Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 74 Editor's Choice: 6
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seventy one years old
[Read the article: Bomb, bomb Iran?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I learned there was a difference between groups of Muslims, and that there was a long standing conflict between the Sunni and Shiite groups, when I was eleven (11). I lived in "backward" conservative South Dakota. I'm 35 now.
How does someone become an adult, much less a politically savvy world figure, without knowing basic facts?
(That's a rhetorical question. I learned about rhetorical questions as a kid too.)
I don't even have pretensions to being smarter than McCain (well, perhaps I do now) I just get so unsettled and upset about this kind of thing.
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well
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, I'm sure I'm one of the several readers whose question(s) for Pablo about this issue were rolled up in the first paragraph and I'm glad he answered. I still want something on this issue that approaches the density of his article on soda packaging. But this was a decent start.
I echo the readers who are surprised by the "diaper service" suggestion. Though I'd point out this bit that is inherent in the subtext: if a diaper service is so much better than disposables, think of how much better it is to wash your own diapers at home! You're eliminating not just the problems of the disposable but skipping the energy consumption of the service's delivery infrastructure and you may have more control in your choices of detergents, washing, and drying methods (i.e., no-energy line drying). The key point I take from Pablo is that most disposables (no matter how far they've come) are still landfill bound. And cloth, even cloth from a service, is better.
As for gDiapers: I think some readers really don't get it on these things, and I think Pablo introduced a layer of skepticism that while healthy is misplaced. You have to see these things perform to really grasp how weirdly well they function. First off you can't just chuck 'em in the toilet and hope. There's very clear instructions for tearing them open and disposing of them properly if you don't compost. That stuff inside them goes very quickly from fluff to a consistency that's more broken down and ethereal than toilet paper that's soaked in the water for an hour. The interior seriously disintegrates, and fast. The exterior is thin paper, and you can flush that. If you can read, there's just not going to be enough bulk in those things to "clog the pipes."
But all that is moot if you compost the things. Compost compost compost! You can compost gDiapers—though I would suggest thinking long and hard about the poopy ones. Most people lack the patience, experience, and giant hot pile setup, to safely compost human feces, even infant ones. Certainly I wouldn't put it in your food garden, but maybe you have more than one compost pile and the patience to let your pile work long term.
Cloth diapers have also come a long way: nobody but nobody uses pins any more, with velcro and lots of them having snaps, the covers are pretty advanced, there's pre-shaped or all in ones that are just amazing (though expensive). And we use one of those Diaper Champ things—that's nominally for disposables—to bag them up for holding before washing. This eliminates another feature I've always hated: the stinky bucket full of diapers soaking in water. Do your soaking in the washing machine at wash time, we've never had a problem!
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oh to the em gee
[Read the article: The music lover]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]stutifying hegemony of pop and rock and the parellel critical hegemony of indie rock
Where did you pick up that line of horse hockey? And so eager were you to write it (dare I say copy it out of a handbook or something?) that you, you know, left out some letters n' stuff. But I won't ding you too hard for that, surely I'll misspell a bunch of shit ere I'm done.
There is no hegemony of rock. If you think that, you haven't been paying attention. The hegemony died ages ago. Perhaps it serves your purposes to promulgate that belief but a half second glance at the singles and albums charts suggests another hegemony at work.
Well, honestly the existence of charts suggests the hegemony has been and remains money. Is that another discussion? Perhaps.
Everyone already knows* that the things that rule --okay well, money rules, but the engines of real money-- are music/products which speak to and from the heart of contemporary African-American experience (or, in some cases, a concocted version of the African-American experience designed in a test lab to print dollar bills) or are quite informed by African-American experience and taste. This music is not made by white guys with guitars (sometimes it's bought and paid for by white guys with suits, I suppose).
But even that difficult to hide fact isn't more notable than the fact that the music business has lost any sense of a real dominant player over the last several years. We're always being treated to articles about low sales. And the top sellers one year have little to do with the top sellers the next and altogether they spread precious little information about what actually constitutes a common taste among music fans.
I guess really this is all a long windup to say, "Piss off, we'll make up our own minds about what constitutes sufficient diversity among our musical choices. That will from time to time include white guys. With guitars. And especially ones like Dan Bejar."
*well, I thought everyone already knew)