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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Published Letters: 102 Editor's Choice: 8
It is amazing how supposedly modern, supposedly urbane, supposedly liberal-minded folks turn and spout fire and judgement from the Hilltops when a subject strikes that open nerve lurking underneath their Antioch College mindset.
I honestly felt a certain degree of sympathy and more than a bit of embarassment for this sap. Here is quite clearly and cleanly another poor guy who has been sucker punched by the American Dream. Gave up whatever dream, or pretense of dreams he had to chase the House, the Car, the IRA, the kids, and the wife. From this poitn on anyone knows the story from the mental oppression of Suburban Life to the ever-present money wows to the 'desperate housewife', etc.
So what does this Man Crushed by the American Dream do? Pays women to make him feel good about his otherwise miserable life. It is not about sex, it is about hearing for one hour a week that you are not a total screw-up solely owned by a bank, a couple of credit card companies, and his own need to wallow in the Suburban life.
I honestly feel sorry for him. And the only advice he gets is to supplant one delusional fantasy quest for another delusional fantasy quest that is equal with meaninglessness?
Please.
We all walk in this guy's shoes. It is the plight of our time. And we all try to medicate it away whether its drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, or buying a new IPOD. And none of us have the right to look down our nose at anyone else because their form of dealing with this blight strikes them as not the correct way to live.
There is no 'Right Living'. In one way or another its just more polish and varnish to a sinking ship.
God NO.
Bars and, by extension there hipper brethen, clubs are the last refuge from the insufferable snot covered Aliens known as children in this country.
Nowhere else is safe regardless of the price outside of the Alcohol Dens. You can spend $500 on a two person meal and still have to listening to the nonsensical screams of the six month old Mussolini next to you. A $15 movie ticket and an eleven o'clock showtime is no garantee that a married couple doesn't sit next to you for a romantic evening with their Vagina Fruit shoved between them, babbling and yelling from roll to cut.
No, no, no, no. Please. Alcohol abuse among friends in public places in one of the few activities that hasn't been pacified and neutered by our sick societal quest to Cannonize the Breeding Class.
God NO!
Have Parents no common sense? A bar is not somewhere to take a child. Nor is a $200 a Plate Resturant, nor a movie rated higher than 'G' past 8pm, nor a boardroom meeting.
I know its really hard to believe in an age where the "Village" is put upon to raise the Village Idiot's child, but the vast majority of us Urban Single Types are not amused by your crying, snot covered Vagina Fruit. In fact, I dare say most of us are rather quite annoyed by It by the second beer of the night.
Bars are one of the last refuge from the Cult of the Child. A place where Adults can Act like and Do Adult Things without having to glance over both shoulders for Kiddie Ears before comparing President Bush to a Genital Abnormality.
Sure, most of the world is appalled at the idea of the U.S. engaging in sotte voce torture, but you have to wonder if the majority of Americans care?
Talk to just about anyone in that great red mess of crap jammed between the two coasts and torturing supposed terrorists sounds great to them.
Moral outrage is a great tool. But the outrage has to be shared by the majority of Americans. I honestly do not think it is.
And that to me is the bigger, more telling story.
From a consumer's point of view I have no sympathy for Ford or GM (or Chrysler, which is in an equal state, but hey let the Germans worry about that).
For years and years and years people have been crying for better quality cars from Detroit, and instead they get sheet metal slapped on the same old problems. Buy a car from GM or Ford you'll get five years out of it. Buy a car from Toyota you are pretty much garanteed something that will run until the engine falls out of it twenty years later.
Not to mention Detroit total inability to listen to the needs of the consumer. When gas prices started their creep towards $2.00 a gallon you would think GM would start to shift their focus from SUVs and Trucks to small cars? NOPE! Hey, the good times never end. SUVs for everyone!
Meanwhile Toyota and Honda (along with the smaller Japanese and Korea automakers) have been giving consumers what they want and have actually taken the time to think more than one year ahead. When the PRIUS came out it was sort of a cute novelity, now its The Car to have.
Ford and GM are great American Dinosaurs that should promptly be put out of their misery.
Huzzah! for Stephanie Zacharek, and her ability to dislike a film despite on going praise of it. At least some people have enough gray matter left to not follow the critical pack.
Haven't seen 'Brokeback Mountain' yet, but it is the kind of film I am slightly suspicious of for two reasons.
One because it seems to be one of those films You Have to Like if you like Important Movies. Earnestly directed but cynically caliberated to appeal to the Film Critic Set and play off all the usual Hollywood Award conceits.
Secondly because, outside of "Crouching Tiger"..., most of Ang Lee's films have this constrained, dry, antiseptic outlook on the world. Very beautiful direction, but about as much emotion as a paper doll.
We'll see...
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
