Letters to the Editor
Serai1
Published Letters: 503 Editor's Choice: 32
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Could I resist the temptation?
[Read the article: The diet that's too good to be true]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Pardon my French, but are you fucking kidding me?
There is no way in hell you could ever get me to do something as fucked up and stupid as these girls are doing. Sure, they're surrounded by a culture that tells them to kill themselves to be thin, but there's nobody says they HAVE to listen. I grew up in that culture, and I think it's complete idiocy to put such store in such a superficial thing. So does my best friend, so does my whole family.
It's one of the worst streams of nonsense in this culture, it abuses, sucks dry and kills people, there are studies and stories and photos and testimonies galore, and still there are people stupid enough to buy into the idea that thin confers some sort of blessing. It's a lunacy that is deliberately foisted on people and they lap it up.
Well, I'm sorry, but I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for lemmings. I'll stay waaaayyy back here away from that cliff, thank you.
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Feinstein is a perfect example...
[Read the article: Dianne Feinstein -- Bush's key ally in the Senate -- to support telecom amnesty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...of why I refuse to vote along gender lines. Being female is no guarantee of either sanity or integrity, as we are witnessing here.
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Still pissing on the little guy, eh Heather?
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Screenwriters are millionaires? What have you been smoking?
Are you aware that the majority of people in the writers' union don't make a living writing? They have to supplement their income with things like substitute teaching and retail jobs. You know who else does that? Actors. 95% of SAG members make less than $8,000 a year from acting. (That's the union's own number there.)
Uninformed folks have the lazy habit of assuming that because a tiny handful of people hit the jackpot and got famous and/or rich in Hollywood, it means that everybody in the entertainment business must be rich. That's utter bullshit. The vast majority of people in the entertainment business are not rich, not nearly. If they're lucky, they make ends meet. If they're not, or they're new or they have shitty bosses (damned common in Hollywood), they don't get paid at all. (Talk to someone who actually works there about "interning" and how the studios have ballooned the practice into more or less slave labor.)
If you're going to talk about the working of the entertainment industry, Heather, maybe getting your head out of your ass and getting informed would make you sound like less of an uninformed idiot.
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Don't you ever get tired of being wrong, Farhad?
[Read the article: J.K. Rowling's Crucio curse on fan's Harry Potter book]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]NO. I'm sorry, but just NO.
Fans do not have the right to make money off their idol's creations. Fan fiction is one thing - I've written it myself and have many friends who also write stories based on our favorite movies, TV shows, etc. But there is a BIG difference between writing, trading and posting stories for the love of it, and packaging those writings for sale. That is the BIG no-no.
Steve Vander Ark knows that perfectly well. He has stated himself in the past that the reason he started the Lexicon was so that if JK ever wanted to write an HP encyclopedia, she might ask him to help. He KNEW he needed permission to publish, but wouldn't get it because JK has been planning such a book on her own.
But instead of accepting the reality of the situation, he just went ahead and did what he pleased, regardless of the fact that he has NO RIGHT TO DO IT. Not only is he showing his true colors as a fan ("HP doesn't belong to JK Rowling anymore, it belongs to us" - his words), but he is ruining things for all the other fans of all the other fandoms, by forcing JK to create a precedent.
I mean really, Farhad. Get a frigging grip already. Other than a few crazed Lexicon readers, there are NO fans trumpeting SVA's actions. Out of pique, ego and arrogance, he may just end the world of fan writing with his self-regarding manifestoes. Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin!
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No, I'm not
[Read the article: Got skirt?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The skirt for that"?
No, sorry. It's a ridiculous term. For one thing, what the hell do skirts have to do with anything? For another, what about all the women who LOATHE skirts and everything associated with the easy-access sexuality they represent? (I'm taking a page from deconstructionism here, I think. Is that the word?)
Posts like this make me understand why some people throw their hands up in the air and declare that feminists are crazy. Skirts have nothing to do with chutzpah, nerve, or courage, so they don't work for what you're talking about. Know what does work? Balls. The expression that's already exists.
In case you missed physiology class, Lynn, both sexes have gonads. If you don't like the male implications of the phrase, then what about the equivalent "stones"? I've heard a number of people use it as an ambi-sexual term, and I think it works great that way. Using the silly "skirt" is to deny that women have the equivalent of testicles, and that we get our strength from them just as men get their strength from their balls. (This is of course a metaphorical statement, but then the expression has always been a metaphor.)
Or is that what you really don't like, at bottom? Does the idea that strength can come from the genital region rub you the wrong way? Well, sorry, but people have believed that for thousands of years (including quite a number of heavily influential feminists); it's just one of humanity's standard tropes. Ask any anthropologist if you doubt it. The attempt to change such a long tradition of thought with lame attempts at forced slang never works.