Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 237 Editor's Choice: 16
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Neglect will kill the music
[Read the article: Conversations: Ry Cooder]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That is absolutely right. And not just neglect by listeners, but neglect by performers.
Those of us who sing opera chorus in regional theaters, those of us who sing the classical songs of the Church on Sunday morning, those of us who give up evenings to learn and rehearse, and then sing the Brahms Requiem or Carmina Burana for partially filled houses, all of them are keeping the music alive for the next generation.
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Keillor already answered this one
[Read the article: My boyfriend wants me to move, my daughter wants me to stay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Garrison Keillor answered this one last Wednesday. Here is a snippet:
Monogamy put the parents in the background where they belong and we children were able to hold center stage. We didn't have to contend with troubled, angry parents demanding that life be richer and more rewarding for them. We blossomed and agonized and fussed over our outfits and learned how to go on a date and order pizza and do the twist and neck in the front seat of a car back before bucket seats when you could slide close together, and we started down the path toward begetting children while Mom and Dad stood like smiling, helpless mannequins in the background.
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If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control. Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and black polka-dot shirts. That's for the kids. It's their show.
Good advice to parents. Once the kids are gone, then we get to go back to the chartreuse pants and black polka-dot shirts, if we can stand them.
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The Venus figures
[Read the article: Queens of the Stone Age]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Last year, I went to Les Eyzies de Tayac, located in the heart of the region of France where neanderthals and our ancestors lived. This area is the home of cave art, including Lascaux and the Font du Gaume.
The prehistoric museum there had videos of modern humans working with stone and bone tools to reproduce tools found in the archaeological digs. One of them showed a guy making one of the figurines with the hair or hat or whatever it is. The one in the video did not have a complicated head piece, more like cross-hatching into a net, but the flint tool was really sharp, so the scoring of the stone was relatively quick. Of course, there may have been some serious time compression in the video.
It is easy to understand that life there could have been pretty pleasant most of the year: with walnut trees, wild asparagus, herbs and so on, rivers full of fish and lavender leading to bees to honey.
I can easily understand how they found time to make art.
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MoveOn got it right
[Read the article: MoveOn moves in with Pelosi]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think MoveOn did the right thing. I support the organization, although I did not get to vote. Instead, I met with the Chief of Staff of my Congressman, who had expressed deep concerns. We agreed that the bill has problems, and I urged my Congressman to vote for it anyway. The problems are there, and we have to move things forwards somehow. My Congressman bit the bullet and supported the bill despite what I know are deeply and truly held dobuts about the wisdom of this approach.
I wish all these people who are whining about MoveOn had tried to talk to their Representatives. If they listened to the problems the Representatives talk about, and realize that our Representatives are people with real information and reasonable concerns about this bill, they would have realized how unlikely their approach is to winning support and passing.
This bill will make a difference, one way or another, and their approach would not have accomplished anything at all.
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Why does everyone want an explanation?
[Read the article: Gospel according to Judas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Alex O'Neal's says that we cannot understand the universe without God, so we need to consider God as a possibility. But why is she so anxious to have an explanation? She says atheists ignore the psychological ramifications of their views, denial about their own ability to understand the universe.
I disagree. I am quite content not to have an explanation. She needs to answer the question, what is so lacking in my life that I need God to explain it away. Explanations without demonstrable, testable, physical effects are talk in the wind. I suggest a re-reaading of The Myth of Sisyphus, a book for grown-ups, who have put away the things of a child.
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This is what we can expect if Roe is repealed
[Read the article: Mexico expected to legalize abortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The anti-abortionist enablers are fond of arguing that Roe short-cut the legislative process, and that we should give the states a chance to weigh in on the issue, which is all that repealing Roe would do. This story shows us what will really happen.
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Other alternatives
[Read the article: Is cutting off war funding political suicide?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would suggest funding the war with a clean bill for a short time; six months seems right. That way, in six months, there will be another vote, and the Republicans will have to continue to associate themselves with the war and own it, or, maybe, enough of them will come to their senses and vote to end it. Either way, Democrats win.
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Gun Nuts Won
[Read the article: Why Democrats dumped gun control]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Second Amendment Absolutists won the politics of this issue. Every effort to deal with guns has been defeated by the NRA and its cultish devotees. The rest of us are reduced to being targets for the crazy people we live with. The dead at Virginia Tech are not even .1% of the sacrifices we will offer up this year for their cultish satisfaction.
The rest of us do get the satisfaction of swooning in manufactured grief for this group of too-soon dead. It is a good thing we don't do this for the 87 people who die from gunfire every day.
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European laws
[Read the article: What is the rationale behind the prescription drug laws?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Twelve years ago, I was in Siena, Italy, with my mother-in-law, whose legs were swelling up. We were sitting in the Piazza Publico when my wife realized what was happening. She went to the pharmacia on the Piazza, explained what was happening in broken Italian and gesture. The pharmacist gave my wife a supply of diuretics. My mother-in-law started taking them (the first one went down with a campari and soda), and quickly recovered.
Why can't that happen here?