Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 41 Editor's Choice: 10
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One light, infinite shadows
[Read the article: We want a kid but don't think it's right to have one]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For every person who does exist, there are an infinite number of nonexistent people who might have been.
By bringing somebody into the world, you offer them the choice to exist -- once you have brought them up to the level to which they can understand and appreciate the choice. If you are concerned about denying choice, worry about the never-to-be children you deny any choice at all, not the ones who now have an opportunity to choose thanks to you choosing to have them.
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Excerpts should have some meat
[Read the article: When my finger was on the button for Israel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I feel like the nice people at Salon got taken for a ride by the publisher's marketing department on this one. At least I hope so, as the other possibility is that there was some quid pro quo for publishing this.
I don't mind when Salon publishes some substantial excerpt from a book that makes a good article on its own. But this is a sad little teaser that I'd hope they'd never accept on its own, and it ends with a painfully obvious now-buy-my-book hook. Annoying.
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Spot on
[Read the article: What happened to all my dad's money?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nicely done, Cary. The second half of your answer, where you suggest a lawyer and some forensic accounting, would be perfectly good and standard advice.
But the first half, where you neatly step beyond the question asked, is genius. You gave more than advice: you gave the letter-writer an opportunity to eventually come to understand and be at peace with something both sad and very human.
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Nudges and crises
[Read the article: Can Obama do more than "nudge"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Think of a driver on the freeway. Every five seconds, he opens his eyes for a quick peek, and then corrects his course. His driving will be very jerky.
Now think of how you normally drive: constant small adjustments. Nudges.
Even if Obama does have to take some dramatic action to dodge a crisis, he should still focus on implementing a lot of thoughtful little nudges, as that's how you avoid a lot of crises in the first place.
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Whoa!
[Read the article: Viva Hillary Clinton!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What happened to the Salon comments section? Most of the comments I read on here are thoughtful and interesting, but this article -- which seems fine to me -- has brought a bunch of jerks and copy-paste yutzes out of the woodwork. Couldn't you folks go fight elsewhere?
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Thanks for your memories
[Read the article: Scenes from a group marriage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have friends in polyamorous relationships, and I never know quite what to think. By the numbers, though, they seem no more or less successful than my monogamous friends, and on average they seem no less sane. But still, I wonder.
Thus, it's good to hear -- from someone who's had plenty of cause to think about it -- that as with other relationships, the problems come from the turmoil, not the mere fact of the relationship.
Thanks!
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Where would they put it?
[Read the article: Oil price conspiracy theorists: Rev your engines]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for an interesting article, Andrew. I've got a question, perhaps one you can cover in a future post.
I haven't been following the blame-the-speculators camp very closely, but what I don't understand is where they think the speculators would put the oil. It seems to me that oil is different from stocks, in that it's physical, and different from commodities like gold, in that it is consumed. It is also consumed at high volume, and as commodities go, it isn't very value-dense; you can lose $1000 of gold in your couch cushions, but in oil that would fill your bathtub five times over. All the tankers in the world hold only a month's consumption or so, so it's not like you can just park it somewhere.
So how could speculators be having much of an effect on oil prices? Sure, they can have an effect on futures--that's all paper--but if that were the case, wouldn't that show up as spot prices being much lower than futures prices? Because when those futures contracts come due, somebody's got to take delivery. Either they sell that oil on, or there are a lot of full bathtubs somewhere.
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@Clockwork Smurf
[Read the article: Oil price conspiracy theorists: Rev your engines]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry I wasn't clear. I get that oil speculators can cause havoc in the futures market. But my point is I don't think they can be responsible for any significant swings at the gas pump. Why? Because I don't see how they can significantly affect supply or demand for actual oil, rather than oil futures.
As you say, they don't want to take delivery of the oil. Storing shares of IBM is free, storing gold costs a little, but I presume storing oil costs a lot more. In most markets you could push up prices by, in effect, taking some supply off the market to sell later. But given the volume of the oil market and the very low value density of oil, it would seem to me that there wasn't enough unused storage capacity in the world to have a big effect on spot prices over the last year that they've been rising.
So it would seem to me that oil keeps rising mainly because of pure supply/demand imbalance, not speculation.
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False alarm theory? Bah!
[Read the article: The good humor man]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My theory about the reason we laugh: it's a reward for learning, for intellectual novelty, plus a social signal for same. That's why incongruity matters; the mundane is not novel, and therefore not funny. It's also why babies and children laugh so much: they have plenty to learn. That also explains why jokes get less funny the more you've heard them. Squealing with delight at peek-a-boo only works when peek-a-boo is new and interesting; for the rest of us, it's usually dull.