Letters to the Editor
Jeff Bowles
Published Letters: 104 Editor's Choice: 10
-
it's silly fun.
[Read the article: Star Wars: The Empire Brokeback]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I enjoy these things. They're silly fun, and don't grate on me as anti-gay. They're just fun, dumb, VERY clever jokes.
(I admit that it's frustrating, to trivialize such a fine film - Brokeback Mountain, I mean - about missed opportunities and social limits on our lives, by reducing it to a 30-second musical theme and a montage of stolen glances.)
But these are just fun, silly jokes. I look forward to similar parodies, perhaps not tied to gay-themed topics.
-
America and genocide...
[Read the article: Progressive genocide]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Given that the America that Farhad writes about was built on the land taken in an extermination of those who had it previously, are you sure that America has never committed a genocide?
Perhaps it was closer to fratricide; we have killed our brothers.
-
McCain is no idiot. He's just remarkably patient...
[Read the article: McCain's Falwell flip-flop]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Although I do not love McCain's social policies, he is no idiot.
In fact, he might be the most patient politician we have. Look how he sat as head of the Senate committee on Indian affairs - a pretty low-status job - after the entire republican party shat on him. He noticed a little issue in his domain ("indian tribes being misled by Abramoff and company") and threw the snowball that created the avalanche-that-ate-the-crooks.
He might be sucking up to the religious right, but he's no idiot.
It's like the most recent republican leadership convention, in which every republican stood up to bad-mouth Bush except McCain. (He said something generic, like "the presidency is important and should not be discounted" or a similar phrase that would not come back to haunt him.)
Watch the guy. He waited out a war from inside a prison; he will wait out Bush and the republicans.
-
The review, very good; the movie, pretty good.
[Read the article: "American Dreamz"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](What's this flack about the review itself? It told me enough to know whether to see the movie for myself, and told me enough about the reviewer to gage her reactions against my own.)
I think that Hugh Grant and Dennis Quaid often make fine performances out of good-not-great material. Here, the actors make obvious stereotypes into interesting characters we'd be willing to watch for a couple of hours...
For $10 in San Francisco, it was a bit pricey; for $5 in Tulsa, I'd see it and be grateful.
It's not a side-splitting comedy, but it has its moments. (And some good editing.)
(ps. If you haven't seen Dennis Quaid in "Frequency", keep an eye out for it.)
-
What my own small boys might do?
[Read the article: Campus cruelties]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The article seems to be dangerously close to the feminist screed, that every man is a potential rapist.
I sure hope, when her sons are teenagers, she has the guts to show them this piece and say, "back in 2006, I called you potential rapists and wrote to thousands of people that I didn't trust you, and that you were damaged goods because you were male."
-
Brother Bob and his comments...
[Read the article: Colbert's smart bomb]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Okay, I'll bite.
Bob, you ARE right. Stephen has intentionally created a shallow, vacuous right-wing nut-job-anchor persona that provides good-to-midland satire. (The interviews and "special pieces" on both shows - Colbert and Daily Show - are often the best moments.)
But...
We don't talk about Lenny Bruce because of his comic genious, we talk about him because he didn't play the polite game that stand-up comics were doing at the time. He just talked, and was coarse, and even arrested for saying certain words on stage. ("They arrested me for saying 'cocksucker' on stage in San Francisco," he tells one audience.)
George Carlin does marvelous word-play, but pushes the boundaries by saying that arbitrary boundaries are stupid. ("Caucasian? It could be a mountain range. We're going the Caucasians this year.")
Colbert (and Jon Stewart) are significant because they're saying things that are being withheld from the airwaves and media. The toughest TV interviews that will be seen by millions in the US, seem to come from Jon Stewart; the meanest comments about stupid representatives seem to come from Colbert giving the microphone and screen time to them, and letting them hang themselves.
Colbert is Eartha Kitt in the 1960's, who was at a polite socialite gathering in the White House when Lady Bird wanted to talk about her 'highway beautification project'. Miss Kitt responded that the thing that really was the issue was young people who didn't want to die in a war in Vietnam. Johnson had her blacklisted and she had to move to Europe to work, for over a decade.
I think Colbert might have a difficulty distinguishing his persona from his own life, but that's happened before; Stewart will have less problems with that.
If this keeps up, however, we might actually have a pair (Colbert/Stewart) that is as incisive as Will Rogers was, in the early 30's.
-
ya gotta be kiddin'...
[Read the article: I don't want my husband at my high school reunion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm surprised that the letter writer wrote, in the first place.
It's sort of a no-brainer. If you have a husband or wife, you take 'em. You might have a way to signal each other ("honey, more than 30 minutes of this and I'm going to fake a heart attack"), but you just pair up, smile and say "howdy" to everyone.
This is the "for better and for worse" dance.
You might even have a good time. Your husband/wife might even have a good time.
And even if you don't, you spent only 30 minutes in agony, and officially made the appearance and supported each other. Go rent a movie. "The Incredibles" is a particularly good rental.
If your husband/wife prefers to stay home, then go to the reunion, and when you come back, take him/her out to dinner. Don't hesitate to come back early, if you aren't enjoying yourself; it'll be a nice compliment of the "I prefer to be with you" variety.
Easy stuff. Don't make it hard.
-
Documenting the human condition...
[Read the article: "Fun Home"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is an example of a work that describes one life in such detail, that it illuminates details about our own lives.
The best novels do this; the best biographies do.
And yes, even cartoon memoirs can do this.
Look at this. Look at "Stuck Rubber Baby" (Howard Cruise); look at "Maus" (Art Spielgelman).