Letters to the Editor
Xeynon
Published Letters: 11 Editor's Choice: 1
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So...
[Read the article: Why Democrats dumped gun control]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Republicans rueing gun bans in the wake of the shooting is "exploiting tragedy for political purposes" (which, for the record, I agree it is), but seizing on it as a call to revive the gun control debate isn't? Methinks I smell a bit of hypocrisy here.
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Adultery in Asia..
[Read the article: An international affair]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I suspect that adultery is not OK in places like China and Japan. The women have simply found elaborate ways to rationalize it so as to hang on to a meal ticket for themselves and their kids.
Having lived in Japan and Korea for 4 years, and in my guise as a teacher of English literature discussed this topic with a fair number of Japanese and Korean women vis-a-vis the adultery-themed literature we've sometimes read, I can assure you that most do NOT consider it okay. That said, there is very much a practical, communitarian attitude towards marriage here, and the damaging effects of an ugly, adultery-precipitated divorce on the family name, children, society, etc. weigh far more heavily than in the west where things are mostly about personal happiness. It is a truism about Asian culture that people don't like to rock the boat and a cheating spouse is not something worth creating a lot of drama about. Furthermore, there's still quite a bit of latent sexism here, and a certain number (larger than in the west) of Japanese/Korean men view a mistress as their right if they're successful. That said, Asian women definitely do value fidelity in a mate in my experience, which is one reason that marrying a western guy is a fantasy for many of them - there's a stereotype (often abused by scummy foreigners) that western men treat women better. A previous poster had it dead on that an interviewer is unlikely to get an honest answer about such an intimate topic from an East Asian, though.
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My God...
[Read the article: Why can't gay dwarves get married in Middle-earth?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This has got to be the stupidest article in the history of Salon, which is saying something. Don't you people have something better to do than PC muckraking in a frickin' video game? You might as well complain about the game not referring to dwarves as the "vertically challenged".
It must have been the slowest news day of the year.
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How predictable...
[Read the article: Northern exposure]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No offence but an American with enough sense to flee a pointless military occupation is still an American. Nice to have as a visitor now and then but not really that great as a neighbour. Stay at home and fight for what you believe in.
How predictable. An article about a U.S./Canada relations prompts snide, veiled America bashing from Canadians. A few points -
1.)Canada hasn't historically treated its aboriginals any better than the U.S. has treated its minorities.
2.)Quebecois and English speaking Canadians don't get along any better than English speaking Americans and Spanish speaking Hispanics. In fact, a significant percentage of Canada's population doesn't even think it should be a unified country.
3.)You elected Stephen Harper, a.k.a. the Canadian George Bush.
Canada does some things better than the U.S. (hockey, drug laws, healthcare, good manners, etc.), but let's not pretend its Shangri-La, okay? It has its problems too.
Now, about the U.S. You think we're a bad neighbor? Well, our countries do share the world's longest undefended border and there hasn't been a war between us in nearly 200 years. I don't know if you've studied your world history but that is utterly unprecedented. Try living next to the USSR, the Roman Empire, the Han Chinese, Nazi Germany, ancient Athens, or any other superpower in history, and I guarantee you'd feel more pain than you do now.
Furthermore, a great deal of your economic prosperity you owe to trade with the U.S., your best students all study here, far more of your citizens move here than the reverse, you import huge quantities of consumer goods and raw materials from the U.S., the reason you haven't historically needed a large military to defend the world's second largest amount of territory is that you always had the luxury of knowing that no one would dare f**k with you for fear of pissing off your rather formidable ally to the south, CAN-CON regulations aside much of your culture is derivative of American culture, etc. Canada wouldn't be nearly as successful as it is without the U.S., and you know it.
Don't get me wrong. I love Canada, many of my best friends are Canadians, and I think I can safely say I know far more about it than 99% of Americans. It's a great country. But one of its major flaws is the smug, self-righteous attitude shared by a certain segment of its people, which is reflected in your post. Americans aren't the only ones capable of being knee-jerk nationalist idiots.