Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 21 Editor's Choice: 2
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Kerry deserves a better rap
[Read the article: Bin Laden is back; let's smear Michael Moore]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I really didn't like the "My gosh! Imagine John Kerry saying such a thing!" aspect of this War Room story. It's been more than a year since the election, and Kerry's credentials as an articulate liberal who's prepared to stand up for what he believes in are still being questioned.
It's a great quote from him and it does deserve wide circulation, but not out of a "Imagine it coming from such an {insult here}" type context, rather an excellent response to the usual right wing smears and attempts to change the subject.
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Why?
[Read the article: Is this the end for Ann Coulter?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is the same woman who's wished death on dozens of groups, notably the entire staff of the New York Times. Why would yet another insult mean her end?
There's only one thing that will stop her spreading her particular brand of hatred. Only one thing will, permanently, shut her up, ensuring she never has a chance to whip up hysteria against the non-extreme-right. I think you know what I'm talking about: a jolly good talking to. That's what. Only if we make it absolutely clear to her that, y'know, it's ok to have these views, she has her views, we have ours, and that's alright, but, y'know, the world might be a nicer place, for her, for everyone, if she adopted slightly different views, and a pro-people, pro-friendship, pro-inclusiveness point of view, and a respect for those with views different to those of her own, so we as a people can move forward, building a world with love, rather than virtiol.
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Er
[Read the article: America's hungry? They're just suffering from "low food security"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]At the risk of sounding like I don't "get it", what exactly is the problem with this? "Low food security" strikes me as a far more accurate and descriptive term than "Hungry".
I was hungry about twenty minutes ago. There have, at various times, been ads on TV extolling how certain snacks "fight hunger". They're not talking about solving poverty, these ads are referring to that feeling you get in your stomach some time between waking up and lunchtime.
I am not in fear of not having enough food to eat. Most people would have said my state of being fifteen minutes ago amounted to hunger, but did not rise to the level of low food security. (Nor is this a case of massaging the statistics, I doubt anyone would want 300 million Americans who feel a little hungry to count in the statistics when announced at 10am in the morning.)
Even if we pretend, for a moment, that the problem is one of urgency, the use of the word "security", to me, actually implies a level that isn't there in "hungry". It's not a word used by people trying to downplay something.
I say they should keep it.
FWIW, I'm an ex-pat Brit, who now lives in the States. When I was unemployed in the mid-nineties, the government decided to change the term "unemployed" to "job seeker". There was a similar reaction, that somehow the term was being changed to gloss over reality.
Except it wasn't. "Unemployed" implies a group of people who might be seeking jobs, or might be Peggy Bundy. "Job seekers" is pretty unambiguous. And it's pretty difficult to talk, as was the conservative's wont against the unemployed at the time, of "lazy, scrounging, job-seekers". You're saying they're looking for work but somehow lazy?
Not all terminology changes are bad. In this case, they're replacing the ambiguous and normally non-urgent term "Hungry" with something appropriate and descriptive, which cuts to the heart of why it's considered a bad thing. For once, that's a good decision.
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Huh?
[Read the article: Collateral damage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Only" 52% have guessed it was over 50,000? Shome mishake, surely?
How on Earth can the median guestimate be 9,890 if more than 50% think it's over 50,000? That makes no sense. Are you using some new definition of the term "median", am I misunderstanding something, or is this an error?
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How awful!
[Read the article: Attack ads on the sly]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There clearly must be laws made against this, after all, it's just terrible that someone might follow the example of an individual who, using commodity computer equipment and software and a free movie distribution website, created an ad that communicated a political message.
In all seriousness, I think this is wonderful. It's amazing the pace technology has moved at. Twenty years ago, having a video camera (or 8mm/16mm/Super8, etc) was considered a luxury. Today we have them in our phones. Ten years ago, editing a video of any size required equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars. Now an off-the-shelf Mac mini will do it, scanning video directly from a commodity DV camera via firewire right into iMovie.
Five years ago, combining your original content with professionally produced material required access to libraries only available to professionals, or if you're lucky, available for a price at a store. Today you can download the content you want to mix with, combine it, and produce something new and original.
It might frighten and confuse the professional politicians who didn't see it coming, but TV is finally becoming democratic. I think that's a good thing.
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Why was this published?
[Read the article: Hillary without tears]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's awful. It's a dreadful, poorly argued, personal attack which has virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It draws conclusions based upon rumors and innuendo. Coming, as it does, after the press's treatment of Clinton over the last few weeks has come under some scrutiny, you'd have thought Salon might have stopped to think before going ahead with publishing it.