elsewhere. Instead of dealing with race directly, we use jobs, affirmative action, welfare health care and other issues as proxies, and hide our fears and our shame from ourselves.
Obama calls for seeing the sources of the rage and anger that infects all of us, and dealing with the sources. If we do that, we will also deal with our own racist feelings, and maybe eventually get past them.
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Capital gains from changing the tier of assets? Are You Kidding?
[Read the article: McCain-onomics: A tax cut in every corporate pot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]IANAAccountant, but this can't be so. Capital gains applies when you sell something. It doesn't apply when you re-characterize it. I have stocks in a company. I decide to move it from one broker to another, no tax. Why is this different?
Could he have meant that there might be income if the asset was re-characterized, because it had previously been written down? Could this have something to do with reserves for loan losses?
I note that Holtz-Eakin refers to this not as a requirement, but as a possibility. If it were really a problem, I can imagine a very short statute to ameliorate it, and I don't think it would make any significant difference.
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Try Opera
[Read the article: Welcome to the "menaissance"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you want to see some medieval masculine toys, try singing opera. Il Trovatore: huge swords, chain mail, spears, pikes, we have it all, and you get to sing real loud, kind of like shouting at other people. It's the swords that keep me coming back. I just feel like a real man when I have a broadsword to flail about with.
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I understand this
[Read the article: Theirs not to reason why]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was this guy in 1968. I loathed the war, but I joined the ROTC and then the army. I believe that we serve our country in its hour of need. I believe that it isn't fair to ask others to serve if we won't do it ourselves.
I still believe that. I just can't believe that so many people think others should die in their wars.
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@ hhatchet
[Read the article: Why Hillary Clinton should be winning]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well said.