Letters to the Editor
Silenced
Published Letters: 1358 Editor's Choice: 75
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Another example of realism overthrown by ideology
[Read the article: America needs realists, not William Kristol]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]King Zahir Shah was a realist when it came to modernizing Afghanistan and improving the rights of women and non-dominant men. He wanted to let the country change slowly at its own pace.
But that wasn't good enough for the Marxists, who overthrew the King in a bloodless coup that was very likely supported and enabled by -- of all people -- Richard Nixon.
The Marxists thought they could use an variety of carrots and sticks to get tribal people to abandon the tribal system in favor of state socialism.
Neither the carrots nor the sticks worked.
Within a few years of the socialist "revolution," the mujahedin were growing opium in Kandahar to finance their resistance to Kabul.
The Soviet-Afghan war was already being scripted several years before the Soviet invasion.
Now we're pursuing a policy in that country that is only a marginally more realistic than what the Marxists tried to do.
The more we try to make that society change at OUR speed, the more they seem to resist.
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These new parents are going to have a tough time
[Read the article: Baby boomlet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If we really are entering a period of "stagflation," then these new families will be paying more and more money for basic child care products, while their job opportunities will be steadily shrinking.
Not a pretty picture.
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Your brain needs exercise just like your behind does
[Read the article: Brave new grocery shopping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's good for people to keep track of their own shopping lists and their own spending in their own brains.
It's exercise for the brain.
Hey, why doesn't Microsoft market a shopping cart that can drive you to the store, and carry you around the store, and drive you home, without ever requiring you to take a single step on your own?
That way our behinds and our minds can get fat and lazy together.
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Given possible environmental and dietary factors in breast cancer, I'd vote for testing
[Read the article: Breast cancer testing for minors? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Our environment and our food supply is overflowing with sources of plant and chemical estrogens.
You might be able to minimize your child's risk of breast cancer by understanding the extent to which her genes make her vulnerable to these outside triggers.
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I'm still torn between Clinton and Obama
[Read the article: The 2008 presidential mash-up]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Which one of them will the best candidate to lead America in its national war against (mostly black) marijuana users?
Hillary would the least hypocritical leader of the national pogrom, because Miss Goody Two Shoes never succumbed to the temptation of reefer.
Plus she's white and it feels more natural for a white person to be in charge of a war that disproportionately targets blacks and Hispanics.
But electing a black man who escaped arrest for his own marijuana use to lead the national pogrom against (mostly black) marijuana users would be deliciously ironic, would it not?
All sarcasm aside -- since American law enforcement will NEVER EVER give up on their racist war -- I'll probably still be making my ACTUAL VOTE based on health care and science funding.
Let's see Obama's web site match Clinton's science bullet points.
He wants to double funding -- fine. I like his opinion on the subject.
But why isn't there the same level of detail as Clinton offers on her website?
Right now, his science policy looks like a mere footnote to his technology policy, and that does not impress me.
His technology policy is impressive, but my tribe is academic science, and I have to care about the welfare of my tribe.
I'm getting the impression that Obama supporters are the kind of CS majors I used to see making angry faces in freshman physics lab because they loved technology but were not all that enamored with physics.
My tribe is physics. On Hillary's website, physics is treated like than just a footnote to technology.
It's hard for me NOT to pay attention to that fact.
It's also hard for me NOT to pay attention to the fact that children are harmed terribly when adults go without health insurance.
It's traumatizing for a child to see a sick parent suffer without proper medical treatment.
It's really not enough just to insure the children. It's not enough for me.
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Science should not be a mere footnote to technology
[Read the article: The 2008 presidential mash-up]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Even on Hillary's site, science is still treated like a footnote to technology.
But she's got one of those footnotes that take up the whole page.
This is a time of crisis in American particle physics.
That's why I feel I would be able to overlook all of the nasty mendacious and crypto-racist drug war baggage of the Clinton administration and vote for her.
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But they're not concerned about overincarceration?
[Read the article: Staph infections: The right call]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When Paris Hilton checked into jail, one of things they gave her was a pamphlet warning about the staph infections that run rampant in the county jail system.
It's interesting that Russia so far has avoided launching an American-style drug war, instead settling for decriminalizing personal amounts of all drugs.
I read that one rationale for this decision by the Duma was to avoid increasing the already near-intractable problems of drug resistant diseases spreading through the Russian prison system.
So why aren't the conservatives raging about overincarceration in America?
You can't ever really clean a prison. You can't just send everyone home for a week while you disinfect.
American prisons are filthy, filthy places, and people get abrasions and lacerations all the time.
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Well okay then
[Read the article: "Cassandra's Dream"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think I'll stay home and watch McCabe and Mrs. Miller on DVD.
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What was that other big states' rights issue?
[Read the article: Mike Huckabee's selective federalism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Isn't there some controversy now where paraplegics are being subjected to armed raids and having their personal property seized?
Where does Huckabee stand on that?
I have a feeling that I'm never going to find that out from reading Salon.
So I guess you guys are just like Huckabee.
You're for states' rights, except when you aren't.
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Wishing the world would end
[Read the article: Mike Huckabee hearts Israel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]sounds like a type of terrorist threat to me.
Elaine Pagels has a very interesting discussion of why Christianity turned out this way in her book "The Origin of Satan."