Letters to the Editor
amspeck
Published Letters: 321 Editor's Choice: 48
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Still not enough
[Read the article: No climate for old men]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While the author leads with a list of actions that must be taken by the new president that are outside the ability of Republicans to swallow, the truth is the actual required actions are outside the ability of most Democratic politicians to swallow too.
We must declare war on global warming and put the effort into beating it that we did into beating WWII. That means recycling drives, ration books, government paid advertising campaigns, it means making driving a vehicle alone a social taboo. It means a massive investment in localizing work to eliminate commutes. It means making air travel so expensive that corporations cannot fly people too work every week. It means a massive investment in bringing existing homes up to the current technology. It means plans to put solar hot water and electricity on every roof in America.
What would motivate us to this kind of change? We've tried the consumption motivation for the last 30 years, it hasn't really worked. We've tried legislative motivation and that's worked some, though we apparently sold our souls to get it to happen... (okay, we'll put CAFE standards into place, and we'll cover 70% of the cost of a gallon of gas into the Federal Budget.) Competition got us to the moon, but we don't care about Norway or Japan enough to feel our collective manhood threatened by their achievements in efficiency. That leaves an appeal to morality.
The right routinely accuses the left of being anti-life when we talk about global warming, but we really are talking about preserving life. Not animals at the expense of humans, but 6.7 billion human lives. Who would Jesus let starve so he could drive an SUV to work?
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Thanks
[Read the article: Tween bees]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for running this. I'm an aunt to 4 nieces and nephews and when my sister asked me if I had any music my niece would like to listen to last Christmas, I was asea. It was the first time I'd heard of Hannah Montana. I like what Salon and NPR and the BBC give me for news... a US-as-part-of-a-bigger-world perspective, but some pop culture helps me not get lost in the clouds.
The interesting thing for me in this analysis is the intentional presentation of a Disney starlet as a down-home, sane, family person off stage. I wonder if the genesis for this show was looking to counter the Brittany (also a Disney princess) implosion.
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Lovely
[Read the article: Of Valentine's jinxes and packaged gnocchi ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A lovely Valentine's Day remembrance. I especially enjoyed the realization that sometimes our adult selves do overcome our teen experiences of "I can't! I'm not good at it!"
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Didn't Huck weigh in on this?
[Read the article: What the Huck?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not sure exactly when I heard it, something like six weeks ago, but I heard a sound byte from Huckabee that explains exactly why he's (still) in the race today. The GOP has used evangelicals to build a large enough voting block to win, and then has given them the barest of bones as a thank you. He, as a bona fide evangelical, has been laughed at and dismissed by the GOP party elite... further demonstrating that the party views evangelicals as they might their crazy old uncle. Handy when you need him, ignore him when you don't.
So there's the protest campaign. He's demonstrating that something like 30% of Republican voters don't feel represented by the choices of the Republican machinery.
And then there's the God angle. In the evangelical church, it's quite common to look for internal and external signs of God's will. The external signs are that he still has the time and the money to run, and nothing else has come along that would make a bigger impact. Since he's still in the race, we must assume that the internal signs are in place too... a peace about his decision to run a losing race, moments of joy and delight along the way, a sense that he is exactly where he needs to be.
I bet he's quoted Mother Teresa more than once to his staffers, "God calls us not to be successful but to be faithful."
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Fear in a falling market
[Read the article: Help! I'm a prisoner in a big suburban house!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One thing that makes market upswings go "irrational" and downswings go "black" is that most of us don't have any practical education in valuations and how to stick to our valuation when it's out of sync with the market's valuation. Here's a yardstick on your house: If you stay in a house for less than two years, you have lost money on it.
Okay, so you bought the house when it met your valuation... it was what you wanted at the time and for a price that seemed fair. You signed up for two years. Will prices be up or down in your area in 18 months? Who knows? But you know you will loose money if you move now. You will be changing horses mid-stream instead of waiting until you get out of the river. You could be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. So, breathe. What's so bad about another 18 months? That could be 18 months of really intentional house shopping.
Another thing at play here is our darn pre-frontal cortex. It is what makes humans "human", but it's ability to make guesses about the future isn't infallible. It can't always predict what's going to make you happy. You thought a big house in the suburbs would do it... and it seems that's failed you. Okay. So is selling the house right now and buying something else really going to make you happy? Can you pick a winner when you're smarting over a loss?
How about making a list of the things that really do make you happy and seeing -- over the next couple of years -- if you can find a place that fits those?
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Yes
[Read the article: Bill O'Reilly's tortured logic]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, yes, Bill. I do in fact feel safer now that some branch of our government has decided that it is better to be a nation of laws than a nation of impulsive actions justified by scare tactics or bruised egos.