Letters to the Editor
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Personal History
This is a little off point but, "How did Joan Walsh end up graduating from the University of California at Santa Barbara?". That's a long, long way from New York for an Irish Catholic girl. (Or am I mistaken?)
Cheers.
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From Joan Walsh
Actually, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We moved to suburban Milwaukee when I was 13, where everybody made fun of my LongGuyland accent. I moved to Santa Barbara to take a job at the Santa Barbara News and Review after college...and who is this that knows about the mysterious and unlikely Santa Barbara years?
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Kerick's Revenge?
Why is the Salon system broken today? Is this the Federal Government finally retaliating? Should we expect our doors busted in later tonight, and Salon off the air tomorrow?
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timbuktom
I recommend Celexa with a Valium chaser.
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where on LI?
Hi Joan. Love your work. Hate Guiliani.
Where on Long Island did you go to High School?
Thanks.
Ralph
East Northport, NY (H.F. Carey High School, Class of 1976)
p.s. Please don't proliferate the "LongGuyland" myth. It's just another thing for rude, ignorant people to rag on us about. Most people I know don't tawk like that. :-)
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You and 3.5 million other people (not including NYC)
hardly unique.
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From Joan Walsh
Ralph, I never made it to high school on Long Island -- I left St. Anthony's in Oceanside in 8th grade. Half my cousins went to Maria Regina, the other half to Oceanside High. No idea which my parents would have chosen, though I did go to public school (Shorewood High) in Wisconsin.
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Guiliani Bullyani
One can choose to justify Giuliani’s moral failings using any number of myths, but the reality is that his "situational ethics" are more parsimoniously attributed to the fact that he's a scumbag. His long record of bullying is legend in New York. Anyone who wants to can look up the various stories in the New York Times or Newsday archives.
One case in point: (summarized neatly here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Dorismond)
In 2000 Patrick Dorismond, who police claim was selling marijuana on a street corner in New York City, was shot dead by a police officer. Then, in a preemptive strike against negative pubic reaction to a(nother) questionable shooting by NYC police, Bullyani releases sealed records of PD's juvenile deliquency.
Very nice.
P.S. New York City was sued by Dorismond's family and had to pay millions of dollars in damages.
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From Joan Walsh
And one thing I meant to praise about the Newsweek piece: It told me several things I didn't know, including the fact that Dorismond, who Giuliani derided as "no altar boy" was a) a former altar boy and b) a graduate of Bishop Laughlin, like Giuliani.
Every culture has its sociopaths, including Irish and Italian Catholics, but Giuliani's ethics aren't about ethnic Catholicism, they're all about what's right for Rudy.
I think I'm reading these letters threads more closely because it was so quiet without them!
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Such Hipocrisy
Joan and Salon don't seem at all interested in the moral failings of the Clintons or their corrupt associates over the years from Arkansas to Chappaqua.
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Every culture has its sociopaths
Which culture is sociopath Hillary from?
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Speaking of sociopaths ...
... where's bill clinton been? Oprah is campaigning for Obama. Time to get bill out again.
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Dorismond
Not to break Hitlery's train of thought here but...
I'm sure Dorismond's family would rather have him back instead; but I'm happy to hear they got millions out of it.
I remember thinking at the time that it told us all we ever needed to know about Giuliani.
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re: metastorytellers
Newsweek (who owns Newsweek now anyway?) is following a trend that doesn't require much of a map. Media outlets are more and more interested in reassuring and less in analyzing. (It's far easier to tell a story that consumers already think they know.)Biography satisfies a certain craving that people have to let them feel informed about a candidate. It's far easier to read than having to connect names, statements, and events with crimes, actions, and results. Citizens can hardly vote in their interests if they never read how candidates defend or go against those interests. The predominantly acceptable storyline that seems to be what people want to read is: what hero will protect us from the evildoers?
Giuliani poses for the cameras with the right backgrounds, talks like a real guy, and repeats a simple mantra. It doesn't hurt that he plays to prozionist interests either. He doesn't feel compelled to persuade voters of his qualifications because that would require the voters to think. As long as journalists repeat the story that he lays out for him, the nomination is his for the taking. He just wants the American people all to know that it would be great to have a beer with the man. It worked for the country once. It's bound to work again and again.
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Well you're in good company of plutocrats Joan
You know who else went to Maria Regina? Lou Gerstner of McKinsey, Nabisco, IBM and now the Carlyle Group.
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From Joan Walsh
Hi Anonymous, that's a really good point. I think. Except, as I said, I didn't go there. Honestly, from what I remember, 30-plus years ago, it wasn't a plutocrat school at all, but a working-middle class Catholic high school in the middle of Long Island. But, as I say, I didn't go there, so maybe someone who did will write in and enlighten us. But meanwhile, thanks for writing! No one's ever linked me to the Carlyle Group before, so that's kinda fun.
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From Joan Walsh, again
I couldn't go to bed until I came clean. My actual high school, Shorewood High in Shorewood, Wisconsin, puts me in better company than Maria Regina, I believe: (In)famous alums include former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, "Airplane" brothers Jerry and David Zucker and former Defense Secretary Les Aspin. Also listed in Wikipedia is my old friend, tennis star Leif Shiras, which irks me a little, because I promised him all the notes I wrote on his binder in Latin class would some day be worth a lot because I would be the famous one. But I guess that means his notes on my Latin binder (oh yeah, I kept it) might be worth something, just in time to pay for my daughter's college tuition. Thanks, Leif, and thanks Wikipedia!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorewood_High_School_%28Wisconsin%29
However: A fabulous Shorewood alum who didn't make Wikipedia (along with me) is Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads. Let's hope the good citizens of Wikipedia update their notable Shorewood grads soon. And don't get me started on Madison, or Daily Cardinal alums...