Letters to the Editor

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dogu44

Published Letters: 157     Editor's Choice: 7

  • What do I think?

    [Read the article: Brain differences and hiring practices ]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    I think that the synthesis of a more effective modern world and reconciling that with feminist ideology is a two way street. And why should that be any different from the rest of the world? Surely you would like to see gender equality in the work place, just as I'm sure we'd all like to see racial equality in the work place, but it becomes murky when one attempts to create an academic arena in preparation for the professional workplace, in which native intelligence of groups like Ashkenazic Jews are kept out in the interest of other ethnic/racial groups access to the limited number of positions in the program which prepares students for professions.

    Lowering the common denominator makes sense in trying to accomplish some solutions in mathematics. We tread on dangerously thin ice when we apply that to our society.

  • Well...maybe it's a good thing.

    [Read the article: Salesgenie's Super Bowl success]
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    Perhaps the fact that minorities, or at least groups other than white men, are now making fun of stereotypes and seeing that they were more about perception than reality, just as we all have, we can now get over it, sorta like how we've become desensitized over sexual issues, for the most part. I'd look forward to the day when the shrill screams of disbelief are not longer the distractions they've become when-ever someone flops at humor that's based on ethnic or racial characteristics.

  • This should be fun..

    [Read the article: John McCain hates Mitt Romney]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    Really, one of my favorite past-times is watching the GOP eat it own kind and here is a great example where ideology (or lack of it) seasons the roast. Just look at the choices...out of touch, self centered, blind to the constitution. In my state I could vote for anyone in the primary so I voted for Ron Paul. At least you knew what you were getting.

    I think the smart money is going to be on Obama. His successes have been the result of a cultural phenomenon, and like all of these phenomena it is being under-estimated by the observers at large, but I think we will find ourselves next year with a whole new landscape of uncertainty but at least it will be a new one open to innovative approaches. If only it included a libertarian's views on personal freedom and the expansion of the Federal Government's role in our lives at the expense of our own personal rights. Anyone hear any Dem Candidate come out saying they'd get rid of the IRS or drug war? Two very important issues for me as I see them blocking racial, sexual, and economic freedom issues with rhetoric instead of a course of action. Good luck, we're gonna need it.

  • Obama and Asians...why the disconnect?

    [Read the article: Hillary Clinton: The Asian-American choice]
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    Having lived in California urban setting, in both Oakland and San Francisco, I was frequently surprised at the amount of support that the fiscal and social conservatives often garnered despite the enormous empathy expressed by the more progressive Democrats. One would think that the disadvantaged would naturally support the candidate that promised to deliver the most; whether it was in services or opportunity or entitlements.

    This latest competition between Hillary and Obama, while both are nominally progressive and liberal, adds a bit of contrast and perspective to the picture and I wonder if it doesn't reveal something that's not often discussed when trying to identify the dynamics of the voters as it refers to non-white, often Asian or Latino constituents.

    I know that my Asian wife and friends, while attracted to the urban culture, were apprehensive about Black people in general and saw that the controversy often came down to giving and getting and no effort made on self-reliance, community, family and persistence in hard work. I think the new immigrant mentality fails to recognize how hard the legacy of slavery has been, but when the rhetoric is structured as a black versus white, slavery versus restitution, or Black religious leaders versus the law, the newer Asian and Latino immigrant finds it a lot of effort that actually retards the process towards solution. They came to this country eager to drop the baggage of their native countries' rancorous past and find that attention and efforts payed towards ameliorating what seems more like hurt feelings rather than being applied towards practical solutions that require educated and hard working folks to make it happen.

    I've never heard it put exactly but sometimes the Latino and Asians feel as if they are resented if they succeed and are expected to fail so that the rich will support them and that to recieve their restitution they must wait in line behind the legacy of slavery as it applied to Blacks.

    I hope that Obama can illuminate this for everyone and help all of us willing to go forward and not stand in the way of progress while waiting for restition and an apology. I think most Asians and Latinos see it wouldn't do much good anyway.

  • New York TV in Ann Arbor via cable

    [Read the article: "Jumper"]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    Back in the old days...when there were only a few TV channels and color tv was still kinda new, lots of suburban america depended on crappy reception from antennas. Beginning in the rural parts of the country like in Michigan's YooPee and Pennsylvania's seneca highlands, entrpreneurs and local radio hobbyists hooked up their own little cable systems to big antennas on local mountain tops and pulled down reception from more distant and bigger cities, thereby undermining the value of the local station's presumed market monopoly guaranteed by the FCC's licensing system in exchange for an agreement to produce "public affairs". Watching TV from NY, and having a choice of lots of other stations, something people in cities weren't getting because you couldn't get away with it in the city and the reception was better, was one of the joys of having cable and one the few consolations of living in the cultural backwaters of rural america. We take that for granted these days with such ubiquitous and pervasive media barage all the time.

    Oh...and the movie looks pretty cool too.