Letters to the Editor
lexsali
Published Letters: 67 Editor's Choice: 8
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Didn't mean to write a novel, but....
[Read the article: Mike Huckabee, on a wing and a prayer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The law of speeding is saying that it's immoral to go at 85 miles an hour. The morality is that we have established a 65-mile-an-hour limit. So that's what all law does: It establishes that it is wrong for me to murder you."
He's right. The law on speed limits and the law on murder are exactly the same thing. Both are based on the majority's morality.
It is wrong to go 85 mph in this area, because it is a residential area, and therefore, we will set the limit at 35 mph.
It is wrong to murder someone, because the Bible says so, and therefore, we will ban murder.
What is the difference here? Both follow the same logic, the same patterns. The surface difference here is that the latter is obviously based on Abrahamic religions. What is not so obvious, is that so is the former.
Whether we know it or not, we are all born into a world where a certain kind of morality already exists, but we bring with us no morality at all. Our morality is simply shaped by the morality of the world around us. Whether we know it or not, the speeding law is also based on our morality, which says that our families and children must be shielded from harm, and therefore, it is wrong to go on 80 mph in a residential district. Otherwise, what's wrong with running over your neighbor's grandmother? She might die, yes, but people die all the time. Well, it's wrong to murder, (based on the Bible), that's why! Therefore, the speed limit must be 40 mph.
Huckabee's right about the morality of our laws. Unfortunately, moralities change all the time. They differ on different continents, (sometimes even within the same continent), different time periods, different religions, even different stages in one man's life. With the constantly changing demographics of America's landscape, his morality might not be the majority morality for long.
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@ Shooter242
[Read the article: What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's Pyrrhic victory, shooter. And no, Dems really have no idea what it is, because the Republican distaster known as the Iraq war is (or will be) the most monumental Pyrrhic victory that mankind has ever known.
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oh please....
[Read the article: The six-pack abs of Shah Rukh Khan ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For all the Bollywood bashers, how many times have we heard it before? The same old high-browed put-downs: too much singing and dancing, there's no story, acting sucks, too melodramatic, no character build-up. As if all movies that come out of Hollywood are deep, life-affirming sagas.
The truth is that Bollywood is taking over the world because Bollywood movies fulfill a real need in NRIs, and NRPs (non-resident Indians and Pakistanis), even non-Asians, catering to a huge Asian diaspora, and they are popular in the Middle East, all of Europe and the U.S., and across the rest of the world. The theater I go to makes most of its revenue now via Bollywood films, not Tom Cruise's action flicks.
The fact of the matter is, these movies are truly Indian, deep down, and not just wrapped in "platitudes". I can go on and on about NRIs' home-sickness, the lack of nudity, Indian family values, the song-and-dance routines, but really, there's no one explanation for it. All you can say about it is, it's an art form in and of itself, and comparing it to Hollywood is like comparing apples to oranges, or futile.
And for everyone who thinks "true acting" or "real directing" can only be found in Hollywood, I suggest you watch any one of Deepa Mehta's Fire, Earth, or Water, Mani Ratnam's Bombay, Amir Khan's Lagaan, or SRK in Dilwale Dulhaniya Lejayenge, among a number of other excellent Bollywood flms.
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Imran Khan
[Read the article: Sexiest Man Living 2007]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The former cricket player is not only seriously hot, but is at heart, fearlessly political and intellectual.
He has taken the dictatorship-military establishment in Pakistan head-on, built a state-of-the-art cancer treatment and research hospital in Pakistan, has fought relentlessly for democracy and solutions for the common man, isn't afraid to get down and dirty to play their game on his terms, and has just yesterday been jailed for his advocacy. Khan is seriously in it to win it.