Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 177 Editor's Choice: 10
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there are options other than the army...
[Read the article: I'm completely irresponsible and I live at home mooching off my parents]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Although I will have to say that when I was teaching freshman comp, I LOVED my GI Bill students: invariably, they showed up to class on time (even at 8 in the morning!), read their homework, turned in papers on time, came to office hours if they didn't understand what I wanted, went to seek help at the writing center if needed, etc. This can't be said for a lot of the other products of New Orleans public schools.
BUT, if you don't want to join the military, there's Americorps. I did this six years ago (I was teaching preschool in Kentucky)--my spending money was only $125 a month, but my housing/health insurance/food/transportation to and from work was taken care of, and I got about $4500 to pay for higher education. I could have done this a second year and got another $4500.
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playing the Sims...
[Read the article: Grand Theft misogyny]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We had a German version of "The Sims" on our computer (it belonged to the exchange student). Since the only German commands I knew were "kiss" and "hit," my Sims had some pretty fucked-up, co-dependent relationships, which was amusing for a while.
Eventually my Sims had babies, and one of my favorite activities was to place the bassinet outside, then dig a moat around it. Everyone would pace around the edge as the Sim baby cried, trying to figure out how to reach it. Eventually a Sim social worker would show up, only to pace impotently around the edge of the moat, shaking her clipboard at the heavens. Then the baby would stop crying and a tombstone would show up where the bassinet was!
My brother created the Mormon Sims--man, two wives, seven children (all blondes in long-sleeved shirts and ties)--and the Mexican illegal Sims--Jose, his brother-in-law, his sister, his two nieces, their friend, one niece's little boy, a grandmother, and a couple other guys--all had mullets, wore ratty clothes, and lived in a single room with bare plaster walls, one lightbulb, seven single beds, and a toilet (since there weren't enough beds to go around, they slept in shifts and spent their free time just hanging out in the yard).
We both just did it to see if the computer would let us.
(Now, can you hire and kill MALE prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto IV? Otherwise, they've got a point about the misogyny.
C'mon, give us equal opportunity virtual sociopathy here!)
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comment vous dites...
[Read the article: The creepy old man's guide to Paris]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]..."I keep getting older, they stay the same age," en francais?
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what about ballet slippers?
[Read the article: This little piggy was hideously mangled]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not the "ballet flats" Target sells, not pointe shoes, but the flat leather sock-like things ballet dancers wear? I have a pair of these and do occasionally wear them to work. They're probably the closest thing to walking barefoot in the city I'd do (I have to cross Bourbon St. for God's sake--NO WAY am I doing that barefoot).
I walk a mile each way to and from work, and don't have any sort of heel pain--probably because I almost never wear high heels.
They do make you walk different, though. My hips and knees naturally have a lot of turn-out, so I tend to walk on the outsides of my heels. It's only when I'm wearing shoes that won't let me do that--ie, wearing narrow-heeled shoes, that I get pain in my heels, knees, and hips.
As for sandals, Saltwaters are WAY more comfortable than flip-flops. You don't have to use your toes to grip that little thing--they're strapped onto your feet!
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I was under the impression
[Read the article: The groom will be changing his name]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that in the U.S., you could change your name to whatever the hell you wanted, so long as you weren't using the name change to commit fraud. I thought this dated back to Roman common law. Thus, John Paul Smith can call himself Jesus Moonbeam Kennedy so long as he stays on the right side of the law.
Really, what would be so hard about changing the marriage forms to let the men change their names too? Just have a space where the man writes his name before, then his name after marriage, and a corresponding space for the woman to do the same. The couple can then fill in the blanks however they damn well please--if they both want to keep their names, they both write their "maiden" names in the before and after blank, if they both hypenate they do that, if only one changes his/her name, the form reflects that, etc.
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How about this for a slogan...
[Read the article: Walk in a brothel, walk out a rapist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]..."If you're man enough, you neither pay for it nor force it on anyone"?
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from The Onion several years ago...
[Read the article: They "might as well call themselves Slutbucks"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28657
On a more serious note, do these people know how many medieval/Renaissance paintings and statues there are of the VIRGIN MARY topless? The Madonna nursing the Christ Child was quite a popular subject for hundreds of years.
Don't like Starbucks coffee? Don't go there. Don't like their logo? Don't go there.
Sheesh.
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hard cases make bad law...
[Read the article: Are men victims of forced abortions?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Even though I think this particular couple should have been granted asylum, the courts have a point about the "legal marriage" requirement. In nearly all the U.S. states, a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old could get legally married and have a child and probably none of us would have much of a problem with recognizing them as a couple even though they are "too young" by Chinese standards.
But what if the bride (or groom) were younger? There are many places in the world where CHILDREN are married in traditional ceremonies that aren't legally binding but which are certainly considered commitments by all parties involved. What if one of the parties to this was 11 or 12? It's certainly not unheard of to get pregnant at that age.