Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 159 Editor's Choice: 9
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Primitive Love!
[Read the article: Queens of the Stone Age]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Stone age romance!
I'm fascinated by the stone age(s) and the bronze age. I'll be buying this book.
Some thoughts:
Recently finished "Children of the Forest", about the Mbuti Pygmies in the Ituri forest of Africa. The writer talks about how, really, the people (women mostly, but children and elderly, sometimes injured men) driving the animals into the nets have the hard part of the job. It's much harder to find some animal, get close enough to it not to spook it, then spook it in the right direction, than it is to club/spear an animal caught in a net.
Of course, another group of hunters doesn't use the nets, they use bows and arrows. They don't get as much meat as the net hunters, but well, they seem to have a lot of fun. And, of course, sometimes they have to go after bigger prey. Which is also fun, and dangerous.
Was at a bronze-age farm museum in Sweden in 2000. Experts there thought that, while they did some hunting, mostly they trapped things. And those traps were remarkably unsporting.
So, it makes me think (although I can't prove it) that given enough time, any band of humans will probably figure out the best odds to catch and kill animals (nets, traps, pits) and given a few generations they'll make a sport out of doing it the hard way (short-faced bear hunting! Tonight on EXXXTREME Stone Age Sports!).
And we're very clever animals. Heck, twelve-year olds kill bears with sharpened sticks. How? 'Cause we've figured out that the bear (usually) acts.
I always thought the detail on the hair of the various 'venus' statues was an indication of conspicious consumption- wealthy (or with enough children) enough to have people to braid their hair in a very exacting pattern. Not sure where I picked up the idea.
And that brings me to the remarkable fact that the neolithic age lasted 20,000 years. Amazing that any place humans can live on the earth we managed to colonize with little more than stone, wood, and bone- sometimes only two of the three. And, of course, string/ropes/net. I have a bad feeling that after that, the big threat was each other. And you want to talk about not sporting...
Anyway, I salute my stone-age ancestors, be they wily rabbit-killers, or mushroom gathering basket-weavers.
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Justice-
[Read the article: What Bush is hiding]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]-it's better than Christmas!
I want them under oath- heck, I want them hooked up to an MRI so that we can SEE the lies.
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Pass the Grasshoppers
[Read the article: Queens of the Stone Age]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You know, if you could develop a taste for grasshoppers, all of nature would be your buffet nine months out of the year (at least in Oklahoma and Texas). Sweet!
Well, probably not sweet, but maybe the secret was in the sauce. The sauce, of course, came from boiling mice. But again, talk about living on easy street.
Don't the contestants on 'Survivor' usually start eating crickets within four days?
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Alas, poor no name
[Read the article: Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What's it like to be dumb as a bag of hammers?
A bag of dumb hammers. Hammers that, like, had to go to the eighth grade twice. Or were you home-schooled to be this dumb?
I guess you're right, technically. New species will evolve to exploit various niches- over a long, long, long time.
You're not a particularly bright person, so let me say that again: the time it would take for a new species to evolve to take over any given niche would be hundreds, if not thousands, of years. And, if the niche is GONE, which is often at the root of species extinction, well... no niche.
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Daniel, you're such a tough guy!
[Read the article: Men who hate women on the Web]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Make sure you call your daddy up and tell him what a big man you were on the internet today.
But seriously, I never really understood why you'd want to put a letters section in Salon at all. 90% of the responses are utter crap- including mine! Perhaps especially mine.
Anyway, I advise the ladies of Salon to keep typing away. Don't let the bastards drag you down.
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Jesus Daniel,
[Read the article: Men who hate women on the Web]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Was that the best you could do?
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Your response IS indeed utter crap.
Make sure you call your daddy up and tell him what a big man you were on the internet today.
...
Anyway, I advise the ladies of Salon to keep typing away. Don't let the bastards drag you down.
See the contradiction there? Yeah, I didn't think that you would. Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot.
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Some utterly lame-ass riposte claiming that you're as victimized as they are? No wonder you have to push people around online you'd make a fool of yourself in person.
Flame war over- I win!
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An interesting article.
[Read the article: Gospel according to Judas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm getting into the game late here.
I found the article to be quite interesting. Anything that leads more people to realize that Christianity is a man-made thing is okay in my book. Anything that reminds people that there was a general concensus hamemred out in the 4th century by a bunch of sweaty guys in wierd clothes is history that needs to be taught.
There is, of course, no God, no Devil, no Soul, no Afterlife. We made those up, too. It's high time we owned up to it all. It's past time that we owned up to the fact that we didn't evolve from apes, as much as we ARE evolved apes.
I find Ms. Pagels views to be very interesting, and her scholarship to be intriguing. I also can't help noting that the more she seems to learn about the history of her branch of the sand cult, the more the holy book becomes "metaphor".
Don't get me wrong, the sand cults have thier roots in a very human need to explain away a big fearful world. But as the world has become smaller and less fearful, religion has gotten more into the business of producing fear so they can, in turn, drive it away.