Letters to the Editor
What Difference Does It Make?
Published Letters: 33
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A New Low
[Read the article: The best-laid plans]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Sloane Crosley piece represents a new low for Salon. The Salon I once knew existed as a sort of ideological cultural opposition to oblivious, supercilious manifestations of pop culture. I might have expected a thoughtful essay analyzing the publication of stories and novels by privileged, connected young and pretty (vacant) white girls as both cause and symptom of the decline of literacy, the irrelevance of mainstream publishing, and also of the public's increasing disinterest in matters literary; but an excerpt offered as something any literate adult could find as anything other than repugnant? It's a joke, right?
Now that Tim Grieve is gone, Glenn Greenwald is all Salon has left. Greenwald, disingenuous pro-Hillary propaganda disguised as thoughtful, serious commentary, and now this -- promotion of the puerile. If Greenwald ever leaves, I wonder who will actually remain to help Joan Walsh clean up the place for new tenants?
Hillary I guess. They owe each other that much.
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@ Tobbar
[Read the article: The best-laid plans]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're right, Tobbar.
We don't all get to be affluent, "Caucasoid" women who enjoy taking our big butts on schmoozing trips through the demi-mondes of NYC publishing parties, secure in the knowledge that the more our butt schmoozes, the more people will forget that the best we'll be able to do is write quirkily and philosophize tritely about the meaningful life experiences our immersion in this milieu perpetually prevents us from having.
Shame on us.
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Palahniuk, Foster Wallace, Eggers, McSweeney's
[Read the article: What is your literary deal breaker?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It used to be the MySpace test.
Anyone who listed Chuck Palahniuk, David Foster Wallace or Dave Eggers was out. Also, just McSweeney's generally. Consensus important writing is far worse than the obviously insane (Ayn Rand) or the mass market paperback (Dan Brown), whose readers are easy to eliminate through more general lifestyle choices. It's much more terrible to spend two hours on someone only to have them declare A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius the best novel ever. It means they're fundamentally incapable of individual artistic evaluation and must forever appeal to the mores of the herd. What's more unattractive than that?
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Starbuck is too OTT
[Read the article: Everything you were afraid to ask about "Battlestar Galactica" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Anders-Starbuck romance ruined it for me. Anders was ken doll macho and it never made sense why the two of them melted in each other's presence. It made me hear "writers" and see "actors" and I've had trouble with the series since then.
This is Katee Sackhoff playing Starbuck: loud, aggressive laughter (Ha HA!) and winking. That's it. She has the subtlety of a young David Caruso.
Still, the mini-series and first season were pitch perfect. There were good episodes in season two linked by episodes where you could almost hear the writers saying "oh, GREAT, what do we do now? Give the cylons a conscience? Worth a try."
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Stars
[Read the article: Why Hillary Clinton should be winning]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's interesting which letters get starred. If you're just reading the starred letters you'd get the impression that letters praising the courage of Wilentz and those criticizing the article have been received in roughly equal numbers. It's like the editors are desperate for letters which validate Wilentz's argument and resent that the educated readership previous editors have for years cultivated can expose the propagandistic tone of, and faulty logic in, this piece effortlessly.
The contempt the Salon editors under Walsh have for their readership astonishes. I agree with the commenter who said that the strengths of Salon have become Greenwald and a couple other things, things which, in any case, would exist without Salon. Ms. Walsh, if you think so little of the people who visit Salon, for whom, or what purpose, do you imagine you write?
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Benenists
[Read the article: Lieberman's unusual take on "the facts"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just came on to say that War Room today feels the way it hasn't felt since Grieve left. And saw that, predictably, a buttload of posters already pointed this out.
I'm saying the same thing. Benen has a voice. I'm down. Up with Benenism.
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Firestorm?
[Read the article: The rubes and the elites]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Firestorm?
Really?
Where did you find an endless supply of smug and self-certain Michael Linds and Rebecca Traisters, Ms. Walsh? Oh right, you are such people. Your country is ruining the world, and itself, and you post a lead article with a picture of Obama on a tractor on it accusing him of deepening a rift because he said something coherent and defensible, the day after you led with a piece based on no research, just breathless "I talked to all my friends and they agree" sociology called "Hey, Obama boys: Back off already!" And Salon is supposed to be the voice in the freaking wilderness.
What WON"T you do for eyeballs for your advertisers?