Letters to the Editor
jebldmm
Published Letters: 933 Editor's Choice: 164
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If people don't want to be considered greedy
[Read the article: Next time, let's all spank the boss]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Then they shouldn't ask for over a million dollars in compensation when they sue. I'm not necessarily objecting to the lawsuit, although I'd like to know more. I can't imagine anybody at my office suggesting that we should spank each other, for any reason, and if someone was crazy enough to do it, I would object. Did she object? Did anybody object? Was anybody punished or fired or not promoted if they didn't participate? Or is this a case of going along voluntarily due to peer pressure and then having regrets later? Overall, I'd need to know more - but if she voluntarily participared in this activity without objecting, and if the silly game was played by all people in the department, then I don't think she has much of a case. It's only harassment if it was clearly not voluntary. Companies have asked people to do silly things before, and will again. Heck, at our last team meeting we all played a "team building" game that was kind of silly, but we went along. No spanking r other humiliation was involved. If a company ever asked me to wear a diaper, I'd quit, not sue.
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The press really doesn't get it
[Read the article: Why Colbert matters]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I read comments after Colbert's performance that the press felt that he had violated tradition. In the past, they said, the host evenly skewered the president and the press, but Colbert broke the rules by only attacking the president. What I don't understand is how the press can't understand that Colbert was not simply attacking the president. Evey comment he made was a parody of the way the media portrays bush in a biased manner. Every joke was an attack on the media as much as the president. It's a bit frightening that the media, even now, seem incapable of relizing that they've been acting irresponsibly by being little more than stenographers for the administration.
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Colbert was not that harsh
[Read the article: What's he gonna do, bomb somebody?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Think back to the election, and try to remember some of the things that were said by bush's lackeys about Kerry. Colbert wasn't half as harsh on the president as they were on Kerry. There were no "below-the-belt" attacks. He didn't call bush a coward or a traitor, or even a liar. The harshest personal attack he made on bush was when he accused him of not changing his mind when he got new facts. All he did was make some jokes about the popularity of the administration, right-wing rhetoric, and the relationship between the administration and the media. The only reason Colbert seemed harsh was that we are so totally unacustomed to seeing the administration criticized in public. Scalia was able to laugh off Colbert's comments, so why couldn't bush?
Colbert hurt the president only because he put a scratch in the teflon coating they have built around him. The right has worked very hard to convince people that it's wrong to criticize the president or his policies in any way, and they depend on the media to play along with that assumption. The real danger Colbert presented wasn't what he said, it was the mere fact that he was saying it publicly.
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Isn't this clause standard?
[Read the article: No butch hair for Rosie]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I understand that a lot of television and movie contracts require the actor/actress not to change their appearance, even to the point of limiting how much weight they can gain or lose. It makes sense to me that in a field that defines people by their physical appearance, the person writing the paycheck wants to ensure that their new hire doesn't change their appearance and thus decrease their commodity value. It's just part of the game. A sick game, I'll grant you, but one that the participants freely engage in.
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How does this make groping okay?
[Read the article: The grope from Ipanema]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't that kind of like saying that building a shelter for battered women makes it seem like the women who choose to not use the shelter want to be battered? Or that teaching women self-defense against rapists is like giving permission to men to rape women indiscriminately? Come on people. There will always be people in society who don't play by the rules. Apparently some of these people are using the anonymity and crowding of public transportation to get their thrills by groping women. It can be hard to identify who is grabbing you when you're in a crowd, and even hard to prove that they did it intentionally. Having special vehicles for women who feel that they are the victims of this kind of abuse seems reasonable to me. It seems quite naive to claim that putting up posters will actually stop the perverts who are violating women in this way.
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Making connections
[Read the article: Lapdogs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just before I read this, I read Richard Cohen's piece about why Colbert wan't funny. When I got to the part in this article where the right was talking about how liberals have no sense of humor (because we didn't think bush's jokes about not finding WMD's were funny), I nearly cried. It suddenly became clear to me that where you fall on the Colbert episode pretty much depends on whether you think of the president as a hero or a reckless fool. This article, along with the media's reaction to Colbert's satire, makes it painfully clear that the MSM think of this administration as "good guys", not people who are using them to manipulate the public for political power and personal gain. Even now, after it has been proven that bush and company lied to the public in the worst ways, the media think that bush is a hero, and that anybody who points out otherwise is rude. I used to respect the New York Times and the Washington Post. I used to trust them to give me the truth. How can I trust them now?