Letters to the Editor
Lcindc
Published Letters: 10
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Seriously....
[Read the article: "Nancy Drew"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"he's more interested in the idea of them, which may be the only way to get at the reality, anyway."
What does that even mean?
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You really think so....?
[Read the article: Diana's birthday]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Being Princess of Wales even post-Diana is almost a fate worse than death."
oh, I don't know. Death's pretty bad.
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PS to Salon
[Read the article: Diana's birthday]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]By the way, I never responded to the email asking why I didn't renew my subscription. Well, this kind of stuff is why. That, and Camille Paglia. I don't really mind trash, actually. I just don't want to pay for it.
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Seconding Buffalonian's question
[Read the article: Gloria Borger & the media's reverence for Karl Rove]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'd also like to add that I fully expect, should a Democrat win in 2008, the Beltway Press to revert to its 1990's hostility to the White House.
My own explanation, for what it's worth: the Beltway press's submission to the Bush white House is not so much due to its cult of savviness and worship of power as it is the result of the monstrous symbiosis between the corporate media and the Right Wing Noise Machine that took place during the Clinton years, giving birth to a monster that's half free press, half Republican propaganda tool. The change in the media's "mood" from Clinton to Bush is not a change at all; it's the same creature doing the same thing but in a different environment.
As to how the right wing achieved this genetic fusion, one of the most illuminating things I've read on this is from S. Blumenthal book on the Clinton years, in which he cites a Washington journalist explaining how much easier the other (Starr's) side is to work with because they provide information that's fully packaged and ready for publication. In other words, laziness (or if you want to be kind, the pressure of deadlines) on one side, and extreme diligence on the other, is the key.
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Why are you so surprised?
[Read the article: America's broadband shame]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"In France, France, citizens pay half as much as do residents of the U.S. for broadband that is twice as fast, said subcommittee chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn."
What exactly warrants the incredulous italics? Were you under the impression that France is a third-world country with sub-par communication infrastructure? Or do you believe that people in France always pay twice as much for stuff that's half as good? Or what? That's really weird.
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"I guess I might have assumed too much background knowledge..."
[Read the article: America's broadband shame]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for the condescension, but I have all the background knowledge I need about France, what with being French and all ... And before someone says something about background knowledge of the US, let me add that I've been living in Washington DC for 20 years. So, yes, I did get the joke. I just find it irritating when people mindlessly recycle right-wing tropes as jokes. So my original post was kind of tongue in cheek.
I guess I might have been too subtle.
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You really got under his skin, didn't you?
[Read the article: CNN's John King responds]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I wonder if people like King realize how much they reveal of their immaturity and lack of intellectual sophistication when they write this kind of "response." what I find most telling is their apparent inability to understand that criticism can only apply to what they actually publish and we, the lowly public, actually get to read or hear, rather than to what they meant to publish, or would have published, or once did publish, or didn't publish for lack of time/space or whatever reason. Perhaps they expect every single reader to call them to ask for clarification every time. Perhaps we should try to do that.
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What evidence do we have....
[Read the article: How to turn white evangelicals into Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...that the type of religious voter Ms. Sullivan talks about doesn't already vote Democratic, just as, I presume, she does? The entire argument seems based on a fallacy: that the Democrats are just like the Republicans depict them to be, not pro-choice but pro-abortion, actively anti-religion rather than pro-church/state separation, etc.. In fact, the Democrats are already what Ms. Sullivan argue they should become to draw more evangelicals: really, how many Democrats are out there preaching for more rather than fewer abortions? How many are out there making fun of prayer? These are right-wing strawmen.
So yes, I'm sure there are evangelicals ready and willing to vote Democratic; I'm also sure that they already do. The others don't vote Republican by default, but because they like what the republicans offer them - the gay bashing, the sexual panic, the authoritarianism, the wars on the religious competition and on science - They will, I imagine, continue to do so. There is no untapped reserve of evangelical voters.
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Why?
[Read the article: Obama-Bloomberg '08?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Adding a divorced Jewish billionaire who is the mayor of Sodom and Gomorr -- uh, I mean New York City -- seems like a potential hindrance, rather than a real help."
Not sure. Nobody seemed to think it was a problem for Rudy Giuliani. I figure people who think along these lines are unlikely to vote democratic anyway, regardless of who is on the ticket. Coudn't it convince certain "moderates" that otherwise would go for McCain on his reputation as one of them?
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The Ice Storm??!!??
[Read the article: The monster snoring on the Serta]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"And last time I watched "The Ice Storm," it was all the wife swapping and key parties that seemed pretty damn pathetic."
Yes, because of course the "Ice Storm" is a documentary, not a piece of fiction, the purpose of which is to make exactly that point. Good argument, there.
And it works for everything too. Say, "Last time I watched 24, it was pretty clear that torture really does work." So, there. Don't come and tell me torture's a bad thing that doesn't work.
Come to think of it, I bet torturing people is hard, which, I must assume, makes it a worthy undertaking in Ms. Hepola's view, given her understanding of the relationship between how hard something is and its worthiness.
Seriously, I find it rather amazing how any questioning of the wonderfulness of monogamy always conjures up in response a storm of shoddy reasoning (see above), ad hominen attacks ("these guys are losers"), and non sequiturs ("If you don't like monogamy, don't get married;" yeah, because, I guess, sex is all there is to a marriage, right?).
Frankly, all that stinks of denial.