Letters to the Editor
blunderdog
Published Letters: 509 Editor's Choice: 10
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In TERRIBLE Taste...
[Read the article: The 18 best Jewish ballplayers of all time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](this comment, that is)
Can we see a "Best 10 Nazi Athletes of All Time" too?
(PLEASE NOTE: This is what is known as a "tasteless joke." The author of this joke has no actual desire to read an article about Nazi athletes. I just saw so damn many REFERENCES to Nazis in the comments here that I figured this is the one time in my life I'll have any rational justification for such an egregious crime against good taste everywhere.)
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"If only we could ensure that poor people use less."
[Read the article: Bill Richardson on greening SUVs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Forgive me if that's a joke, but ...
doesn't the poverty ensure that poor people use less? Of everything?
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@AKA Smith
[Read the article: Casual hookups cause "gray rape"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Blunderdog, in your scenario I think both parties should receive some mandated counseling about their drinking, how they handle issues of consent, and education about how being drunk muddies the waters. Such counseling might also provide a way for them both to talk through the situation and express their feelings." --AKA Smith
That sounds like a pretty good call to me, too.
What I'm apt to rail against with regards to these issues is the notion that there could be some monosyllabic catchphrase that "answers all the questions." Might be nice if there could be such a thing, but I believe there simply can't.
Not that you've done so, but I would urge caution about blurring the line between "aggression" and "violence." I'm sure you're right that there's much more man vs. woman domestic violence and rape than vice versa, but the link between aggression and violence isn't direct, and aggression itself is more often a morally neutral occurrence.
As a society, I think most of us would agree that we'd like to discourage/minimize violence, but I think it would be a grave mistake to take the same view of discouraging/minimizing aggression.
A final comment re: "But what kind of world is it that we are also not safe to walk during the day? Early this summer there was a woman raped on a trail in the daytime."
I don't see any reason to think that the legal system can *prevent* crime. The only way to prevent crime is to have direct control over everyone's behavior, so that you can actually stop them when/before they begin a criminal act. A more realistic goal of the legal system is to capture and punish the folks who commit crimes so that they can't continue to commit them. We'd all like to live in a world where you are guaranteed not to be a victim of a crime, but we don't, so you have to do your part to prevent your own victimization.
That's a bit of a lesson that touches on the original topic, too.
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Isn't This Kinda His Doing Anyway?
[Read the article: Craig to cop: "I'm a respectable person"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The fact that a cop busted him for cruising for gay sex in a bathroom HAS to be a result of some kind family values effort to tackle "quality of life" crimes. Or vice, or whatever it would be.
So I think part of the fascination of the Craig situation is not simply that he's a hypocrite, but that he's actually a victim of the very bigotry HE promotes himself.
To this: "The thing that stood out the most to me was that Senator Craig, is a calm, cool, reasonable bald faced liar." -Dfield
I could see that, but I think it better demonstrates he's not a very SMART liar.
Why didn't he just say, "Oh, come on, officer! I do that all the time to get those creepy queers all worked up, then I call 'em names and walk out! It's so funny!"
If he pulled that off, he'd probably have walked. And it wouldn't have hurt his wingnut reputation, either way.
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Wha...?
[Read the article: The 18 best Jewish ballplayers of all time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am of Asian descent. And similar to Jews, we Asians are not known for our "athleticism."
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You gotta be kidding! Lookit all them Chinamen with the Kung Pao and the acrobatics and all, like from The Matrix!
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I'm Almost Sold...
[Read the article: The new Roomba sucks. Really well]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do you think a young healthy 12-lb housecat could kill a Roomba 560 if it really tried?
I think mine might really try.
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Who Promoted John Wayne to Hero?
[Read the article: National Review's new tough guy, Mark Hemingway]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought he was just a movie star, myself. That's not even rhetorical--if anyone has a good understanding of why there's such a strong emotional response in the USA about the notion that John Wayne was no hero, I'd be interested to hear about it.
It seems the Right mythmakers have done a terrific job of winning political objectives by appealing to voter emotion, not rationality. So it makes perfect sense that "jokes" would be a very powerful tool in the propaganda battles. They permit the joker to make a crass emotional appeal to the listener without taking any risk of being perceived as irrational or incorrect.
Hemingway demonstrates in his answer to GG's email that he's every bit the sissy mary he jokingly calls Souter. If he actually had the cojones to call Souter a sissy mary, he wouldn't have fallen back on the transparent "just a joke" defense.
Strategically, the beauty of the approach is that the emotional voter who dislikes Souter enjoys and remembers the joke, and any concerns about the accuracy or implications of the joke are ignored.
All old hat, right?
So the book title: I kept thinking about the phrase "'Who Me?' He-Men" but couldn't figure out how to punctuate it properly, or work it into a title that says anything. But the continual evasions of accountability, neglects of oversight, and fire-and-brimstone rhetoric convince me the phrase is apt.
I was also thinking of something like,
"Salt the Earth Diplomacy: The Right-wing Appeal to Emotion through Cowardly Aggression"
but it sounds a bit esoteric, and speaks a bit too much to foreign policy, and not enough to the domestic politics.