Category: Words

Strongly Worded Letter Number Sixteen

I’m developing something of a reputation for writing strongly worded letters. Which means, I suppose, that I’m becoming a crank. For example, I doubt that the Wall Street Journal will publish the letter I just sent their editors:

Dear Wall Street Journal:

Your article Thursday about the woes of brides and of the wedding industry leaves out an obvious application of neoliberal economic policy that could spur the wedding industry and the economy as a whole. Currently, the number of marriages in the US is relatively static, and the economy has given people reason to cut back on their celebrations, putting a damper on wedding-related enterprises. To allow the industry to expand, we must deregulate it by allowing homosexual couples to marry. An increase in the number of weddings also means an increase in gift-buying, new household formation, and general consumer spending, which can provide a powerful impetus to the general economy.

Marriage deregulation is especially urgent now that Canada is pondering the recognition of gay marriages. Should Canada invite them, many gays and lesbians will flock across the border to wed, taking their dollars with them. We cannot allow the US wedding industry to remain uncompetitive in the global marketplace, and therefore must deregulate marriage as soon as possible.

Sincerely,
Aaron Weber

Postcard

I just got a card postmarked Provo, UT, with a picture of Arches National Park. It says:

Hi Aaron and Diane, Having a fabulous time. The red stone here is incredible, particularly in late afternoon… lots of lizards! v. hot- in the 90’s. On to Zion/Bryce Canyon Natl park today. See you soon, Linda.

I don’t know Linda or Diane. The card is addressed to me at my old address, sans apartment number– perhaps a different person of the same name? Perhaps a prank? We’ll see.

My Political Spam

Feel free to send this on to your rulers. I’ve sent it to all of mine (Tolman, Fox, Travaglini, Romney), plus a slightly changed version to the Globe. Obviously nobody responded (yet– just been a few days).

Dear [Elected Official]
I’m writing to ask you to uphold the separation of church and state. Yesterday’s Boston Globe had an article about how the Catholic church has been lobbying against gay marriage, which reminded me once again of the importance of the divide. Mixing state and church is not and cannot be good for either.

The Catholic opposition to homosexuality is a purely religious opposition, and should not influence the laws of our state any more than Catholic regulations about confession or church attendance. There is no civil, secular reason to oppose gay marriage. A “Defense of Marriage” act is actually an encroachment of religious edict upon civil liberty, and should not pass.

Please bear this in mind when you vote.

Your Constituent,
[Signature]

Esp. for representatives, be sure to include your address and zip code so they know you’re in their district.

Thesauri

A visual thesaurus describes the relationships between words as a three-dimensional network, letting you interact with their relationships, traverse them, etc.

AllConsuming does something similar for books, and, tangentially, for ideas. It tracks book links on blogs, so that you know that persons A and C are reading the same book, and can infer that they’re thinking similar thoughts, or working on similar projects, and so forth.

I wonder if you could find a thesaurus for concepts, or maybe an encyclopedia of ideas that pointed out the relationships between them: derivation, opposition, refinement, sub-categories.

More on Man and Nature

I’ve been getting a lot of comments on the Shell/Economist Essay Contest, mostly involving the fact that, the distinction between humanity and nature is pretty arbitrary. Now, I should point out, to be fair, that the essay isn’t actually supposed to answer the question “do we need natur?” The idea is to explore the relationship of interdependence between human beings and the natural world around them, and especially to discuss the idea of balancing immediate human needs with the longer-term health of the planet.

Nonetheless, I’m tempted to open with the famous words of C. Montgomery Burns:

“Oh, so Mother Nature needs a favour? Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival and she wants to quit because she’s losing? Well, I say hard cheese!”

Heart of Darkness

I’ve been listening to Sparklehorse and reading Tim O’Brien and Joseph Conrad, and let me tell you, it’s crushing. They’re all about the human capacity for evil, about the barely-contained darkness coiled up in your gut waiting to escape, the capacity of love to turn into anger and resentment and fear and violence. I spent a lot of time last night lying in bed staring at the ceiling and looking into the darkness in myself and just sinking.