Letters to the Editor
dwg
Published Letters: 140 Editor's Choice: 18
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Awareness is everything
[Read the article: Al's big day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]and then action is everything. No, Berkeley, Live Earth won't kill the Hummer - gas prices will do that on their own. But Live Earth is a massive outpouring of largely positive energy that puts options on the table, pure and simple.
That's the same table where Al Gore almost singlehandedly laid the issue of global warming in the last few years. I don't need him to be a saint to know that my respect for him has risen astronomically because of that enormous achievement. If Live Earth can accomplish anything towards making alternatives palatable, even hip, rather than gloomy......well, damn. It's made Cintra Wilson snark-free for one thing, which is a miracle of the highest order. And it may even serve La Paglia notice that Al Gore has not "compromised the long-term credibility of environmentalism", as she claimed in these pages recently. Boy does that one ring hollow.
Flower Power was a corporate media name for the anarchic but joyous energy that became the environmental movement, among other much-valued social threads of today. And if you remember the first Whole Earth Catalog cover, with the breath-taking image of earth from space - I'd say that's navel-gazing that we could really get behind.
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Dear me
[Read the article: The cost of war]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would take the $500 BILLION DOLLARS and give it straight away to Haliburton because they deserve it most. I would ask that they toss a few billions to various private contractors impersonating the US Armed Forces, cuz it's a hard gig with absolutely no future. And they should immediately misplace 10% of the funds - really, anywhere would do - just to keep us well-like around the world.
But I'd insist that the lion's share go directly towards a new Hali-headquarters in Dubai. Construction is through the roof there, and the US infrastructure is looking kind of shabby - not the best backdrop for corporate photo-ops or lucrative lifestyles. These guys are our best and brightest, and we should support them 125%. Why do some Americans hate their corporate handlers? It's sick.
I would make sure that a big chunk goes to keeping Cheney's family completely locked and lubricated for the next billion years. Give him as many loaded guns as he wants. He has given us the gift of eternal access to diminishing resources. We got you, babe.
And I'd install an 85-star chef in Bush's Paraguay ranchito, and stock the lake with 1,000-year-aged Ezra Brooks. Enjoy.
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Strike three
[Read the article: If we leave Iraq, do we lose for good?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]OK Salon - I'm going to waste one more letter on this subject. You've allowed this woman to use your pages three times now to make un-challenged, un-supported, and now potentially libelous allegations about Al Gore and an extraordinarily united body of scientific opinion regarding global warming. The BBC has an article on its front (web) page right this moment about scientists eliminating the sun as a culprit. Here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6290228.stm
You can follow that to any number of articles on the Beeb over the last couple of years, and the ones with science all agree, vociferously and with great alarm and humanity towards the consequences.
If you're going to propose yourself as a principled and clear-thinking alternative to mainstream American crap media - and with Blumenthal, Greenwald and Grieve, among others, I truly believe you are - it's time you stepped in and provided some content to the Paglia husk.
In case you missed it: ".....propaganda.....grab-bag Gore crusade.....wild exaggerations.....hypocritical sanctimony....." And: "Environmentalism is of vital importance to our future, but it cannot be based on lies."
"Lies."
You can either shore her up or chop her down (with facts would be nice). But until you do something - them's fighting words, and a mirror unto her soul, and potentially yours.
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That was wonderful.
[Read the article: A Southern, and liberal, Lady]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you Mr. Blumenthal for taking us back to that era, and reminding us what extraordinary things real, flawed - but principled - political people can do. I wasn't a fan of Johnson, but I remember his sad face coming on TV, and the feeling that, at the very least, there was a conscience at work there.
I think that's one of the most disturbing things about the current occupant: Bush's supreme lack of reflection; the easiness with which he sloughs off the sometimes devastating effects of his decisions. I may not have agreed with Johnson always, but you could sense the weight of the office, and the struggle in the man. Lady Bird was a crucial touchstone in that struggle.
Would that the current better-half had one degree of Lady Bird's moral compass. Or that Bush might lose just one night of sleep, or find one day his "heavy heart".
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oooh that was good
[Read the article: Why the Republicans don't like their candidates]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A sharp, concise dissection of the Republican field, and a strong letter by futhark to start off the responses. Great stuff.
I'd like to see Mr. Schaller take on Ms. Paglia concerning her bizarre Rush-induced glamorization of the Republican candidates. What a motley crew.
The (extremely relative) eclecticism of the Republicans this time is an interesting pale reflection of the truly varied Democratic candidates. In 230 years we have not had a single president or vice-president who was not a white anglo-saxon or Dutch-descended (the original settler populations) male - save for Greek-American Spiro Agnew. Kennedy's Catholicism was a stretch, but the general profiles were still colonial-esque. Which suggests genetics rule, politically as well as personally.
This time we are almost certain to break a boundary - whether it be woman, mixed-race, Mormon or Italian-American (not to mention cross-dresser). Even Fred Thomspon pushes the envelope ever so slightly with his bold plan to put a trophy wife in the White House. Rock on.
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No parsing
[Read the article: It depends on what the meaning of the word "in" is]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gonzalez is a liar. Rove is a purely political agent who has been manipulating government business for his own agenda. Bush is aware of everything. It is a farce, paid for by taxpayers who are screwed every time these people put their pants on in the morning.
Congress: Get Gonzalez out. Expose Rove. Take Bush down, a notch, a peg, a football field. And let's have all have a good laugh at Cheney's "heart".