Letters to the Editor
rorschach
Published Letters: 41
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whoops, PS:
[Read the article: Fresh blood for the vampire]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Palin is only running for VICE President, gang -- was everyone this alarmed when the vacant Quayle was serving as Veep? he was considerably more alarming to me, anyway. And McCain's mom is what, 92? His genetics indicate he could live a very long time yet. Let's not consign him to Boot Hill just yet, eh?
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How sad
[Read the article: Pissed about Palin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This diatribe was ugly and desperate, and that negated any useful effects it may have been intended to have. Just a loud rasping belch in the Salon echo chamber, I fear.
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So sadly true is this
[Read the article: Dude, where's my manhood?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Amazing how this review summed up what I witnessed firsthand this past summer, when I (a 49-year old boomer) spent a week away from home in a college setting on a summer music education (ostensibly) program. My fellow students were all aged 17 to 27 and I had NOTHING in common with them apart from a common musical interest. First time I've ever experienced this lack of comraderie among my erstwhile peers. I was obliged to room with three of them as well as share communal meals and study sessions. And I was appalled at what, frankly, jerks they all were, especially when gathered in a group (you could hear the collective IQ hit the floor when the alpha-male packleader came in). It was more what I imagine jail is like than an educational experience (although it was certainly an education). Openly contemptuous of everything "other", including non-whites, women, gays, foreigners; intellectual pretense; shockingly crude, slovenly, and depraved; self-absorbed to the point of neurosis; and weirdly homoerotic in an S&M sort of way while at the same time venting a continual barrage of "that's so gay" comments. I was glad there were no women in attendance; they would have been subjected to a continual bombardment of harrassment, lewd insults, and unwelcome attentions, given what I saw directed at any bystanders or random encounters (an official had to warn one of the males and a program supervisor to knock off hitting on the middle school girls present for day activities and our group was eventually segregated at the common mealtimes to reduce the amount of contact our hooligans had with outside groups). If this is what the next generation of useless, dangerous young males is going to be like, American society is doomed.
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Context is all?
[Read the article: Dude, where's my manhood?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nashua, when you write, "The average high school kid uses "gay" and "fag" as a derogatory term with no thought to the actual meaning of the word. And consequently, no thought to the damage it causes to actual homosexuals. Without blinking an eyelash we used these terms interchangeably with "stupid," "loser," etc, but you take the same person and put them in the room with an actual gay man/woman, and those words fall out of their vocabulary, as two faced as that is. While still wrong, it is indicative I think not of homophobia but rather indifference, social norms state that we use these words in this way, and we don't stop to think about their actual meaning and offensiveness."
I had to wonder what the reaction would be if we substituted "nigger" for "gay"/"fag". Because that's the same excuse I heard from a lot of white males once upon a time.
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Yes, we were better than that, Wolfy, thank you!
[Read the article: Dude, where's my manhood?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lonewolf: Was my geezer crowd better behaved in their hedonistic youth than what I saw on display this summer from the younger crowd I was stuck with? (See earlier post.) Yes, it most assuredly was. We were not barbarians. I regret that you feel obliged (in your youthful and forgivable ignorance) to defend the virtues of binge drinking, sexual predation and harassment, conformist group-think, non-stop verbal obscenity, right-wing hate-mongering, macho posturing, and general lack of what are quaintly thought of as civilized or gentlemanly virtues. I feel sorry for you and I'll try to shuffle off the planet as soon as possible so your generational playmates can go back to befouling it.
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Ave Asehpe!
[Read the article: Is 2008 a sui generis election?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Quod erat demonstrandum, amicus meus!
Salve!
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The Bard told us all about this before
[Read the article: Is 2008 a sui generis election?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Every time I hear about someone's war record or combat service being an automatic qualification for high office (in this case McCain, but he's far from the only person to play this card in contemporary American politics), I remember my high school English class reading Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and how Octavian and Marc Antony are discussing how to reward Lepidus (the other triumvir), how to dole out the world as spoils between them, and someone (Marc Antony?) praises Lepidus, the old soldier, as someone who's been on a number of campaigns, and the other (Octavian?) shrewdly rebuts this line of reasoning by saying, "So has my horse." Or words to that effect. The point being that just being on a battlefield didn't necessarily bestow wisdom, insight, virtue, or any other presumed special gifts a leader might need. I would no more vote for McCain based on his military record than Octavian's horse.
We could all stand to remember this when some blowhard is bragging up his military record as some sort of entitlement. Whenever I hear this stuff, I think to myself, "So has my horse."
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Vive la Guillotine!
[Read the article: The corporate financiers are wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In a just world, those who deserve what they get should get what they deserve. If only we could have a nice little Reign of Terror and cut off a few rich crooks' heads, I'm sure it would have a salutary effect on the merchants of greed and perhaps even spare us a repetition for a change.
Sorry. Being victimized over and over again by unfettered capitalism is turning me Marxist.
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Think we're losing now? Just wait.
[Read the article: Why we're losing in Afghanistan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wait until the Russians decide to start funneling modern weapons and anti-aircraft missiles to the Taliban, they way the CIA and Pentagon did to tweak the Soviets in the 1980s. Then you'll see US military casualties mount and our supposedly safe bases under real threat. Payback's a bitch, a concept the Russians well understand.. Too bad the Afghans are reduced again to being proxies in Great Power struggles.