Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 177 Editor's Choice: 10
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I get most of my books at library sales...
[Read the article: What is your literary deal breaker?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And I often try to psychoanalyze the people who would buy these particular books, then give them away.
Untitled
Three beat-up milk crates of young-adult schlock,
Seven editions of Benjamin Spock,
Two Gideon Bibles, some Harlequin sleaze,
"The Common Diseases of New England's Trees",
"4-H Woodworking: How to Build Shelves,"
"The New (and the Old) Our Bodies, Ourselves,"
"Hamlet," "The Jungle," "The Sum of All Fears"
"Pat Boone's Guide to Your Teenage Years,"
"The Book of Mormon," Franz Kafka, John Donne,
"Catch-22," "The Battle's Been Won:
Will You Accept Christ?", "Curing the NO!s
in Your Two-Year-Old," rows upon rows
of Time-Life Repair books, "Applying for Visas",
(somebody, somewhere, was a Hare Krishna),
"Paradise Lost," "Weight Loss Secrets Found!"
one missal in Latin, "Notes from Underground,"
"The Rules," "The Fountainhead," "The Works of Graham Greene"
some Danielle Steele novels (but nothing obsence
by Lawrence's been donated, just "Sons and Lovers"),
"I'm OK; You're OK," "We're Not Our Mothers",
Ten "Methodist Hymnals," an assorted mix
of Baltic state guidebooks from '76,
"Color Me Beautiful," "Gone with the Wind,"
"What Should We Think of Original Sin?",
Golden Books, chewed-on books, books about weaning,
"Beowulf," "In His Steps," "Man's Search for Meaning,"
Cliff's Notes on "Deliverance," "The Big Book of Cats,"
"Side Effects," "Native Son," "The 500 Hats
of Bartholomew Cubbins," "The Bell Jar," "Horses:
Castration and Breeding," "Citing from Sources,"
"God's Plan for Your Life: Have You Heard the Call?"
And the scary thing is, I consider them all.
(OK, completely self-indulgent of me. But dammit, I spent twenty friggin' minutes of my thesis defense defending that particular poem. This way, maybe people will read it.
Oh, and I know that titles of books are supposed to go in italics, but I can't figure out how to do that on this site.)
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so a neo-Nazi said something over the top...
[Read the article: Rape is like force-fed chocolate cake?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They do that. Worry when the BNP starts getting some actual political power, or if a Tory or Labour party leader starts spouting off nonsense like this.
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I've seen pretty nasty stomach bruising...
[Read the article: Buckle up those fetuses!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...caused by a seatbelt during a relatively minor accident. Even without the seatbelt, it is unlikely that the person would have been killed in this particular accident. And women have miscarried from being struck in the abdomen since time began. So I can see how the rumor gets started that seatbelts can cause miscarriage. Educating people that this is not so seems pretty important.
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two groups of parents always amaze me
[Read the article: Our kids want to go to Christian summer camp]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1. The devout Christian /Muslim /Jewish /atheist /Pastafarian parents who do everything they can to raise their kid only exposed to the religion (or non-religion) THEY believe in to insure that the kid will then follow that religion (or non-religion) as adults
and
2. The parents who devoutly believe in a given religion, but refuse to raise the kid in it so "he can make up his mind when he's old enough."
In the end, the kids all make up their own minds regardless. It's called free will.
Let 'em go to camp.
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find out more about the camp...
[Read the article: Our kids want to go to Christian summer camp]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You could, you know, TALK to your kids about their daily activities at the camp last summer, and find out what went on.
It doesn't sound from the letter like the kids are being brainwashed into praying to Bush or anything like that. Sounds like they like their aunt and enjoy swimming and horseback riding and braiding friendship bracelets etc. If they came back telling you all gays are going to hell etc., then you'd know what kind of camp it was. But really...reading the Bible, honoring thy father and mother, and wanting to go to church for a couple of Sundays afterwards? Ehhh...doesn't seem time to panic.
BTW, if any of those kids major in English later on, there's a good chance that they will have to read the King James Bible. Whether you believe it or not, it IS the single most popular English-language book in history, and is still a best-seller nearly 400 years later. To understand Shakespeare's /Donne's /Dickinson's etc. allusions, you have to have some knowledge of the KJV.
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eww, eww, and eww
[Read the article: Today's moral outrage: Bikini waxes for 8-year-olds]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Very, very few eight-year-olds have noticeable pubic hair. That generally shows up about a year or less before menstruation, and though having a first period at nine is not unheard of (my mother did back in 1963), it is still unusual.
I have a box of Nair wax strips in the bathroom closet. It has a warning NOT to use them on children under the age of twelve because of the risk of removing the top layer of skin as well as hair.
I also must say that my mother and I never felt the desire to bond by going to a commercial establishment and paying for someone to rip out our pubes.
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Booby prizes
[Read the article: Bobbing for boobs]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What if the winner turns out to be physically or psychologically unfit for this type of surgery? Does she get to keep the money it would have cost?
Does she get to choose which kind of implants and how they will be inserted (some ways are better--and more expensive--than others)? Or is she stuck with the cheap-ass job the club will pay for?
This doctor ought to go before the ethics board for agreeing to perform surgery on a patient he has 1.) never seen and 2.) never read a medical history of.