Venting:

A reader writes, apropos the “How not to argue” post:

You are absolutely right; letters like that are a disaster. And I’ve written enough of them myself (no, not quite so lame as that). I just don’t send them. Venting accomplished, nobody hurt.

I admit that I am nursing one venting letter now that I might actually send, though. When I was at UCB, Cody’s Books was my default bookstore — stocked pretty much everything I was likely to want (and a lot I wasn’t, like the entire floor-length shelf-ful of pot-growing manuals, but let that pass.) I’m not over in Berkeley much since I moved to Marin, but I was over the other day to review a concert, and stopped in to Cody’s to see if they had the February _First Things_. Went to the political-commentary zine shelf where they used to stock it; no sign of it. No sign of *any* conservative or libertarian zines, in fact.

I found them eventually. They were two aisles down, at ground level, right below the stoner zines like _High Times_, and next to the magazines about astrology, UFOs, and paranormal phenomena. The shelf was labeled “Alternative Viewpoints.” Indeed.

I suppose someone thought that was cute. I think it’s flat-out unprofessional, having been a bookstore periodicals clerk myself in the past. Anyway, I wrote a letter and am now deliberately not looking at it for a few days, so that I can reread it with a cooler head and possibly tone it down (though I think it was pretty measured already).

Good point, both as to the venting and as to the substance of the complaint.