Letters to the Editor
Mishima666
Published Letters: 116 Editor's Choice: 28
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Nothing there.
[Read the article: Intelligent designer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem with ID is that at first it appears to explain things, when it fact it doesn't explain anything.
ID looks at a particular structure, sees complexity, and concludes that the structure could only have come about through intelligent design. But ID can't tell you why an organism has that particular complex structure rather than some other complex structure that would have provided the same function. This is where actual science comes in.
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Good for everyone
[Read the article: Throwing Google at the book]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems to me that Google could be of great help to publishers by providing information to them on the number of hits on out-of-print books. For example, if a publisher knew that a particular out-of-print book were generating thousands or tens of thousands of searches every month, maybe that's a book that would make financial sense to put back into print. How else would publishers get that kind of information?
Another option might be a Rhapsody-style subscription service. I pay around 10 bucks a month to listen to some of the million or so tracks available on Rhapsody. I'd pay more than that to have a million searchable books at my fingertips.
Personally, I think there would be very few people who would want to read entire books on-line. I tried reading short books on a Palm device a few years ago, and I never made it thorough a single book. People like books; they don't want to sit in front of the glare of a computer screen for hours. They want the portability of the book, and the ease of reading. But they will sit in front of a computer for hours doing research and book searches. So I don't think that a Google-style system is going to take any revenue from anyone. And actually, having books available on-line would be a way that new authors could develop a readership. Hell, were I an aspiring author with a book I couldn't sell to a publisher I'd PAY Google to scan it and put it online -- and then find out how many hits it was getting.
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Method Behind the Madness
[Read the article: How the secular humanist grinch didn't steal Christmas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You have to understand how this kind of rhetoric functions within the conservative Christian community.
First, and most important, Christianity, especially the conservative kind, always has to have an enemy. You see this in the New Testament and in the writings of many early Christians. For Conservative Christains, having an enemy is part of the process of self-definition and self-identity.
For conservatives, whether Christian or not, one of the most important things is to keep people all het up about something or other. A few years ago I had an interesting conversation with a friend. I said to him that I didn't understand why these conservatives were always so angry all the time -- always denouncing this or that, always complaining, always pissed off.
He replied "you don't get it, do you."
I said "get what?"
He replied "the whole POINT of all this stuff is to keep people in a continual state of outrage and umbrage. This is what these writers DO. This is a case where the medium is indeed the message. The purpose of the message is not to communicate any particular information. And frankly, the message is mostly bull**** anyway. The purpose is to make sure that people are pissed off all the time. When people are pissed off they go to the polls, they contribute money, they spread the word. That doesn't happen with cautious, reasonable arguments."
So with the Christmas thing, I think what we have is an intersection of interests between religious and political conservatives: it gives the religious a new enemy, and the politicos a new outrage.
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I Don't Even LIke the Previews
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The wife and I watched the first season of Nip/Tuck, but as I recall some time in the second season we gave up on it. The problem wasn't that it was wierd or disturbing. The problem is that over time our sense of empathy for the characters was, in effect, surgically removed. There came a point at which the characters became so strange and disturbed that I felt like I simply did not know these people, nor did I want to know them.
While I don't expect a program such as that to be all sweetness and light, after a while I didn't see the point of checking in each week to view the latest outburst, the most recent derangememt, the weekly descent into the bizarre and the unfortunate. In a sense, Nip/Tuck is a morality play without morality. As the article suggests, there's no center to it, nothing that holds it together except the extreme and the unpleasant. As the result, the characters devolve, not evolve. It's like watching a weekly nature show in which insects tear each other apart -- "tune in this week to see a praying mantis rip the leg off a cockroach." Do we cheer for the mantis? Do we sympathize with the cockroach? Those who do are the audience for Nip/Tuck.
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Legitimate concerns
[Read the article: Prayin' hard for better dayz]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I know that Shirley Cushing will take some heat over her comments, but I think her concerns are completely legitimate.
This isn't about race, but about parents trying to protecting minor children from coming into contact with people with destructive lifestyles and worldviews. While it is true that children have to have some freedom and ultimately need to find their own way in the world, they also need to be protected against making bad choices. The day my child came home with the new "nigga" identity is the last day he would have gone to that school, and the last time he would have seen those friends. People on the sidelines, who aren't responsible for the child, have the luxury of calling that a "racist" attitude. And maybe it is. But I say save the child first, then worry about the other stuff.