Letters to the Editor
Yet another David
Published Letters: 96 Editor's Choice: 6
-
The Dangers of Understatement / At the risk of explaining a joke...
[Read the article: "Look! A shiny object!"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think people are missing the point of the winning entry and taking offense at it. I sure did, and somebody had to explain it to me.
"I'll drink beer with my friends, thanks" doesn't mean "I'll go hide in a bar until the election is over." It means "Stop trying to get me to vote for somebody on the basis of whether s/he seems like someone I'd like to hang out with."
As such, it addresses one of the most important problems about the "cult of personality" marketing of candidates that got us our Current Occupant. It's just awfully subtle and probably about as effective as the proverbial "angry letter to The Times."
-
Too painful
[Read the article: Craig to cop: "I'm a respectable person"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sorry -- I'm militantly gay and way to the left of the Democrats, but I've got to say I'm with the "enough" crowd. This is like turning up the sound on the last Jonestown tapes to make sure you don't miss the screams.
Have a shred of decency, even if the wingnuts won't. Your karma will thank you one day.
-
Thursday on Thursday, at least?
[Read the article: TV Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I looked forward to seeing the new Tim Gunn show last night -- Wednesday -- after reading about it in Wednesday's TV Daily, only to find Top Chef on at that time. I see now you've updated yesterday's listing to note that the Tim Gunn program is on Thursday.
How about including at least a clarification in today's "TV Daily" and/or a link to the writeup from yesterday?
-
WHOOPS!
[Read the article: TV Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You have already done so. How the hell did I miss that? Sorry!
-
A Cartoon Crazy
[Read the article: Those were the days]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wish it were funny that Bolton is channeling Uncle Duke from Doonesbury, but it's actually sickening and frightening.
-
Tough love
[Read the article: The gay voter's guide to the GOP]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It feels harsh to have to cut people off, but our lives have been much happier since we instituted a zero-tolerance policy on intravenous drug users and gay Republicans...
-
The "Electable" curse
[Read the article: Who is the most "electable" Democrat?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I saw those ranking numbers, too, and I started to free-associate. "Say the name of the past candidate that most comes to mind when you say the name of a current candidate."
What I came up with was:
Hillary Clinton : John Kerry
Obama : JFK
Edwards : Bill Clinton / Jimmy Carter
Besides indicating that this must mean Hillary is my grit-your-teeth-and-vote, zero-enthusiasm candidate, it means I also identify her with the only name on the righthand side of that table who didn't win.
-
Shame on Shapiro and Salon
[Read the article: John Edwards faces his day of reckoning]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No real reason to read beyond the "coiffed." I'm with Ballsee, although I was thinking Dowd rather than Coulter. In either case, not writers one would want to be compared with. Hope it was worth it for you.
-
Cintra
[Read the article: Fashion Week, one big sleazy prom!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gotta say -- Cintra is kinda fabulous...
-
Loaded, misleading headlines
[Read the article: N.Y. Gov. Spitzer linked to prostitution ring]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The New York Times headline makes it sound like Spitzer was involved in operating a prostitution ring, yet the story the story seems to be that he was a CLIENT. That strikes me as a wildly misleading headline, and I am baffled why Salon is mindlessly parroting that headline.
-
House sues Bolten and Miers
[Read the article: N.Y. Gov. Spitzer linked to prostitution ring]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Meanwhile, where is War Room's story about the Democrats' filing civil suit against Joshua Bolten and Harriet Miers?
-
And then there's Keith Olbermann's commentary
[Read the article: Ferraro resigns from Clinton campaign]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you want to hear some stern words on this subject, check out Keith Olbermann on MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/23601329#23601329
-
It's no "Project Runway"
[Read the article: TV Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If Top Chef were as serious about the food as Project Runway is about the clothes, it would be worth watching. It has to be challenging to convey what the viewer cannot taste or smell, but, rather than meeting this challenge creatively, the producers at Top Chef simply ignore it and give the food short shrift, making virtually no attempt to provide the appreciation for ingredients and techniques that the producers of Project Runway manage to include for their designers' work, even among all the "drama." And the cutesy hurdles the producers devise for the chefs, all too routinely forcing them to try to create great food out of junk under impossible conditions, are insulting.
We're giving Top Chef a pass this time and watching the new season of South Park and the new Lewis Black show.
-
Blocking?
[Read the article: Clinton camp goes on offense against Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hi, Joan --
How soon are we going to be able block individual posters? I'd really like to be able to filter out the partisan cheerleaders who keep using the Letters area as a forum to snipe at each other.
-
The Question
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My reaction to the question was the same as EMStoveken's, but since this is from a roundtable of foreign media, it's probably not one of our domestic sycophants. The transcript at whitehouse.com is not particularly helpful, but the questioner appears to have been British -- it looked like his name (first or last is hard to tell) may have been Thomas. For what this information is worth...
-
Snark for snark's sake?
[Read the article: In Iraq, an explosion ... of employment!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What number of jobs are the Coalition flacks variously calling "an explosion" or "a boom"? Turns out that information is readily available in the news releases: 3,500 jobs soon and, ultimately, 7,500. Including those numbers would have given Salon readers a chance to decide for themselves if they are indeed laughably low. As it is, this item just looks a little unprofessional.
-
McCain's Macaca Moment
[Read the article: The problem with comparing Obama to Tiger Woods]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tiger Woods is young, talented, and successful -- I'd love to be compared to him -- but inasmuch as this is an "interchangeable persons of color" thing, it's stupid and offensive. McCain is stupid if he doesn't distance himself from his supporter's remarks, and fast.
-
George S.
[Read the article: Hannity's unfortunate role in the Democratic debate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If this is true, can we establish that this is the point at which George Stephanopoulos officially "jumped the shark"?
-
Or there's a new "Medium"
[Read the article: TV Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The TV Daily is a useful place to come to find out if today's Daily Show and Colbert are new shows or re-runs. It would be similarly useful to know if a show that comes and goes from the broadcast schedule -- and has gotten favorable coverage in a couple of Salon departments -- is actually on, even in re-run. Today's listing is a case in point: a new episode of "Medium" airs tonight at 10:00, but a reader would have to go elsewhere to find that out.
I know you can find a way to make room for such listings while still having the fun of being snarky about shows like "The Bachelor."