Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 25 Editor's Choice: 3
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Let me get this straight
[Read the article: The "war on boys" escalates]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Newsweek publishes a story about whether boys are being properly educated by our public school system and your main concern is the color of the faces of the boys they put on the cover? I
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It's not socialism
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Revenue sharing among sports franchises in the same league isn't socialism. It's simply recognising that the individual teams aren't seperate businesses. The league is the business and the owners each own a 1/32 share of it.
If the NFL had to share revenues with the NHL, that would be socialism.
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The Comic Nerds Attack!
[Read the article: Hooray for spandex!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I figured they'd be out in force and here I am, proven correct.
OMG, how could that vile Douglas Wolk not heap unstinting praise on all of our juvenile power fantasies printed on low-grade toilet paper. All die. Oh the embarrassment.
Not that I didn't used to be there myself, mind you. I collected those four color dreams for over ten years and dragged the long, white boxes behind me like a geekified Jacob Marley for another fifteen until I finally let them go for pennies on the dollar.
Back in the day I too used to defend the artistic merit of graphic literature. It's art people! And then fight off the pain of writing so bad it made my teeth hurt so that I could spend some time with characters that I loved.
Occasionally, word of something new and great in the comic field will reach me and I'll have a peek at it in the store only to out it back on the shelf, my money firmly in my pocket.
Not that there wasn't or isn't some stuff worth reading, the list is left as an exercise for the reader, but those are rare oases in a vast desert of bad dialogue, silly plots, naked marketing ploys and other unreadable nonsense. The late, great Ted Sturgeon is reputed to have remarked that "90% of everything is crud". When it comes to comics, the estimate of a 10% non-crud factor is generous by an order of magnitude.
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I'm looking forward to...
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...Patrick's review of "Snakes On A Plane"
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The Cubs Don't Deserve To Win
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Really. After the nonsense about Cubs management scalping their own tickets came out, the fans are still lining up to be be ripped-off. Yes, Wrigley is a great place to watch a game, but don't you guys have any self respect?
The Cubbies management are thieves and their fans are dupes and unless things change I say that they deserve to have a sub .500 ball club until the heat death of the universe.
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I think cities are finally getting wise to the NFL's tricks
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here in NY, we rejected the Jets proposed West Side Stadium debacle, which would have cost the state and city of New York a billion dollars or more when all was said and done. Not to mention that that stadium as planned would have had almost no parking, relying on 75 thousand or so football fans to take public transportation on game day.
I proud of my fellow New Yorkers for not falling for this nonsense, especially after Bloomberg put on the full court press, tying the stadium approval to New York's ill-concieved Olympic bid. No West Side Stadium and no Olympics in The Big Apple. That's a win-win in my book.
So the Jets and their NFC counterparts the Giants are going to pony up a billion or so of their own dollars to build a stadium in Jersey that they'll both share. Back in the Empire State, both the Yankees and Mets will be financing their parks themselves, with the public coming up with money for infrastructure improvements and such. two and a half billion dollars worth of privately-funded stadia in the New York Metro area. It's almost enough to make you believe in miracles.
Of course, Washington DC, one of the most cash-strapped cities in the country, will be shelling out 400 million for a new park for the lowly Nats. There's still work to be done here.
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Nothing better...
[Read the article: WayLay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...than watching a grown woman try to settle an old score from fourth grade. Well done, there.
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Note to Salon web admins
[Read the article: And the Oscar for product placement goes to ...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Richard Branson link points to a site that has a spyware installer on it.
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Who gave Clockwork Smurf the red star?
[Read the article: Jungle rot on the supercomputer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Old film stock (the kind that exploded) was not made of plain old, cellulose but nitrocellulose. Nitrocellulose, made by treating some sort of cellulose base with nitric acid or other nitrating agent, is indeed very flammable.
Of course, you can just burn the cellulose and make electricity. You'd have to build new power plants or seriously modify the old ones, though. You can't just take an old coal plant, load it up with switch grass and start making electricity.
Of course, the whole point of this ethanol endeavor is to make motor fuel. You can put ethanol, or at least E85, into many vehicles with only minor modifications. More electricity isn't going to help us get our cars from point A to Point B.
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This movie isn't "based" on any Philip K. Dick story
[Read the article: "Next"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dick's "The Golden Man" has just about zero to do with this film.
I guess the producers just wanted to slap "Philip K. Dick" on the poster, so they picked one small element (seeing two minutes into the future) from a Dick story and they paid a gaggle of writers to hammer out a script based on it.
It's sad that Philip K.. Dick, a grand master of the science fiction genre, who wrote the most paranoid, anti-establishment stories has become a brand identifier for weak, Hollywood, action garbage.
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As George Carlin Says
[Read the article: Ask the Pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've never de-bussed. I've never de-boated. But by by God, I've de-planed!
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Base Details
[Read the article: Reporting for duty, sir]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour.
'Poor young chap,' I'd say-'
I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap.'
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die - - in bed.