A Gateway Writer Responds

One of Chris Krause's colleagues at the Gateway, a newspaper at the University of Alberta, responded to my critique of Krause's article, "America: It’s Far Too Easy to Ridicule You."

I'll admit that his article was extreme, this response was just as ridiculous.

Except that I didn't wish for a "huge loss of life," make hateful generalizations about Canadians, or tell lies about Canada. In short, I didn't write "Canada: It’s Far Too Easy to Ridicule You." Don't confuse tone with content. The content of Krause's article was vile; he just wanted to spew forth venom towards the US. The tone of my response was sarcastic, but the worse thing I did was call him "Skippy" and ridicule his patently absurd and hateful statements about the US (e.g. such gems as "'Give Peace a Chance' is now illegal in that fucking country"). There simply isn't any parity between our articles.

When the writer of this response can't seem to make the correlation between the glorification of the anorexically thin female figure and the effects it has on young women, I find it hard to put too much stock in what he has to say.

I understand the alleged correlation--I just don't believe it. A 90-lb girl who starves herself because she thinks she is fat has a problem going far beyond poor body-esteem; she is in fact very ill, mentally and physically. Suggesting that "emaciated symbols of feminine beauty give one in six young women an eating disorder" has the same merit as suggesting that playing Doom causes school shootings--which is to say, it has no merit.

Especially when he's spewing out Yeah-America! diatribes such as saying America "kept the world safe from Nazi Germany". There was more than one country in that war, champ.

Consider the following propositions:

1. The US kept the world safe from Nazi Germany.
2. Only the US kept the world safe from Nazi Germany.

The endorsement of (1) does not imply the endorsement of (2).

So next time, try to set aside your condescending, holier-than-thou attitude and maybe stick to the facts.

"Sarcastic" is the better description. Again: tone vs. content. The content of my response was moderate, the tone bitter.