Letters to the Editor
DCLaw1
Published Letters: 808 Editor's Choice: 2
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Anonymust
[Read the article: Chris Matthews is right ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ages ago, I posted something about this theory that I have that it's really women who want sex and men who want intimacy, even though the culture says it's the opposite. If you look at it all inside-out, it seems clear that women are conditioned by the culture to think that the only way they can "legitimately" have sex is by having an intimate relationship, and that men have been conditioned that the only way they are "allowed" to have intimacy is through sex. Unfortunately, one requires a longer relationship than the other... and there we are.
Those members of each sex who don't play by these rules are usually considered traitors to their sex, or subversive, at a minimum.
Very thought-provoking approach. I don't know if it's my unusual upbringing, but racial and gender conflicts have always struck me as just so incredibly... pointless and tiresome. A lot of it really does have to be learned. Luckily, this means that much of it can erode with the progressing eras. I know a few people who have at least one blatantly racist parent, and yet have rejected those attitudes, to the best of their ability.
I don't consider myself "enlightened." "Enlightened" implies some kind of achievement. I just lived by my mother's example (marrying and dating outside her race, and defying gender stereotypes), and the rest just is. I know I'm tempting cheesy/partisan here, but this is a lot of the reason why Obama really resonates with me. I'm not the same exact combination of races as he is, but I can definitely empathize with growing up straddling lines. I also think he represents, in the best of ways, a healing, merging spirit.
I have gay friends, lesbian friends, and am married to a woman of a different race (the benefits of living in an urban area). The same-sex couples I know are the most ordinary, loving couple I know. My marriage is as loving and full as any other. I just don't see what is the big F-ing deal about any of these "issues."
Not to trivialize people who struggle with them. Everyone is, to some extent, a product of their own experiences. I only pray that people at least try to see the common humanity in each other.
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This thread has ended up putting a smile on my face
[Read the article: Chris Matthews is right ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'll carry this peaceful feeling to bed now.
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Absurdity Warblings
[Read the article: McCain spokesman John King of CNN]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This idea of journalism - that it is or should be some great noble and ethical profession of Socratic truetellers - mystifies me somewhat since it doesn't appear to based on the behaviour of anyone who's ever worked in the field.
Ah yes, where would anyone get the idea that the press should function as a truthteller and check on people in power.
"The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being." -- Thomas Jefferson
"To the press alone, chequered as it is with abuses, the world is indebted for all the triumphs which have been gained by reason and humanity over error and oppression." -- James Madison
"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." -- Thomas Jefferson
"This formidable censor of the public functionaries, by arraigning them at the tribunal of public opinion, produces reform peaceably, which must otherwise be done by revolution. It is also the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man and improving him as a rational, moral, and social being." -- Thomas Jefferson
Oh, and then there's that little "First Amendment" thing that seemed to reflect a certain value placed on the press.
By all means, though, continue being the proud advocate of a supine, mindless, juvenile, and unprincipled media.
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talesofunrest
[Read the article: McCain spokesman John King of CNN]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am complaining about the pointlessness of any attack on the media that is centered upon the use of the normative word ‘should’ unmoored to any positive analysis.
For a missive complaining about the incoherent mandate of "should," you haven't exactly made your own thoughts coherent. I surely didn't take your comment as a defense of the media, but if you expect more "positive analysis" from others, perhaps you could take your own advice.
Through your welter of words about McDonalds and consumer choice, can we fairly take your message to be that we (the media consumers) are to blame? Are you truly advocating that there is anything even resembling market perfection in the advance of certain media formats, perspectives, and styles, and that consumer choice is not in large part created and cultivated by the same mass marketing that has made KFC's "Famous Bowl" of glop (as infamously ridiculed by Patton Oswalt) such a hit?
Let's consider perhaps just one piece of evidence to the contrary, specifically with regard to the media: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/557/public-blames-media-for-too-much-celebrity-coverage
Celebrity scandals receive...
Too much news coverage 87%
Too little news coverage 2%
Right amount of news coverage 8%
Surely, that bottom 10% is to blame for the overzealous celebrity coverage -- after all, we deserve whatever we get, right?