Letters to the Editor
Serai1
Published Letters: 502 Editor's Choice: 32
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@tamsax
[Read the article: Extreme acts of animal cruelty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]and how about sensitivity training for these violent, messed up men?
*ahem* It's interesting that you assume these men are "violent" and "messed up." Are you aware that the average turnover rate in a slaugherhouse is less than four months? That the vast majority of slaughterhouse workers quit precisely because they can't stomach what they're required to do? The "messed up" people in this equation are not the guys on the killing floor, but the assholes who own these companies and encourage this kind of horror. THEY don't have to do it themselves, so they push those who have no choice into being monsters.
Luckily, very few people have the capacity for this kind of monstrosity. Unluckily, there's always a fresh supply of guys with mouths to feed and not enough opportunity for a good living, who'll take these jobs out of desperation or because they simply don't understand what's ultimately involved.
If you want to be judgmental, judge our society that encourages the profit motive above everything, including integrity, compassion, animal and human health and lives. THAT is where the real monstrosity lies. If our culture were less centered on greed and money, and more centered on moderation, common sense and living kindly, the opportunities for this sort of thing would disappear.
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Just an aside
[Read the article: From "Sicko" to Iraq-o]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where the hell did this precious "heaven forfend" expression come from? I started seeing this unbearably twee locution crop up about three years ago, and it grates like nails on a chalkboard. Whatever happened to "heaven forbid", the common expression that was always used before? Did that suddenly acquire linguistic cooties or something?
Feh.
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@Rashton
[Read the article: From "Sicko" to Iraq-o]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, since I was ASKING about the expression, maybe I'm not the only one making assumptions here, eh? I hadn't ever heard it before, which is why I ASKED where it came from. If I assumed I was right, it wouldn't have been a QUESTION. My irritation notwithstanding, I was curious about why it had suddenly it has been popping up hither and yon. (And yes, been out of the blue.)
See, I don't assume I know everything about language, nor do I assume I know everything about other people's intentions. Which is why I ASK about these things - to see if anybody else knows about them.
I do appreciate the information, though, despite its presentation.
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Also
[Read the article: From "Sicko" to Iraq-o]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would like to see a reference. If it's so old, where can I find it used? Because I've read quite a bit of older literature, and I've never seen it before. So, care to cite some examples?
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*eyeroll*
[Read the article: Java panic: Starbucks closing all stores Tuesday evening]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]one of the results has been stores that no longer have the soul of the past and reflect a chain of stores vs. the warm feeling of a neighborhood store.
Maybe that's because it IS a chain of stores. Anybody who falls for that "mom and pop" bullshit line about Starbucks is just bending over to have smoke blown up his ass. I've been in Starbucks a couple of times (don't drink coffee), and it comes off to me as only slightly better than McDonalds, and only because their color scheme isn't as eye-reaming.
Perhaps the reason for the drop-off in sales is that in a declining economy, consumers might be reconsidering pissing away hundreds of dollars a month on frigging COFFEE. Maybe they're getting just a tad tired of spending the whole wired on obscenely high amounts of caffeine, possibly ruining their livers and nervous systems in the process. You think?
One thing I do know about coffee, and that's the fact that espresso was never meant to be drunk in a 12-oz. cup. It's super-concentrated stuff, meant to be drunk in TINY LITTLE amounts, AFTER meals, for PLEASURE. It was certainly never intended to be guzzled in obscene amounts in order to keep drinkers on their feet all day, like china horse shot into a junkie's veins.
Whenever I see those hordes of jittery addicts waiting for their fix, I thank the gods I resisted my dad's pressure to "learn to drink coffee" (this was back when it actually WAS coffee, not these bizarre, twisted confections). All it took was seeing his pissiness in the morning before he'd had his cup, and I knew there was no way I was going to rope myself to that lifelong yoke, thanks. I got better things to do with my money and my brain.
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Piece missing?
[Read the article: No. 2: Only Wal-Mart beats Apple in music sales]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the only CDs being counted are new CDs, then yeah, probably sales have plummeted. But I can attest that practically everyone I know buys mostly, if not exclusively, used CDs from places like Amazon or Amoeba Records. Partly it's financial - CD prices have not dropped hardly at all in the last twenty years. (I remember when they first came out, at around $25 a pop, with the industry promising prices would drop when the medium became more widely available. 25 years later, we're still waiting.)
And partly it's people simply being pissed off at the record industry and their megalomaniacal practice of suing music fans. Personally, I've pledged that, outside of a very small handful of limited edition packages, the big record companies will NEVER get another penny of my money. Maybe if they'd been intelligent from the start instead of obscenely greedy and stupid, they wouldn't have pissed off such a massive number of music fans. As it stands, too little too late - too bad!
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Soft spot?
[Read the article: Microsoft hit with $1.3 billion EU antitrust fine]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are you kidding? Microsoft is getting exactly what they deserve. I have no sympathy for a company that made its billions on bullying, stealing, and railroading others. They've never had a single original idea. Their products are crap, they use the consumer as a free research population, and we have to spend years finding all the bugs in their shoddy products. They never learn from their mistakes, instead they simply run roughshod over those they're supposedly servicing. Nope, no a single tear shed.
Karma's a bitch, as they say. Fuck 'em.