Letters to the Editor

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Rambling Rose 22

Published Letters: 757     Editor's Choice: 6

  • The Experience Thing - Again

    [Read the article: Killing her softly with his song]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    Let me just say that I am not supporting Hillary Clinton during this Democratic nomination process. I am supporting John Edwards - again. So my response to Obama's answer about the experience thing has nothing to do with being a fan of Hillary Clinton. I'm sure the former state legislator got some bills through and that he has some experience in real world issues. But Hillary Clinton spent years in a Governor's Mansion and 8 years in the White House. I'm sure she has a better feel for what it means to be President. Obama can only visualize himself in the Oval Office and talk about his vision thing.

    Sorry, but experience does count for somethings. We've known all along that Bush's lack of experience and his dependency on the likes of Cheney and Rumsfield is part of the reason we're in the mess we're in today. So who will be Obama's Cheney and Rumsfield?

    As for John Edwards, he had the best policy ideas in 2004 for our country and still does. I like his experience in standing up to corporations. I like the fact that he's in this for the right reasons: To move our country in a new direction.

    If Obama is still getting the "experience" question after 8 months,then there's something to it. Continuing to report on it like it was some kind of fluke doesn't make it unreal and won't make it go away.

    I'm not looking to be made to feel "relaxed or at peace" by my next President. I'm looking for action not more platitudes. Obama is not the Second Coming and the only person who can save us red states from the blue states, and vice versa. That he even frames his campaign around such nonsense shows he lacks real world experience. The very reason blue and red state definitions exist is due,in part, to partisan state legislatures drawing the districts after every census!

    The Democratic party nomination is about advocating a certain degree of ideology in order to represent your party in a Democratic process. No where does it say that uniting America and choosing a Democratic nominee is a mutually exclusive task. If Obama wants to be Savior of the U.S. then he needs another kind of platform from which to launch his "bringing America together" tour. George W. Bush was a "uniter" not a "divider" too. Tell us again exactly what we are going to get with that egg roll?

    Then there's still the matter of that pesky Congress. A Democratic-majority Congress with a Democratic President can find solutions for the issues facing our country. We don't need the permission of Republicans or their cooperation to get this country back on track. Besides,their willingness and ability to participate is up to them and how hard and fast they want to continue to cling to their tiresome, out-moded,narrowly-focused, cliche-driven rhetoric.

    Experience? Yeah,it matters. Understanding the nature of the job of President of the United States? That matters to.

  • Stop Telling Me What To Do?

    [Read the article: I Like to Watch]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    Okay, it was novel at first. Now it's downright annoying as hell and I'm sick of it. That being guys, straight or gay, telling me how to be "female!" It seems that there are no more women out here assisting women with the things that have for centuries been and still are for the most part...well...female.

    I'm tired of these guys, gay and straight, all over the TV with their own shows and in the commercials telling me how to wear my hair, which shampoo to buy for my hair type, what colors to use this year to decorate my boring family room, and the mother-of-all-guys-telling-females what to do: clothes! Even if there's a woman or two in the show, she's usually reduced to that of fashion-name-turned-side-kick. She's not the expert - he is!

    When did someone decide that a preponderance of TV shows like Gunn's and others' would be "fun," or add "some interest," or just "pop?" Who decided we all needed some guy named Chas to help us figure out how to be female? And why are we listening to them castigate and look sternly down their noses at us because we don't resemble some bow-legged preying mantis stomping down a cat-walk looking like she's pissed off at the world at Fashion Week?

    If our clothes suck, then blame the companies that buy up this crap from China, Indochina, and the other sweat-shops-of-the-world and stick on their racks. If our hair is not quite right for us, then stop plastering Jennifer Anniston's do all over the magazine covers and telling us how we can have her perfect, but over-exposed, hair cut.

    I never had any problems with dressing myself, shampooing my hair, figuring out what I looked best in, or discerning what was fashionably in or out before these guys started getting rich off of telling me what to do. These shows assume that all women no longer have female friends for advice and can't read the fashion pages for themselves. They assume we all are just praying for some gay Messiah to show up and lead us to the Fashion Promised Land. Well, who the hell died and made THEM boss over being female?

    Stop telling me what to do, what to wear, how to decorate, what to serve for a meal, how to cook it, which wine works best with it, and where to vacation. The last time I checked you had a penis. Matters not to me with whom you use it either. My point being: Men, stop propping yourselves up as experts at being female and stop telling me how to be one!