Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 76 Editor's Choice: 2
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Controlling the distribution of concerns
[Read the article: On the fake campaign trail]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"What [Clinton] didn't say is that every candidate and every reporter expects a regular share of the questions asked in these events to come from people planted in the audience -- puppets, stooges or well-meaning volunteers, some who act overtly and some who sneak through covertly."
A candidate whose aides have worked hard to set the agenda, filter information, control the distributions of concerns, and limit the spectrum of admissible debate should expect to field prepared questions from planted audience members coached by her own aides.
Plants are not in the same category as "well-meaning volunteers" and "stooges" (of what organizations, exactly?), who have their own agenda. It is surprising that the author cannot distinguish between the agendas of campaign plants and the agendas of others. This is a sloppily reasoned article, with virtually no investigative journalism in evidence.
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Life is cruel
[Read the article: I can't stand losing my beauty as I age!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And I'm alive.
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Our model predicts troops in the street
[Read the article: The bright side of consumer paralysis]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A friend and I once wrote an op-ed in the NYT concerning outsourcing. In October 2006 we were aware of the housing crunch, but our predictions were dismissed. We were told, "the demand curve shifted, that's all." Of course it's easy now to say, "we told you so."
We've updated our models since then. We expect a catastrophic decline of the dollar between 2008 and 2009. More alarmingly, our model predicts troops in the street.
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Cary's point is well-taken
[Read the article: If the first date isn't great, why go out with him again? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Sorry I was almost late," he says. "I ran into traffic. There was an injured child in the middle of the street. I had to operate."
Others have busy lives too, and some of them might take time out to spend time with you. At least the imaginary gentleman apologized for being five seconds late. But Pickypants is too entitled to notice.
If the LW is so busy, self-absorbed and impatient, how does she find the time to even think of the feelings of men she isn't interested in seeing again? Does she seriously believe that the loss of her company really is that devastating? This is what lies behind her question about how to politely decline, as this is straightforward enough. It takes a certain self-confidence, bordering on arrogance, to believe that a declined invitation will never come as a welcome relief.
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The Universal Artist
[Read the article: I'm an existential artist. People just don't get me!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Existential Artist is inferior to the Universal Artist, at least, according to the Universal Artist. Unfortunately, there is a hierarchy of Artists of increasing aesthetic complexity, somewhat like the Borel hierarchy or the arithmetical and hyperarithmetical hierarchies of recursion theory.
Typographical limitations preclude the inclusion of the diagram, so I will describe two infinite increasing chains that occur within it.
One of them begins with Artists; then Existential Artists; then Universal Existential Artists; then Existental Universal Existential Artists; and so on.
The other one also begins with Artists, but the alternation of quantifiers is reversed: there are Artists; Universal Artists; Existential Universal Artists; Universal Existential Universal Artists; and so on.
The letter writer inhabits one of the lowest levels of this hierarchy, just above Artist.
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The one thing succesful writers have in common
[Read the article: My dad is a writer -- a very, very bad writer!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Paris Review ran a series of interviews with successful writers. The one thing they had in common was a fixed, immutable writing schedule. One impervious to deaths of family members (some will take offense to this, but writers aren't necessarily nice people--I grew up with one). The LW's father does not appear to have this businesslike attitude.
Another trait is independence. In view of the number of rejections most authors face, a certain independence is needed. The need for constant approval and reassurance is antithetical to the writer's sanity.
Finally, it takes 10 to 15 years to find a voice, on the average. But the most important variable in all of this is a fixed writing schedule.
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Astonishing
[Read the article: My dad is a writer -- a very, very bad writer!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The focus on how the father is dysfunctional without any mention of what successful writers have in common (an immutable writing schedule) is astonishing to me. That's more important than anyone's feelings or internal states, none of which amount to the slightest iota of accomplishment. The focus on the issue of control is entirely secondary and completely uninteresting. I suppose people write what they know, though.
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There is no such thing as closure
[Read the article: After my husband died of cancer I found he'd been cheating]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There is no such thing as pop-psychological closure. Imagine if the perpetrator of a mugging and homicide explained that he killed his victim to experience a sense of closure. What would the purpose of "closure" for the LW, given her husband's secret affairs? To eventually set aside the awareness that humans believe they are better than they are. Closure in death means going gentle into that good night. But should everyone have a neat bow-tie tied around their coffin for the sake of the survivors?
There is no such thing as "working through grief." You cannot "work on your feelings"--whatever that phrase is supposed to mean. To some extent internal feelings can be influenced through activity, but to a great extent feelings are involuntary. They will work themselves out.
About the best one can say is, "life goes on."
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In defense of privatization
[Read the article: Blackwater in Baghdad: "It was a horror movie"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Blackwater's roid-rage induced shoot-em-up counts as a stunning paradigmatic case study for the libertarian ideology of privatizing away the government. No doubt Ron Paul's cross-country sycophants are thrilled with the efficiency and industry of Blackwater's cold-blooded murderers, who don't need our support (unlike our non-privatized military), and who are happy to be in Iraq (unlike our non-privatized military) following market logic to its bloody conclusion.
Well, OK, maybe Blackwater isn't an entirely privatized mercenary operation, since the taxpayer paid for those 17 deaths. If they were truly privatized, maybe they could have killed more civilians. But it's an indication that that Ron Paul and his assholeciates could refer to in defense of the libertarian utopia.
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Don't interact with your parents at all
[Read the article: I secretly hate myself]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If your parents gave you this much pain and continue to do so, do not call them. You're already as low as possible in their estimation, so you and they have nothing to lose.