Letters to the Editor
DLF
Published Letters: 267 Editor's Choice: 24
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Interesting...
[Read the article: McCain campaign seeks supportive blog comments]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Interesting that the McCain website (http://www.johnmccain.com/ActionCenter/BlogInteract/BlogInteract.aspx) lists 72 "conservative" blogs (by my imperfect count) plus 4 "moderate" (Politico, etc.) and 14 "other" (Instapundit et al), compared with a grand total of 0 "liberal" blogs (with the featured exception of Daily Kos). If the "moderate" and "other" are not also conservative blogs, then I'm missing something.
So what gives? I can think of two possibilities:
1) The McCain campaign is truly worried about losing the conservative vote, and they are focusing their efforts on shoring up what should be their base by spreading their "talking points" (their word) to the conservative faithful.
Or 2) They are worried about letting McCainites know about the existence of liberal blogs. Reading them might upset the delicate balance of GOP minds.
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Other lopsided primaries
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ignoring for the moment Kristol's disingenuous hedge words ("recent," "I can't find"), here are a couple of other lopsided primary results where the ultimate candidate lost:
The District of Columbia Democratic primaries of 1984 (Jackson 67.3% vs. Mondale 25.6%) and 1988 (Jackson 80.0% vs. Dukakis 17.9%).
The Tennessee Democratic primary of 1988 (Gore 72.3% and Jackson 20.7% vs. Dukakis 3.4%).
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My grandmother
[Read the article: Wheels of change]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My grandmother had to get up at 5:00 AM "every blessed morning in the world" (as she put it) to knead and bake pounds of biscuits for her parents, grandparents, and brothers on the family farm in the early 1900s. Then came washing clothes laboriously by hand and working on the farm when duty called. She didn't need a bicycle to liberate her from genteel, ladylike inactivity. Her story is the story of 99% of women throughout history.
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Media grammar
[Read the article: Politico: Obama wins the Drudge primary]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Usage curmudgeon here. From the original posting (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/05/14/drudge/index1.html):
"The mainstream media prides itself on being objective, yet they often run like lemmings to whatever is up on Drudge," said a senior Republican campaign aide.
From today's War Room:
Or, as one Republican political operative put it more colorfully to Salon last year, the mainstream media "often run[s] like lemmings to whatever is up on Drudge."
OK, everybody's wrong! "Media" is a plural noun (it's the plural of "medium"). The GOP operative should have said: "The mainstream media pride themselves...," but s/he was right to switch to the plural later in the sentence. War Room should have quoted him without "correcting" the plural to an incorrect singular: "the mainstream media 'often run like lemmings'," etc.
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It's about enfranchising Obama voters in Michigan
[Read the article: Why not let Clinton keep the four Michigan delegates?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have argued consistently against the very idea of counting the Michigan pseudo-primary as a legitimate process. It was NOT a legitimate primary. Counting the delegates "selected" by the "voters" in the pseudo-primary would be equally illegitimate.
I can understand the wishes of Clinton supporters to have their votes count. Can they understand my wish to have a voice as well?
I was unable to vote in the pseudo-primary for one simple reason: the only candidate on the ballot was Hillary Clinton, and I did not intend to vote for her. My only other opportunity was to vote for "Uncommitted." Who were these "uncommitted" delegates? There was no guarantee, none whatsoever, that my vote would be allocated to Obama, so I felt forced out of the primary -- I was not able to vote. I was disenfranchised and rendered voiceless.
When the news came that Obama had been allocated some of the delegates, I felt vindicated; I felt enfranchised, for the first time in this miserable process.
The only thing that would make me feel better would be if the idiotic Michigan pols who forced the pseudo-primary on all of us were stripped of their superdelegate votes. This fiasco is their fault, 100%. If they had any honor whatsoever, they would all resign in shame.
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Whatapanel
[Read the article: What role did race play with white Democrats?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Am I missing something here? Salon convenes a "round table of experts" on white racism, and somehow -- totally by coincidence, no doubt -- all three panelists (plus the moderator) just happen to be middle-aged white men?
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True story
[Read the article: What should we do with our $3 million?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I actually was living in a village in Mexico in the 1980s, I met a guy who had just returned to his hometown after a decade of working ("illegally" as they say nowadays) in Atlanta. He had saved up a huge fortune, by the town's standards at the time: $10,000. His plan was to retire, invest his nest egg in a Mexican bank -- in those inflation-ridden days, they paid upwards of 20% interest -- and live from the proceeds. A family of four could live the good life on $2,000 a year in that town back then.
Needless to say, this plan only worked for a year or two. Inflation came under control, interest rates dropped, the cost of living adjusted to the new level of the peso, and the man and his family moved back to Atlanta to resume work in construction.
Moral of the story: your "fortune" seems huge today, while you are young and $3 million is still worth something. Don't count on it lasting forever. Use it to bankroll whatever life ambitions you have. Continue grad school (you can afford it now) and become a teacher. Be a writer. Be an artist. Be a social worker. Go to law school and do what every law student wants to do but can't afford to: work for the poor and for social causes after you graduate. Go into whatever low-paying but rewarding career calls out to you. Your windfall gives you an opportunity to establish yourself and make a good life of it, not a life of fruitless sacrifice. But don't think you can live from your windfall forever -- guaranteed, it won't last!