Letters to the Editor
Ethel M
Published Letters: 72 Editor's Choice: 4
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thoughts
[Read the article: Fondling Stephen Colbert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was intrigued by the article and so I watched the clip three times. I don't have cable and most of my Colbert knowledge comes from the White House Correspondent Dinner, at which point I along with every other blue-blooded female in American, fell in love with him. I'm way closer to Colbert's age than Fonda's, but old enough to wonder about aging sexuality. I did not get uncomfortable watching this, although surprising enough, I have gotten uncomfortable watching Peter Coyote and Sally Fields characters on "Brothers and Sisters" flirt like teenagers.
I'm heartened by this clip. If Colbert was in on it, as others have said, he's a great actor. If not, there was a sly boy delight smile immediately following the kiss, and then later some guilt about his wife (who, by the way, probably has more tolerance than Joan Walsh for the scene). The guilt, either real or pretend, acknowledges the sexual power of an older woman.
I don't know what either Fonda or Colbert is up to here, which is part of the appeal, but I like to think she was subverting something, and of course, if he is man enough to note the sexuality in a woman that much older than him enough to get genuinely embarrassed, well my crush on him just reaches epic proportions. I think it's a win-win.
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Stepford blond tipping point?
[Read the article: We'll always hate Paris]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think you have this wrong Cintra. I thought you got the Anna Nicole Smith piece down perfectly but the thesis doesn’t fit all blondes. I pay way more attention to politics than celebrity, but I have to say there are certain stories I get interested in—Pitt/Jolie//Anniston for example—I don’t know why—but he’s clearly besides the point—it’s about two types of women, one of whom is actually interesting. Pop culture is always about something else. However I have never understood what the Paris Hilton thing was about—she breaks into text through image in a way Madonna used to, but Madonna had an act to go with it. Hilton just had to buy her way in and I’ve found her continued presence solely baffling and annoying. She’s one of the women whose image has been birthed in the “moral” climate of this administration. She’s like Ann Coulter without words. In some ways they are interchangeable—the Stepford blonds ( in Hilton’s case not just the color but the hair itself isn’t real) that the Republican wealthy have spawned. Look, so maybe this is completely apart from the really bad news of war and lies and Iraq and she’s a scapegoat, but I love that the judge sent her back to jail, and maybe, lacking any kind of social conscious the Kennedys grew to pay for their crimes, the dictum: “to whom much has been given, much will be expected” will just have to refer to full jail time. But maybe it’s a tipping point to something else—maybe it makes the likelihood of Scooter Libby’s (also a scapegoat but also broke the law) pardon more problematic. What about other people who perjure? So yeah, the country has a potentially terminal disease that needs something like chemo, but you can’t do the chemo until the cough gets under control or the blood pressure down, so the underlying cause isn’t the first thing to get treated. Everyone understands this: a rich girl with connections doesn’t have to abide by the law like a poor girl without connections, and if that completely obvious media saturated truth doesn’t rile people, I don’t think the rest of the treatment has a chance. And maybe this has been the point of Paris all along—the thing that hadn’t come to its point yet.
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vp/pact with the devil
[Read the article: White House: Trust the "sole enforcer"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've been thinking about how Cheney was "appointed" to find a vice-presidential candidate and found himself. Something happened there. Oil companies decided to finance the presidency as long Cheney was de facto president or something. Some pact was made.
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had more than enough
[Read the article: The scary Cheney news keeps coming]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think Cheney's lack of service in Vietnam does have something to do with his torture the world complex. Bullies are generally, at heart, cowards, and it wouldn't surprise me if he didn't at some level read his aggressively obtained lack of military service as a cowardice he is trying to make up for. (Please don't think I believe anyone who believes in the wrongness of war is a coward for not serving in the military, but for those who espouse it--go fight).
What I really find surprising in this whole report is that the Washington Post seems to have remembered how to do some actual investigative journalism.
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I really want to punch her
[Read the article: Ann Coulter gets what she deserves]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But the fact that she wishes John Edwards would be killed by terrorists signifies to me he's doing something right.
I know there's free speech, but don't we sometimes legally discourage Hate speech?
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Edwards vs. Coulter, Clinton
[Read the article: Edwards vs. Coulter, Clinton vs. Edwards]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Edwards is at some point going to have to address how his personal wealth and lifestyle mesh with his two America message, but there isn't anything wrong with Elizabeth using Coulter's attacks and the Edward's campaign willingness to go up against that type of speech to raise funds. Coulter tried to pre-empt that by suggesting that's exactly what would happen (and thus would be wrong). Good for them for not caring simply how it would look. Edwards does need money, but what's interesting to me, is running this far behind in the money race and polls, he's the one taking the heat. I think he scares the right the most--not only with his message, but in that world I think it's unimaginable for anyone other than a white male to be a serious threat. So maybe he's the decoy, but right now I'm going with him precisely because he's scaring people I don't like.
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what?????
[Read the article: White House: Transcripts are a "perjury trap"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That just made my head hurt. I can't even understand it enough to discuss whether or not I think the paraphrase is correct. Guess I'll just have to trust you, huh?