Letters to the Editor
Tobbar
Published Letters: 159 Editor's Choice: 9
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Keep at 'em Golden Boy
[Read the article: The modern Muslim]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Still on your side. Cheering you on. Fear not for I am with thoust.
Have any of you ever read Don Quioxte? There is a very autobiographical section in it where the writer, Migel De Cervantes, writes of his expreiences as a slave in hands of the Moors. He is, on the whole, treated well by his master. However, his master has a neighbor who impales one of his own Christian slaves every day (or maybe it was every week). It was often. Often enough.
Anyway, one of the things Cervantes remarks on is how a society could produce a kind man such as his master, and yet do nothing about a murderous fiend like his neighbor. The roots are both in the relegion and the culture.
The religion allows the cruel treatment of slaves and the culture honors the religion, so there is nowhere anyone (the man's slaves, even his neighbors who disapprove, even the officials who fear his behavior will incite the Christians to revolt) can go to try to coerce him to stop.
I am reminded of this story whenever I hear someone say something about how, on the whole, women are treated well in Islam, or minorities are tolerated, or whatever. What happens when a woman isn't treated so well anymore? The Koran says it is allowable somewhere (in the middle, I'd guess), so what's the problem?
It seems to me that you have to have to form secular law and morality systems to confront the barbarism of religious cults, plus you have to have a culture willing to enforce those laws. I have a feeling that most Muslim countries are not anywhere near this yet. Perhaps Mr. Ramadan's recommndations are an attempt to point them toward that direction: inform the masses that there are other passages in the Big Contradictory Book that we can emphasize as a kind of gateway drug to dropping the book and the cult that spawned it altogether?
Oh, speaking of Spain. Someone mentioned that there are numerious Imans who are practically illiterate quoting from memory or bribery. Did you know that the original incarnation of the Spanish Inquisition was an attempt to combat just such a situation in Christendom?
Yep, originally they were literate, well educated folks who could give an actual acurate reading of scripture in cases where a king or priest or whatever was just making shit up.
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Well, I have gotten-
[Read the article: Lewis "Scooter" Libby is a felon]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]- a little bit of my faith in The System back.
Maybe Libby will die of a heart attack due to the stress of the legal wrangling (like Ken Lay did).
Sweet, slow, justice!
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Wait- you mean to tell me that-
[Read the article: "300"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]- Stephanie Zacharek doesn't like a movie about men? About men, made by men, for men? Shocked! Shocked I am!
Not!
Anyway, the Spartans were very gay. And very very hypermasculine. And, like the state of Texas, their main claim to fame was the battle they lost.
Frank Miller always seems to have a "naked man" moment in his works. Batman, Watchmen, Sin City, 300. It's in all his graphic novels.
Not to put words in Mr. Miller's mouth, but I suspect he knew full well that the Spartans liked to pitch for the other team, but also know it woud kill sales of the 300 graphic novel if it wasn't handled carefully. I think he threw in a little wink-wink, nudge-nudge stuff into 300 to make it clear to anybody who even knew the basics about Sparta that, yes, he knows how they were.
He also kept the story-line very tight: While the nation of Sparta refuses to go to war with Persia, the king of Sparta takes his 300 bodyguards, meets with some less-able greek allies, and they all go to die at the Hot Gates.
That's pretty much it, really. They hope to give the greeks time to organize a better defence, and -spoiler warning- they know that once they are dead, the nation of Sparta will join the war to avenge the death of their king.
It's like "On the Beach" that way- guys killing time waiting for the killing time.
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Miller Vs. Moore
[Read the article: "300"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're right anonymous... Moore did Watchman and Miller did 300. And I actually felt a tinge of doubt as I was typeing "Watchmen" into my first post.
But then I thought, what would Bush do?
Stay the damn course, that's what!
So, no moore of your anti-America pessemisstic evaluations of who wrote what.
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Why did they think he ordered them out?
[Read the article: A Giuliani liability: 9/11?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can understand that the firefighters are upset that he called off the search for their comrades (although, honestly, due to the emotions involved, that's why someone of higher rank makes those kinds of calls), but the story said that Guliani had 'other reasons' for the decisions. I'm curious what they think those other reasons were?
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Any chance-
[Read the article: McCain and condoms for Africa]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]-of me ever voting for Mcain was gone the moment I read he actually LISTENED to anything that Tom Coburn had to say.
What a freak.