Letters to the Editor
masaccio
Published Letters: 237 Editor's Choice: 16
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I felt this way years ago
[Read the article: Midlife crisis: I could have been a singer!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was in my mid-thirties, and I got a part in the chorus of a community theater production of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. I didn't know how to read music. I had no idea how to act, dance or learn music. Everyone was really nice and helpful, and it was a lot of fun.
But I wasn't satisfied with my performance. So I joined a church choir (as another writer points out, choirs just care if you can do it, just keep quiet about your religious views), and sat next to a talented singer who could read music. I sang whatever he sang, just a fraction late, so I fixed that by singing softly.
Well, it turned out that I have a good voice, and it gradually got better and better, and I got to be pretty good at reading Church music. One day, three years later,the Choir Director said: "I'm hearing individual voices in the bass section." After the third time he said this, I realized it was me. After choir, I said to the director, why don't you get the rest of them to sing louder. The director said that wasn't the sound we want in this group.
That summer, I auditioned for the local opera company. I had never sung in a foreign language, and didn't realize we would be singing Il Trovatore in Italian. I had no idea how to audition. The Director kindly helped me sing a Latin hymn, and put me in the group.
Twenty years later, I have sung in over 45 productions. I take lessons, and I am all the singer I can be. I sing with enormous pride and pleasure in the discipline and companionship of chorus. I can't imagine how I could exist without singing.
I hope this helps.
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Responding to Colonel Davis
[Read the article: Standards of American justice under George W. Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you would like to comment on Colonel Davis' op-ed, try this link: http://www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.html
I suggest politely asking Colonel Davis to respond to Glenn's post.
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Dr. Torture?
[Read the article: Robert Bork redux]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh those funny conservatives.
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Men like Austen also
[Read the article: I dream of Darcy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just want to point out that many manly men like Austen too. Romance is delightful, and there is no reason men shouldn't love the idea of love.
My theory is that many of us feel like Darcy when thrust into a purely social setting and meeting a woman like Elizabeth, with her quick wit, her acid observations, and her eyes, which cause me to "consider her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance." I love Elizabeth for those things as well as her pragmatic approach to life, and I am in perfect sympathy with Darcy's tongue-tied fumbling approach, having been there myself. I fully understand the necessity of making changes in myself in order to please a woman like her, as Darcy is willing to do, and as I like to think I have done in my 34 years of marriage to a woman not unlike Elizabeth. I assume that after the marriage, they each discover things about the other that are unpleasant, and that they adapt, because the foundation of the relationship is so sound.
Yes, the money helps. But, let's remember that today it isn't necessary for Darcy to have the big bucks, because Elizabeth has a job of her own, one that gives her satisfaction so that she is not dependent on Darcy for her interactions with the world. Trade-offs, yes, but the relationship would survive today as well.
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MacK has it right
[Read the article: Free speech for the rich and powerful]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was there when the creepy right, ver. 1.0 got ahold of the SEC, and began the process of cutting off the rights of investors to use Rule 10b-5 to protect themselves from Wall Street and its collaborators. It was clear under Reagan and John Shad that the conservatives wanted to gut the laws. With the demise of Glass-Steagall, we got the financial monoliths, and they have the clout to shed their liabilities.
More information on the real money, not the piker sums they use to buy off congress, please.
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Is there a fund to help?
[Read the article: Pregnant and poor in Mississippi]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In my home town, there is a fund, to which I make an annual contribution, which uses its money to help out with the cost of abortions for people who cannot afford them.
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What is the meaning of meaning?
[Read the article: We are meant to be here]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why do people want to believe that there is some meaning in the universe? What's wrong with the possibility that we die and disappear after out turn on the planet? Death is just part of life for every other species. Why should we be different, with our longing for an "afterlife" or a "meaning".
Davies admits that the term "meaning" is a human construct. What purpose does it serve? What part of my life is made different from his because I couldn't care less if my life has "meaning" in his sense or any other sense. If "meaning" is a human construct, it does not have any reason to be one thing or another, and will be different from one human to another. Much of the damage in the world arises from different human constructs for meaning and purpose.
Science isn't going to answer the question, or whatever Davies is talking about, because it cannot be posed as a question amenable to the scientific method.
I'm with Protagoras: Man is the measure of all things, of those that are, that they are; of those that are not, that they are not. Click on my signature for a link.
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Helpless and hapless in the US
[Read the article: Bush and Cheney walk, too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is nothing we citizens can do. Bush is rampant, and there is no one to protect the Constitution, our liberties, our history, our principles. We cannot or will not help ourselves. We are passive in the face of his inexorable will. We have no leadership, and we cannot lead ourselves.
America. Fun while it lasted.
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Money
[Read the article: Does self-help breed helplessness?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wonder how much of people's unhappiness is due to money worries, debt, job security, conflict with spouse over money etc.