Letters to the Editor
Ballsee
Published Letters: 233 Editor's Choice: 19
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No Pain, No Gain
[Read the article: No more whining excuses]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My sympathy goes out to everyone caught up in this who thinks that making Don Imus go away will “do something” or “send a message”. If you think this is doing any good in helping us see our collective denial or to help heal our suffering society, I say “good luck with that”.
--Anonymous
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I rather agree with Anon. My idea was to force Imus into a series of on-air conversations with leading African-American and female intellectuals, academics, writers, athletes, and other personalities about racism and sexism in American media and society. NBC and CBS could have insisted that he hold a 90 or 120 day cycle of such interviews and on-air discussions. He could have started with the Rugers' Female Basketball Team. They could have offered him a chance at salvation and the rest of us an opportunity to hear some enlightened speech. If he didn't want to do that then he would be fired.
I don't believe that NBC and CBS's motivation, at least their primary reason, was to "do the right thing." I don't say it was not at all their motivation just that their first and foremost concern was the bolting of their corporate sponsors. That's the hit that is most clearly and immediately understood and actionable by corporate elites. Too bad, an ugly on-air event was made worse and an opportunity was lost to engage in some relevant conversation about these social ills in a popular context that would have had the most impact.
Such as it is, this event will lead to nothing more than an increased sense of race and gender self-righteousness on the part of blacks and women and make Imus's supporters feel more sullen and misunderstood. Nothing much of any consequence will have been gained.
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Blech!
[Read the article: Adult milk market]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Blech!
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Gunsmoke
[Read the article: Why Democrats dumped gun control]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wonder how many students would NOT have died if even 10% of the faculty had been carrying guns, concealed or not. Maybe the shooter wouldn't even have tried. I have yet to see any anti-gunner admit such a possibility, let alone discuss it. - Felix
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Hmmm, not sure. Anybody got a bead on the per capita gunslinger statistics of the wild West?
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Uhhhh
[Read the article: Right-wing blogs discover massive conspiracy to hide WMDs in Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't have any further insight to add here but the obvious as Glenn points out...these people are bat shit insane!
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Name calling
[Read the article: This little piggy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The middle name. It was the use of our full name or first and middle name by our parents that was the tip off that some rule had been broken, some boundry breached. When we heard that, we knew our goose was cooked. It had to include the middle name though, that's what middle names were for, a signal that you were in trouble. Otherwise, they were never used. Odd really, my parents were not in any way French, but the angrier they got the more formal they became! The parents were not spare the rod types. No face slapping.
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Wow
[Read the article: The private war of Chuck and Tom Hagel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now that's journalism! What a moving, riveting, heartbreaking, inspiring, painful, loving story of the Hagel brothers. God bless them all, and Salon for publishing it!
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Sheesh!
[Read the article: At her majesty's pleasure]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can't believe some of these letters. It's frightening to read that some of you think that just because this guy acted like a jerk on an airplane that he deserved to be incarcerated for weeks. That he acted like an irresponsible twerp from his own admission is obvious, but to conclude that he deserved what he got is outrageous. Americans, you people scare the crap out of me. It's just these kind of incidents, like the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on whatever ridiculous thing you can declare war on reveals the little fascist you have in the doorways of you heart. That you could argue that bad behavior on on airplane rises to the level of weeks of incarceration, while starting a war in which thousands of innocent people have been killed garners not even a slap on the wrist is truly frightening. Just another indication of how fucked up, mixed up and absurd this country has become. And I'm an American.
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art guerrilla
[Read the article: At her majesty's pleasure]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I love you! Let's get married!
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AIDS and butt fucking
[Read the article: At her majesty's pleasure]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While not impossible, it's highly unlikely to get AIDS from being the inserter in anal intercourse during unprotected sex unless of course there is bleeding. The meds that Kurth was on would also have significantly reduced the chances of transmission. Having any kind of sexual contact with someone who is HIV positive does not automatically lead to AIDS transmission. It's just simply not THAT easy to become HIV infected. It's amazing how mind-numblingly ignorant people still are about AIDS. Fear rules.
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Paging Dr. Freud
[Read the article: The right's explicit and candid rejection of "the rule of law"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'll leave it to Bob Altemeyer and others to dig though all of that to analyze what motivates Mansfield and his decades-long craving for strong, powerful, unchallengeable one-man masculine rule --
Uhmmm, because he's a closeted homosexual?
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Earth, Wind and Water
[Read the article: Anywhere that's wild]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's gorgeous. It made me cry.
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I jumped for PURE JOY!
[Read the article: The stone is cast]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]YES! The stupid bastard is DEAD! Four more to go:
Robertson, Dobson, that gay preacher with the purple-haired wife, and Pop Benedict.
Take your pious, religious nonsense about speaking ill of the dead and shove it! Never was a death more richly deserved until Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's.
"Man will not be free until every king (politician) has been strangled on the entrails of the last priest." Diderot
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Jimmy, goddamit...
[Read the article: When Democrats collapse]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I learned that he had apologized, I thought, "What the hell? What the bloody, stinkin' hell? What the hell is he doing?" Goddamn Jimmy, goddamn it!