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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
dgholstein
Published Letters: 60 Editor's Choice: 12
Anonymous writes, "Years ago, I had a lover who left me for a woman with a silly, low-prestige job whose English wasn't quite good enough to ever call him on his bullshit.", it's a shame that her ex wasn't able to explain why life with someone else would be easier.
I'd like to explain a thing or two to Maureen Dowd and Anonymous; "smarter" does not mean "wins more arguments", with all relationships, you have a choice, you may choose to be a partner or an adversary. Women who declare that successful men are intimidated by "smart" women are actually saying, "I am smarter than men since I am better able to articulate, through both verbal and non-verbal means, why it is he has afronted me. And because of my superior intellectual capabilities, he has left me for someone stupid." Let me speak up for the ex, there's only so much baggage a person in a relationship is willing to accept, when one comes to expect arguments and/or passive-agressive behavior, you merely forfeit the arguments to your adversary, you let them "win" and move on -- END OF STORY.
I'm not saying you and your partner must agree on everything, but for every argument, you have a loser and someone who believes they have won. The person who uses their argument win-loss column to equate a winning record with superior intellect will naturally blame the "loser".
Another letter writer makes a great point, these complainers (Maureen Dowd, chief among them) really are looking for the alpha male. My experience is that the alpha males are rarely likable for their looks, intelligence, culture or interpersonal skills -- think George Bush, Donald Trump or Bill Gates (can't the later two afford a good hair cut?). Can you really get to the top without stepping over or on people to get there?
There are plenty of smart, good-looking guys out there who are content to make an average wage, doing their best at work and at home and with their friends and family. While they may be smarter than the ones in the higher echelons of government or the editorial staff of the NYT, they are also smart enough not to rise above their level of competance.
From the emphasis most authors place on Rummy going in with never-sufficiently-small-enough American force, some might conclude that Rummy's idea was to send one troop only to win the war against Iraq.
The problem with this plan is there is only one Rummy and he's just too valuable to send to Iraq to do that job -- we'll just have to be satisfied with the 140,000 we sent to do this one man's job!
Having read this article and the responses to it, I believe Joe has made good, valid points that shouldn't be dismissed the way most of the letters have. I, too, see it as a good sign that some of the purged CIA staff have returned to serve Hayden -- yes, of course using our telephone records and monitoring telephone traffic is immoral, illegal, and, especially, ineffective and a waste of money. (A proper "terrorist" would be using first class mail to plan an attack, those postal inspectors don't fool around and that type of monitoring won't occur at the PO)
We (the readers and journalists of Salon) can't hope to straigthen out the Bush administration, the best we can do is to infer from other evidence (such as the return of the purged) the relative merits of administration actions. What we do is similar to what was "Kremlin Watching", from the seating arrangements, gossip, positions, titles and careful parsing of news releases (groups tend to obfuscate, not lie), we devine the truth.
From their friends and supporters (Big Oil, Media Chicken Hawks, Evangelicals, The Rich and Connected, Good Ole Boys) we knew this administration was going to be supportive of the energy industry, war, security, "family values", trust funds, etcetera. In retrospect, how much of their actions betray their friends? Any?
I think Joe's point is this, if we are to take a stand against this administration, we can't simply oppose all their efforts. We must choose our battles and find allies -- Conservatives are the ones who killed the Miers nomination, they killed their own. It is delusional to believe that opposition from Dems/Liberals means anything to them.
Finally, the house is on fire, do we stop to fix the noisy toilet or get help putting out the fire -- that help may come in November, maybe that help should be consolidated before then.
...Dan
The author posts, "It's unfortunate that young women experience the stress of trying to be all and do all, but there's something to be said for the fact that they don't see beauty and brains, or desirability and independence, as so mutually exclusive that it would prevent the pursuit, however conflicted, of both."
Beauty and brains are NEVER conflicted -- nor are desirability and independence. Both beauty and brains come from DNA, neither can be enhanced through force of will. Does the author imply going to college makes a woman less beautiful? My observations are that most college educated women are better looking than the average.
Also, do young women have some special burden that the rest of us don't? As a middle-aged man, I've been through many phases in my life, none of them have been without stress. It's absurd to assign them some special, "woe-is-me" designation to young women -- get a life.
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
