Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
A Reader
Published Letters: 78 Editor's Choice: 5
Have to share the puzzlement. Patrick, you're sounding positively Empire! Flying the flag across the globe, wot.
After thinking for a moment, I think I can honestly say that the last thing I care about is the flag painted on the fuselage. First is safety, second is service, third is convenience. (And, for the latter two reasons, I try my best NOT to fly US carriers.)
I recently flew from Vancouver to Jakarta via Frankfurt, Zurich and Singapore solely because it meant I got a sweet deal on SQ, the universe's finest carrier. More than worth the extra hours, and, as it happened, I suffered the least jetlag ever upon arrival.
(Oh, and please god, would someone at United ditch the Gershwin? Isn't 20 years of aural torture enough?)
Cary--You should putter around and repair things more often. No need to buy an uninterruptible power supply. Your response was fine.
Oh, and for the Bowen-critics, I can only assume that you grew up a single child in a single-parent household. Sheesh.
Well, if you wanted football fans to jab ya, Patrick, you succeeded this time!
There was a great Simpson's episode that included a soccer game. The entire stadium watched robotically as the teams kicked the ball back and forth, like slow-motion ping-pong. Dead silence. Funny, yes, but also a perfect illustration of American ignorance of the game.
As others have and no doubt will point out, a sport with hundreds of millions of fans must have something going for it. There's incredible finesse to the game, and, perhaps best of all, no damned commercial interruptions on TV. And THAT, folks, is the reason it hasn't caught on in the States. No sponsors = no marketing.
As for baseball, please. Dull, dull, dull. Basketball? Fine, if you like watching glandular cases flinging sweat on each other for an hour or so as the score predictably heads toward 300-290. American football is an absurdity wrapped in body-armor. Try Aussie-rules football for the real deal.
Cheers.
Terrific article and analysis.
A minor stylistic quibble: Caveats about an author not having enough "time or space" to go into greater detail were accurate from the dawn of the written word until about the last decade of the 20th century. Here on the web, such an assertion is silly. A 500,000 word epic would still only need a fraction of the hard disk space occupied by the shortest Video Dog inanity.
So, please, unless Salon editors actually instruct their writers to limit their pieces to x-number of words--lamentably shortsighted, if true--no more moaning about space restrictions.
An article bemoaning the lack of "cool" young Baptists? Dyslexics? Left-handed Greek-Americans?
They're equally dumb categories. Go for it.
Do a quick Google on Prof. Behrend and discover his fundamental support of Islam, as well as his own Sufism. In a word, TB is an apologist for Islam, routinely seeking to minimise and "explain" its more violent and fanatical expression.
In the real world, Israel is here to stay. Elaborate fantasies involving its dissolution are absurd, no matter how elaborately expressed in the academic-speak that TB reverts to (here and elsewhere) when he's challenged on this suggestion.
TB's assertion that Indonesia is an example of democracy and Islam peacefully coexisting is equally fanciful. Whether you wish to ascribe the bombings, beheadings (nuns in Poso), and increasing Islamisation of the nation over the last 15 years to politicking (cf. "Civil Islam" and its discussion of Suharto's attempt to woo Islamist voters in his twilight years of power), or to religion-inspired fanaticism, misses any meaningful point. Democracy barely works in theory in Indonesia, and not at all in practice. If the pesantren in central Java continue turning out graduates schooled in the Koran and little else, expect the world's largest Muslim state to continue its march toward Islamofascism. Dan kalau itu terjadi, ndak ada salah satu bule yang akan hidup dengan aman.
(And no, a presidential election in which Suharto's Golkar party retained or recovered most of its power and influence does not constitute an example of democracy in action. It was KKN with a veneer of free-choice.)
Anyhoo, as Salon tends so often to give voice to those in opposition to Israel, I echo the sentiment that this article offers the whiff of a suggestion of some balance.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
