Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 367 Editor's Choice: 18
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well, that was interesting...
[Read the article: Lost girls?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I kicked ass at the navigational stuff (perfect score on the angle and rotation tests). I was completely lost on trying to read people's eyes, though in real life I can usually get a good read on someone--perhaps with body language rather than static pictures?
My ring fingers are considerably longer than my index fingers.
I SUCKED at the word association test--but throughout, I kept wondering how "exact" the association had to be to count. (I got a 730 on the verbal section of the SAT and have a master's in English, so it's not exactly as if I'm at a loss for words in real life.)
Preferred "feminine" faces (Actually, didn't like the looks of any of them, but the masculine ones they had looked even MORE like the drunken frat boys on Bourbon Street. No, thank you.)
Apparently I have the brain of a man in the body of a heterosexual woman. Except for the ring fingers. Go figure.
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goes against common sense
[Read the article: Domestic violence vs. deportation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perspective:
Being here without the proper papers: a crime, but a nonviolent one.
Beating/raping someone: a violent crime.
Don't we want to do whatever we can to see that people who beat/rape other people of ANY immigration status are taken off the streets? For the safety of citizens as well as illegal immigrants?
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yes, but...
[Read the article: Domestic violence vs. deportation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What if the perpetrator is a citizen?
What if (as is true in many cases) the perpetrator is also an illegal immigrant, but his country of origin does not consider wife beating or rape to be a big deal, if it is a crime at all?
This law is not going to make catching illegal immigrants easier. What it will do is make a few classes of already underreported violent crimes even more underreported.
And that isn't good for any of us.
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a marijuana analogy
[Read the article: Domestic violence vs. deportation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Say I am raped and beaten. I could go directly to the nearest police station and report it. I know they will want to take my clothes and process them for DNA evidence. Oh, but there's a joint in my skirt pocket that's got some blood and semen on it. I could get booked for possession. Fair? Strictly speaking, probably. I did break the law by having that joint.
Prudent? Hell, no!
When someone reports being raped or beaten, law enforcement needs to be looking at that particular crime, not immigration violations.
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She could have walked down the street buck nekkid...
[Read the article: "She liked to dress provocatively"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...and he still should have gotten more than 4 months time.
She's 10 years old--it doesn't matter if she looks 16. It doesn't matter whether she's wearing Underoos or Victoria's Secret. It doesn't matter whether she dresses like she's older than she is, or dresses provactively. She's 10.
(BTW, several of my cousins could have passed for 16 at the age of 10. They were still 10, and once you talked to them for a few minutes, you'd realize that.)
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women can't hide their disinterest as well as men can?
[Read the article: Chatty Cathy, Taciturn Ted?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Uh...I spent a year listening to someone talk about a.) insurance claims and b.) electric guitar solos. Neither of which I have any interest in (unless of course the insurance claim was MINE).
Interested in the person? Yes. Interested in what he talked, talked, talked about? HELL NO! He was quite upset to find this out, too.
Sorry. Men don't have a monopoly on patiently listening to Chatty Cathys (or Chatty Carls, as the case may be).
We just call it "nodding and smiling and letting you think you're right."
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read the last paragraph, people...
[Read the article: Mom's a pothead]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Her question was not whether the mother has a problem, it was whether she should confront the mother about it.
This isn't about whether marijuana should be legal (it should), whether it's an effective pain medicine (for many people, it is), whether it's less addictive and less harmful than vicodin (it is), whether this woman has substance abuse problems (the LW seems to think so), or whether D.A.R.E. is a crock of shit (it is).
There seem to be some deeper issues in this family than the mother enjoying a joint every now and then (or even every day).
The parents hid her drug use from their son while sending him to a school with the D.A.R.E. program (which, incidentally, they could have publically objected to and probably could have gotten him excused from). They let him believe that they support what the policeman in the school says and don't tell him that Mom currently smokes a lot of marijuana right in his own home. So it comes as a big shock to him when he's 11 or 12--can you blame the kid for being upset and hurt?
Then, she baits her son. OK, she got the medical certificate and now her pot's legal--but why, if it were for her back pain, did she not do that as soon as it became an option? Why does she leave her pipes in the dirty laundry when she knows her disapproving son is DOING THE LAUNDRY? Why does she now smoke in the yard (where the neighbors can see) and call it "not smoking in the house"? That's a wee bit adolescent right there, not to mention passive-aggressive.
Then there's the issue of Dad. All we get of him is that he has a respectable job that pays the bills and that he's recovering from foot surgery. Oh, and when confronted with a teenager's threat to run away from home, he makes Mom move out for a few days. Uh...that's a little weird.
And then there's the younger son. We don't know what effect all this is having on him.
Is the 15-year-old being a judgmental little bastard. Oh, probably. He's 15. Does he probably feel like he has to be the adult in the family when he wants to be a kid and enjoy screwing around and rebelling and experimenting with mild recreational drugs himself? Probably. Cut him some slack.