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Mad
About Jew
In Jeffrey Goldberg's
"My Nanny
Problem," he notes: "By contrast, the image of Jewish men has undergone a
renovation in recent years. Nebbishness has alchemized into sensitivity. Take
the Paul Reiser character on Mad About You . He's whiny and feminized,
but women tell me they find him doting and caring (me, I just see the whiny,
feminized part)."
Reiser's
character on Mad About You , Paul Buchman, is supposed to be Italian.
When Paul and Jamie get married, it's a nondenominational ceremony. Is he
Jewish? That's left up in the air. You might say, "Well, he sounds Jewish," or
"The actor is Jewish," or "Mel Brooks and Sid Caesar played his uncles," but
that skirts the issue, which is how Jews are portrayed on television. To that
end, you might say that the conspicuous absence of Jewish issues is the
problem. But the complaint in the article is not that TV shows feature too few
male Jews. If it were, Mad About You would just be one more in a line of
shows presenting evidence of that. Your complaint is about how Jewish men are
portrayed on television. Mad About You is not all that useful as
evidence precisely because Jewish issues are absent from the show.
-- Rich
Goldberg Silver Spring, Md.
My Klanny
Problem
I would
rather not sound like a member of the PC police, but Jeffrey Goldberg talking
about his opposition to Jews marrying gentiles in "My Nanny Problem"
strikes me as almost racist, and definitely xenophobic. Although he did not
offer any reasons for his stance, the only plausible ones would run along the
same lines as those offered for white people not marrying blacks or Asians,
etc. It is patently offensive on almost all levels. I cannot imagine anything
of this sort being allowed in any magazine of decent stature if it were David
Duke or Louis Farrakhan upset about an interracial couple on television. I have
been a reader of
Slate
almost from the inaugural issue, and while
I am rarely disappointed with what I read, any more of this sort of BS may cost
you a potential subscriber. And even if that were not an issue, I am still
disappointed with the editorial staff for allowing this sort of manure to
published!
-- Milton Christopher
Appling Irvington, N.J.
Loser
In
Michael Lewis' "Losers," about Silicon Valley's culture of forgiving failures, he
makes reference to a friend of mine:
A few weeks ago, a
Stanford business-school student wrote a gently mocking article in the school
newspaper about his summer job on Wall Street and then found himself instantly
blackballed from job interviews by every Wall Street firm.
While I hope many of your
readers have had the opportunity to read the e-mail version of Tim's (the
student's) article, Lewis is completely wrong about the blackballing. Tim has
not only been invited to interview at several bulge-bracket firms, he has been
warmly received, even by those he lampooned.
Our
lesson for today, kids: Brand is everything--go to Stanford if you can.
-- Joel
Yarbrough
Car
Berater
I have followed James Q.
Wilson and James Howard Kunstler's "Dialogue" on cars with interest. Wilson certainly seems to
have both the better case and the more reasonable tone. Nonetheless, there is
some merit in Kunstler's complaints about the ills of sprawl.
May I
point out that sprawl is to a large extent the fault of our current local tax
system? If we replaced the current property tax on land and buildings with a
tax falling solely on the value of land, vacant lots in cities and along the
roads leading out of them would be built upon, instead of held for speculation.
Then people could live closer to where they work and shop, burn less gasoline
when they commute by car, and more often be able to walk. A denser population
would also make mass transit more feasible.
-- Nicholas
Rosen
The
Talking Cure
I was
irritated at Christopher Benfey's criticism, in "True
Confessions" (his review of Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters ), of the
idea that Sylvia Plath might have been helped by a psychiatrist. Is it really
such a strange idea that a suicidally depressed person might benefit from
treatment of some kind? I suspect Benfey feels that her early death by suicide
was somehow ordained, and has something to do with her status as a poet. This
is the kind of sentiment that contributed to her death, and to Hughes' many
years of silence.
-- Dan
Krashin Honolulu
Imprudent
Slate received several letters mourning the retirement of "Dear
Prudence," a weekly advice column.
I am
dismayed to hear of Prudence's return to her needlework. It is not that I am
against needlework. I frequently engage in it myself when stumped by the
complexity of an algorithm. It is just that Prudence's advice is
Slate
's best--some might say only good--facet. Please don't let
her leave.
-- Dismayed in
Iowa Iowa City, Iowa
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