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Minding your Msakels, and losing your worms

I'm also excited to announce that starting in early January, Salon's talented Joe Conason will start a daily blog. Salon loyalists will remember the great Joe Conason's Journal, a daily blog Joe ran back before the blogging revolution. Finally, you'll get your Daily Joe again on Salon.

Happy holidays. Let us know what you'd most like to see on Salon in the new year. (Joan Walsh, “Some holiday improvements from Salon,” 24 Dec. 2009)

Red Wigglers

The occasional article by people like Nan Mooney ('Not keeping up with our parents") would be nice. I do think there is a chance that some of the huge distress students are experiencing, might be missed amidst all the better comics format, new and/or expanded Food, Film and Books sections, and more Conason. Thirty percent student tuition increases. Take yourself back to the 60s and imagine what you would have done with that, amidst an aging left, still capable of marked innovation but seeming susceptible to becoming more and more adrift in once sages and Great Books. (Feel your pain!?: I can't even see you, dear . . .) To be clear, the new sections/expansions COULD prove great. I just hope it's easy to imagine liberal 20-year-olds finding home in them, not just out of shelter from the storm.

Fewer articles written by people making sell-outs seem practical, grounded, fit. Fewer articles making truly sane progressive thought seem as "unbalanced" and unreasonable (i.e., crazy) as its "equivalent" on the right. (Really, just count how many articles seem mostly about helping their writers massage out muscle-tightening feelings of compromise. I'm not broken; I'm a realist, patient, an adult -- "you're" the one who's crazy!)

Why no surprises in the letter sections (other than smaller print)? Has this been well discussed? Hope so. First thing I noticed about Salon was that it had a very empowering, front-in-face, letter section. More dynamism there would thrill.

Become a website Coca Cola would hesitate to associate with, even with it changing with the world, as we all try and live positively, help one another through the Tides, and learn more. (Oh how we admired the 'KRP for wriggling itself free from cadillacs of worms!)

Great lineup for SALON's readers on film/books! But please don't let Film Reviewers hang on an imbalanced wire...of gender or ageist bias...

Great news and I look forward to Joe's column and the new Film/Books Reviewers. Although, admittedly, one tends to be rather subjective in choosing the film reviewer who more likely represents their own personal tastes, aesthetic proclivities or socio-cultural experiences, it's nice to expect to see a more balanced perspective from Salon's Film Reviewers! And not the blatantly unrealistic genderic and ageist bias found in Stephanie Zacharek's Hollywood version of directorial and cinematographic competence.

In particular, her review on Nancy Meyer's newest directorial effort did not even attempt to thinly disguise this embryonic reviewer's youthful genderic biases and extremely parochial appreciation of the film experience itself, especially as it relates to its own historical roots *and* to pioneering women directors.

Love it or hate it, Hollywood is the Sahara desert of women directors and pseudo-erudite reviews in a pedestrian style such as the recent Meyers-bashing article by Ms Zacharek [as clearly depicted by the overwhelmingly negative responses from readers!] are hindering readers' aesthetic viewing appreciation, not enlightening it!

Yea, okay, Ida Lupino may not have been Cecil B. DeMille, and Nancy Meyers may not be Howard Hawks! But what's the percentage of women working as Hollywood mainstream directors, anyway? One percent? Meyers gets that the current Hollywood realities are ones predominantly formulated by male directors. And this ain't good for young women--as evidenced by Stephanie's own review, lamentably lacking in sufficiently balanced insights.

But surely Stephanie's film myopia prevents her from seeing that Meyers' 'Something's Gotta Give' and 'It's Complicated' hold promise of Billy Wilder's 1959 'Some Like it Hot' and Hepburn's 'Holiday' of 1938.

And for Stephanie to dismiss Meyers for daring to bring a "woman's" perspective to the current Hollywood Crude Comedy stables--while further insulting her readers' intelligence by her arrogantly displayed dismissiveness of "older" women's viewing habits....well let's just give this myopic neophyte the news that 15 years from now, she'll be sharing the viewing habits of those "older women" she so despises....with relish! Amen. (Msakel, response to post, “Some holiday improvements from Salon”)

It's a vast and great wall, but there is a potential weakness

You know, one more thing now does come to mind . . .

In addition to more youth, more articles that smoke out the meanness in the Msakels, the vindictiveness in the aging and intolerant, would be appreciated. What my generation needs to know is that we are not blocked: and seeing how when boomers (and on) get upset they can seem shaky, gives us confidence that with apt navigation, if we stir the pot, we can make our way through them, genuinely does give some hope for the future.

Link: Some holiday improvements from Salon (Salon)

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