Letters to the Editor
Silenced
Published Letters: 1358 Editor's Choice: 75
-
How to provide equal protecton under the law to people dealing with alcoholics?
[Read the article: My girlfriend tried cocaine at a party! She was drunk! Oh my God!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One thing I've learned is that it's really hard to force an alcoholic out of your house legally once you let one live with you.
I can see why people like the War on Drugs because you can always narc an illegal drug addict and have the person removed from your house and your life by the police.
I think we should be able to take any kind of addict to court for "skeezy addict behavior that harms other people" and that's how the legal system should enter the equation.
You should be able to take the addict to an Addiction Court and get some kind of legal intervention from the system when needed.
Right now we're burning up a lot of taxpayer money and not getting much of a reward for it.
The money is being spent in a very inefficient manner, and the people spending it are getting more out of touch with science and common sense every day.
Watch the news from northern Mexico -- it's not good. Drug cartels are arming themselves like they're in Afghanistan! They've got helicopters and artillery now. What's next?
Do we want northern Mexico to turn into southern Afghanistan?
There really has to be a better way -- and the better way, IMO, needs to include better ways for people to deal with alcoholics too.
It's wrong to empower people who suffer from the behavior of drug addicts without equally empowering people who suffer from the behavior of alcoholics.
-
This is really interesting for me, given my own experience
[Read the article: Miss dumb blond USA?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I used to get bullied in school for being too smart. From my perspective, it looks like Americans are always on the lookout for someone to bully. If they're not bullying someone for being too smart, then they're bullying someone for not being smart enough.
-
This is just getting boring
[Read the article: John Edwards turns on his fellow Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's pretty much settled now that we need to get out of Iraq, that Bush is a jerk, we wasted our chances in Afghanistan, and the Democrats need to pick a candidate.
AND Salon has a wine club where you can get 2 to 4 wines every month, with free shipping, that you can discontinue whenever you like.
Hmmm why do I feel so bored?
Hey I know -- why don't you start covering what's going on in northern Mexico?
I'd like to hear the Democratic candidates tell me what they're going to differently with the War on Drugs now that Mexican drug cartels are buying up heavy artillery and having it choppered into Mexico.
-
What does the law say about this?
[Read the article: My brother left his girlfriend with a 5-month-old baby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cary advised the LW to urge his brother to contribute something to the child's welfare, saying it doesn't have to be a formal arrangement.
Pardon me but I thought child support was legally mandated in a case like this and does have to a formal arrangement.
-
Broadsheet editors are a wee bit short on world knowledge too by the way
[Read the article: Miss dumb blond USA?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Being able to find Afghanistan on a map is a minor skill. It's going to take a lot more than that to bring a feminist revolution to Afghanistan.
I was a bit shocked by the ignorance displayed in that little Broadsheet item about the supposed taboo against rape victims calling the police in Afghanistan.
If you had a working knowledge of Afghan tribal history and culture, then you'd understand that the idea of calling the police to report any crime at all is a very new concept in Afghanistan.
In Afghan tribal culture, the tribes have traditionally employed restitutive justice, where the family of the aggrieved party is offered some form of compensation for the crime by the family of the perpetrator, and this arrangement is settled by the leaders of the tribes of the two parties.
Restitutive justice offers an advantage over retributive justice for rural people who can't afford to fund expensive fixed institutions like courts and judges and prisons. This is a more efficient system of justice for poor people who live in harsh rural environments.
Offers of marriage are often part of the compensation package, because the financial and social standing of a family can be improved dramatically by marriage into the right tribe.
Feminist reformers already made attempts to change this system back in the 1970s and those attempts failed pretty badly. The failures of the socialist government ultimately led to the Soviet invasion in 1979.
Feminists who are interested in Afghanistan now need to understand how and why those feminists in the 1970s failed.
The only book in the world that gives the details of the failed reforms back in the 1970s is "The Tragedy of Afghanistan" by Raja Anwar.
I think everyone who writes for Broadsheet should read this book before they parse any more news about Afghanistan for Broadsheet readers.
(And now you can see why I used to get beaten up for being too smart back in school! I talked like this even as a child.)
-
Salon is only fun for political junkies now
[Read the article: John Edwards turns on his fellow Democrats]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This place is just going to get more and more boring up until the election. I can tell. The political addicts are all getting banged up with their political heroin now.
Wake me up in 2008 please, when Salon has a chance of being fun again.
-
Is is technologically possible...
[Read the article: Casual hookups cause "gray rape"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]to keep your wine club ads from appearing next to articles on alcohol and rape?
It feels a little weird to be reading about alcohol's use as a date rape drug while being induced to consume alcohol by the ad next to article.
-
The question was a kind of setup from the start
[Read the article: Hey, Americans can too find the U.S. on a map!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The most important job skill of a pageant beauty is the skill of making other people feel comfortable. If she can't do this, then nobody's going to care about how she scores in any of the official categories.
Now look at the question. To paraphrase:
Why do you think Americans are too dumb to find their own country on a map?
"Maybe they don't have maps" is one of the most polite things she could have said in response to a question that was just begging for a rude reply.
That's kind of a mean thing to do, to set her up with a question that asks her to criticize the same people she's supposed to please.