Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 139 Editor's Choice: 37
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Hockney's point = scapegoat + Sturgeon's Law
[Read the article: Is the iPod killing great paintings?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are we as a culture really less sensitive to art and the world? I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of people through the vast majority of history had about the same appreciation as we do today. Hockney's point (and more so, perhaps, Diddlypop's point in these letters) seems to be that so much is crap and "great art" is not appreciated, compared to some golden age. I call bullshit. To paraquote Sturgeon, 90% of anything is crap, and always has been. The difference between today and earlier eras is largely in the availability of the material. In other words, people are producing the same proportion of crap as ever, but you're seeing (or hearing!) more of it than you would have.
Is that necessarily a degradation? I don't think so. Now there is exposure for a lot of things that are great that would not have passed through the self-appointed gatekeepers of high art. Yes, 90% is crap. But 10% is art -- and that's art that would have been missed.
In the end, who appointed Hockney (or Diddlypop) the judge of what is "art"? What qualifications do they bring to the table? Perhaps success in one art form -- which does not necessarily imply any competence to speak of other forms, or of "art" in general.
Other respondents have mentioned the good point Hockney almost made. It's not the audio nature of the iPod that impacts art. I would think rather that it's the video component and the focusing of attention down onto a small screen. Connectivity between people is being lost, and that is a cause for some concern. But, truth be told, my reading of social history makes me believe that, in fact, the poor blighted masses are going to adapt to this and survive it -- even without self-appoint high commissioners of culture like Hockney leading the way.
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Under the Constitution
[Read the article: For Clinton, a warmer reception]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](such as it remains), she can't begin impeachment of Bush. That's reserved to the House. She can vote to convict him, should it ever come about, but she can't get the ball rolling herself, in any official capacity.
(Yes, she could be exerting her influence to get someone in the House to do it and the House leadership to follow through. I'm talking about direct roles not influence.)
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Is the White House press corps growing a spine...
[Read the article: The Cheney-Perino trifecta]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... or is this Helen Thomas again?
It seems to me that even the WHPC is growing tired of the runaround they get daily. Maybe they'll actually start pursuing stories. Maybe they'll even lob tough questions at the Current Occupant at his next press conference (prob. scheduled for Christmas 2008).
But based on past performance, probably not. *sigh*
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Take this as a win
[Read the article: Cheney blinks?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The motion to strip the OVP of executive money should be dropped now. It served its main purpose, which was to hold Cheney up to even more ridicule. It served its secondary purpose, which was to force the VPOTUS to decide whether he really wanted to be outside the executive branch and its magic shield named "privilege".
We don't want Congress formalizing the VPOTUS' insane argument that presiding over the Senate means he's not bound by anything referring to the Executive Branch. If the bill fails, the Democrats look silly and worse, weak. If it passes, they'll have endorsed further fraying of the Constitution... and Heaven knows, the document can't take much more.
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In media res?
[Read the article: Ask the Pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is it just me, or does this article jump off in the middle of things?
Of all the warnings, cautions and instructions in the training packet, that was the bullet point I kept coming back to. To this civilian-trained pilot, such terrifying scenarios aren't part of our checklists and procedures.
What warnings? What terrifying scenarios? Sloppy editing... I'd never accept this from one of my kids, much less a professional.
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What I find almost hilarious...
[Read the article: Did Clinton really do it too?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... is watching the rightwing noise machine contort and twist and bend itself so as to hold simultaneously that (a) Clinton "clearly" committed perjury as is commonly understood, even if it doesn't quite meet the strict legal definition; but at the same time Libby is not guilty because the perjury he committed was about an investigation into a crime "that didn't happen", but only if you parse the law really really carefully.
I'd normally say, You can't have both ways. But of course the rightwing noise machine is exactly used to having it both ways -- there are two standards of conduct, one for Republicans and one for everyone else.
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This "may" sound self-indulgent??
[Read the article: Why I returned my iPhone]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like just about everything Manjoo writes, it fairly drips with self-indulgence. I'm far from a Luddite but I'm tired of being lectured at about how much the iPhone will change my life just like the way cell phones have. (Except, of course, that cell phones haven't.) I agree with him that someday, most of us will be carrying devices that meet the iPhone's potential, because someday some manufacturer will create a product that delivers what the iPhone promises.
Sadly, of course, that manufacturer (whoever it is) won't get credit -- they'll just be "catching up" to Apple...
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Another reason to keep slogging...
[Read the article: Little outbursts of journalism -- what causes them?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... is, some people are just coming of age, and some people are just waking up. Both populations need to hear what seems so obvious to those who have been following along.
The truth may sometimes go out of fashion but it never goes out of style.