Letters to the Editor
I'd rather not say
Published Letters: 143 Editor's Choice: 22
-
Rationalization
[Read the article: I should have gone to my aunt's funeral]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Now you see why we have funerals. They help us get over it. ... Instead it is good to go to the funeral because then we do not have to face the terror of our ultimate nonexistence alone in our apartments.
... So think of it this way: Rather than attend the palliative event like the rest of the family, you unwittingly stuck your head out the window of the car and took in a full face of death at 70 miles an hour."
The LW's particular situation aside, this is a whopper of a rationalization for not bothering to go to a funeral. Not going is brave? So the cowards are at church dressed in black?
Funerals are about the living -- the living family members who are mourning their loss. You go to the funeral to comfort them, and yourself only secondarily. Almost 25 years later I remember people who went to a lot of trouble to come to my mother's funeral. I remember another friend who went way out of her way to show me great kindness in other ways at that time. Ever since, I have tried hard to always go to the funeral, because fairly early on in life I got a first hand understanding of how much a small gesture can mean to someone.
That said, I don't know if the LW should have gone. Perhaps her family was well represented there, and everyone understoood the distance and money issues. I agree with those who said she should write a letter to the family with fond stories of her aunt. It is never too late to do this.
For other situations, the funeral is not about you and your feelings about death, funerals, religion, whatever. It is about doing a kindness for the mourners. It is a clear demonstration to them that you care about them in a difficult time. A funeral is like a lot of rituals we have to go to in life -- we can usually think of something we'd rather do, and it seems like a big pain, until we're the one who needs it.
-
Fix the process
[Read the article: Dean: "We really can't have a divided convention"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why does the party have the process it does if it is somehow the highest of crimes to actually follow it? If the nomination campaigns should be over long before June, then why are there any scheduled this late? If superdelegates shouldn't matter, why do they exist? Maybe Dean should have looked at that, instead of disenfranchising 2 states.
-
So what?
[Read the article: The return of the Rev. Wright]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I listened to the Moyers interview. I don't agree with everything Wright says, but it really is not that incendiary. His basic message re: 9/11 was "live by the sword, die by the sword." I don't think he's the first to have that thought.
I don't see why a black candidate has to get up and disavow every black minister and idea that makes the white guy uncomfortable. McCain can be all buddy-buddy with the nutjob ministers whose endorsements he proudly accepts. And Kerry can run for office despite being a member of a religion that criminally covered up decades of child abuse, and is still covering it up today. But Wright dares to point out that the US is not 100% good and people freak.
As for Obama joining his church for political reasons, it raises my faith in him as a candidate. I don't buy the whole "above it all" thing to begin with. He would get eaten alive in DC. I'm sure he did not get where he is through political innocence and purity.
Besides, I believe very few politicians when it comes to religion. They seem to use it for photo ops and vote getting. I would be happy not to know more than the barest minimum about any candidate's religion.
-
Tiresome
[Read the article: Brian Williams nominates Peggy Noonan for a Pulitzer Prize]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm so tired of being told about the "average voter" and what he needs to hear. The assumption is always that they want to know about the most surface and trivial of "issues."
I especially love Chris Matthews' characterization. He said recently that Obama needs to learn to appeal to the average voter, which he then described as a guy who "goes down to the diner to get away from his wife for a few hours." Of course the assumption is that the average is male, not female, and that he hangs out someplace where he can discuss heavy issues like flag pins and preachers with other like-minded hen-pecked "voters."
This same thinking is evident in Bill Kristol's comment that Hillary "only appeals to women and the Democratic establishment." Because women are some small fringe group, right? Because despite being 50% or so of the population, we're less "average" than the men. I believe women vote in slightly greater numbers, too, (don't have time to really research that one), but somehow we're still some minority interest group, while a guy in a diner is the one who needs to be addressed.
It's not too flattering to the diner guy, either. Noonan and Matthews are of course concerned with weighty matters, while Joe Average is a meathead who can't manage his wife and sits and contemplates the shallowness of Obama's patriotism over coffee and a cinnamon roll.
-
I believe it's called marketing
[Read the article: Publishers think women are stupid?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]These covers scream to men "Please don't read me!" while to women they coo "Here's more of the same!"
Exactly. The cover is supposed to get you to pick up the book and buy it. If you bought four others with the soft focus body part, then the similar cover tells you this is the kind of book you like so pick it up and check it out. It's not really any different than Tom Clancy-type books that all have the same kind of cover, or "serious" writing that tends to have arty or very plain covers.
Why would they deliberately design a cover that does not appeal to the intended reader?
I believe the issue is thoroughly "covered" here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4xF5TeHf5QQ&feature=related
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlynf--lsxA
-
More on MSNBC and generals
[Read the article: Brian Williams' "response" to the military analyst story]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8560/