Letters to the Editor
ggrazevich
Published Letters: 33 Editor's Choice: 3
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shotgun marriage it was not
[Read the article: The crash in Republican economics ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The bailout of Bear Stearns by J.P. Morgan, a shotgun marriage in which Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke played the role of farmer's daughter's father
I beg to differ. Bernanke is the one who was naive--an academic swimming with the sharks. This whole thing was engineered by J.P. Morgan, a wily bunch of cardsharps who picked up assets for chump change while getting the taxpayers to cover the liabilities. Nice work!
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Silence
[Read the article: CNN, the Pentagon's "military analyst program" and Gitmo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't what they're doing the equivalent of taking the 5th? Their only public response may be to pooh-pooh it, as Brian Williams did, but the news organizations have surely had their lawyers look carefully at this, and their advice, understandably, is "Say nothing." Only a thorough Congressional investigation could possibly make a difference, and even then there's no reason to believe that the networks would report it as "news."
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"Surprises"
[Read the article: "The Happening"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In "Sixth Sense," I thought that the best part about the twist was that it was grounded in something that the audience already "knew:" of course no one could have survived that shotgun blast, so Bruce Willis's psychologist must be dead. The only reason we are able to convince ourselves of something that we know cannot be true is that the film we're watching shows him "alive" after cutting from the shooting scene. When I saw it, I thought of the twist at the end of "The End of the Affair:" isn't the simplest--if unscientific--explanation that indeed Julianne Moore prayed Ralph Fiennes back to life?
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Button's gone
[Read the article: Obama's support for the FISA "compromise"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was not thrilled with Obama's support of Lieberman in the CT primary (way back in summer '06), but I tentatively embraced his historic candidacy at the beginning of '08, in part because of his steadfast opposition to the Iraq adventure. Gave a little money, got a button, put it on my briefcase, so I could advertise a little on the subway, etc. I threw the button in the garbage can as I was leaving work Friday after reading about Obama's craven, inexplicable support for taking away my constitutional rights. No button, not one more penny, and since I live in a state that he will take without breaking a sweat, no vote in November. It will be the first presidential election where I have not voted for anyone at the top of the ticket, but I cannot in good conscience vote for someone who is content to see the Constitution gutted.
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Focus on the fist bump
[Read the article: Rush Limbaugh was right]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you for at least mentioning the "terrorist fist bump" among the various elements of the cartoon. Few if any of the commentators I have read or heard have mentioned it, and I see it as central to the satire here. It's visually central to the cartoon, and focusing on it brings out what's really being mocked: that this simple gesture, apparently (but secretly!) so common nowadays among "the young people" and other "hip" folk, engenders a myriad of phantom images about terrorists, leftists, and other "others," including those oh-so-foreign Muslims. The cartoon is a fantasia built on a fist bump, and it ridicules the fact that anyone at any level in the media world could have spent even half a minute seriously discussing the implications of the Obamas' sharing that gesture.
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prediction
[Read the article: Enter Salon's Election Pool]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1. 4 percentage points
2. 286
3. 22
4. 8
5. Russell
6. Tinklenberg
7. Chambliss
8. Franken
9. Hagen
10. (tie breaker) 11:00 PM EST