Letters to the Editor
mattwa33186
Published Letters: 395 Editor's Choice: 41
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Of course Google said that
[Read the article: Does anybody think Microsoft/Yahoo is a good idea?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What did you expect them to say? "We welcome this new competitor with open arms"?
What is being overlooked here is the fact that Google is the Microsoft of search. Crumb is dead on about one thing - reputation is everything, and Google has that part nailed. Somehow, for some reason, with no marketing acumen whatsoever, they have managed to get most people to overlook the fact that they are attempting to do exactly the same thing with the internet that MS did with the desktop.
Not that this is a bad thing, necessarily. While MS didn't invent software, they did force a standardized computing platform on the world, which resulted in the creation of most of software we rely on every day.
But ask around. People who rely on search to feed their families (which is most of the small businesses in the world at this point) hate Google the way a lot of people hate Microsoft. This is and has always been true of any entity that has a vision of how things should be along with the will and resources to impose that vision on the rest of the world.
As for MS technology vs Google technology, again everyone is jumping to conclusions. MS released their new search very recently. With no marketing or fanfare they picked up a full 1% of the search market in one month, based on nothing other than returning better, more relevant results than Google or Yahoo. And that's probably just the beginning. I always marvel at how easily people underestimate what 60,000 smart people can do when given direction, but this is what happens with MS all the time. Ask the database industry how good MS is with technology.
MS has also made productivity available on the web, and it's been exactly as successful as Google's initiative there, which is to say not at all. People don't like web applications, and they don't want them. Not yet, anyway. Maybe in a couple of years.
Again, I don't know if this deal is a good idea or not. But I have yet to see anyone, any so called expert, give a single legitimate reason why it isn't.
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Talk about racist
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton, the first Latina in chief?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hispanic is a marketing term. It applies to anyone in the United States who comes from a Spanish speaking home - including Spaniards, who are definitely not Latino. It is not a race, it is not a culture.
Acting like there is some sort of monolithic Latin culture in the United States is racist on its face and to its core. While there are some common cultural touchpoints among the various groups, it's impossible to lump them all together into a single block unless you are standing on the outside looking in with no real understanding of what their thoughts and motivations are. Cubans, Mexicans, Venzuelans, Argentinians - all different. In this election year, they are all being tossed into the same bucket because of immigration, just like Christians get lumped together because of abortion. While this is necessary to the kind of pathetic pandering we have come to expect from our politicians, it has no place in intelligent conversation and I'm pretty surprised to see it coming out of the word processor of someone named Rodriguez. Some aspects of aculturalization get uglier every time you look at them.
I think it's still way too early to make any predictions about how any Latino group will vote. Many of them are jumping ship from the Republicans after realizing that the idiot most likely to win that nomination is no better than the idiot we have now. Many don't understand just how Bush administration policies have affected them and their families (many Cubans aren't aware of the new-ish policies on Cuba for example, mostly because of how ineffective they have been and also because the media has never been quite so bought and paid for in our history). A lot of Hispanics are still trying to find their way in a political world where up has become down and left has become right - just like the rest of us.
As for machismo being some kind of compensation for male insecurity, bullshit. One thing many Latin cultures still have in common is that they take gender roles in the family seriously, as opposed to our metrosexualized, "someone else will take care of that" society. Machismo is a natural byproduct of any culture where the role of protector/provider is still valued instead of ridiculed. While in many cases it amounts to nothing more than a lot of strutting and preening, that has more to do with the flaws of the individual than it does with any cultural weakness.
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@zenhead
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton, the first Latina in chief?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am a male Clinton hater, and no argument will ever change my position. I do not hate her because she is a woman, I do not hate her because of her politics. I hate her because she is a power hungry, lying, low life piece of shit with no respect for this country or its citizens, and I've had more than enough of that in the last 7 years. Regardless of race, regardless of gender, no one who stole "souvenirs" from the White House on her departure or invited her friends over to jump up and down on the beds can be said to understand that she lived in that house at our pleasure, not hers, that it is our house, not the President's. On top of the insider trading, etc... I don't expect her to have changed much in the last 8 years, considering her success at playing the political game in New York.
Put an honorable, intelligent, humble woman (or man) on the ballot and I will vote for them regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, whatever. I know I will wind up voting for slime unless Paul or Kucinich somehow finds their way onto the ballot, but I will not vote for someone who revels in her sliminess, calls it pragmatism, and brags about it.