Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Intelligent Lust Denied



I recently sent this email to the CEO of Psychology Today magazine. I encourage anyone who is as outraged by this persecution of free thought as I am to send an email as well. Here's the link to the contact page of the CEO: http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/email_prof.php?profid=34087
Here's the general contact page if you want to contact someone else:
http://my.psychologytoday.com/about/contact 

Here's the letter I sent upon finding out that Stanley Seigel's excellent column, Intelligent Lust, was "retired" from the magazine. Siegel's column must have pissed off some of the thought police, because it was excellent and very popular.

And now, my letter to the CEO:


I was perplexed to not be able to find the excellent article "In Defense of Casual Sex" on the Psychology Today site. All I could find were negative response articles to it, which is lame. I finally found Siegel's own site and found out that his column was "retired" from your magazine.

It's sad to see that Psychology Today is so afraid of free discussions of certain topics which don't adhere to certain people's fragile belief systems that you have to "retire" one of the best columns you had. Almost makes me think some of the people at Psychology Today, I don't know, maybe need to see a therapist.

And maybe you should change the name of your magazine to "Psychology Yesterday." I won't bother reading any more of your articles.


Sincerely,

Robert

Farewell, Ray Bradbury, Martian Chronicler


Ray Bradbury died last Tuesaday at the age of 91.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/06/154424247/fahrenheit-451-author-ray-bradbury-dies-at-91

He left behind an incredible legacy for the world. He was a great man and a great American, with an incredible intellect and a compassionate poet's heart.

His books made me a better person and a better writer. I've longed to capture the beauty and nostalgia that he was able to evoke, most brilliantly in the Martian Chronicles. The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Fahrenheit 451 are my favorite Bradbury books, and, in my opinion, three of the greatest books ever written.

Every writer who's truly a writer longs to write something that really matters, something that moves people's hearts, changes their lives. But probably the only way to do that is not to try but to do what Ray did.

"Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for."

Well, I'd better get on with it. Ray would want me to be writing now, not spend time talking about him.

We will miss you, Ray. Thanks for all the great stories.