Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 177 Editor's Choice: 10
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insuring children/public education
[Read the article: Sick children left behind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What I don't understand is why healthcare for ALL citizen children is not covered, regardless of the parents' income status. (for now, I'm not going to open the can of worms that is immigrant children.)
Every U.S. citizen child is given the opportunity of at least 12 years of education regardless of his parents' income. No, it is not "free" in the sense that it is paid for by the taxpayers, no, it is not always of uniform quality, and no, no parent HAS to send their children to a gov't school--they can homeschool or send them to a private school. But society has a vested interest in seeing that every child, regardless of how much money his parents make, gets to go to school. Children do grow up, and it's far easier and less costly to society at large to prevent illiteracy by teaching a child to read at seven than to combat it with adult education courses when the adult is twenty-five.
Children are comparatively cheap to insure. They for the most part don't smoke, don't drink, don't drive, don't get cancer. What they do is come down with things like strep (cheaper to treat in a doctor's office than in an emergency room, which is where you go when you have no insurance), ear infections (which when left untreated can severely damage hearing), need immunizations, need eyeglasses (try learning to read when you get headaches from looking at blurry letters).
Any third-world missionary will tell you that a given child's chances for future success are more than anything based on whether he or she is able to attend school regularly. Sick/nearsighted/hearing-impaired children don't show up as often for obvious reasons. Get them treatment, and they start coming to school.
I know there will always be some libertarians who say that a "welfare state" isn't what the founding fathers intended etc. I remind them of the preamble to the Constitution: "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." (Thank you, taxpayer-funded education, that I can do that from memory.)
If pooling our resources to see that every child gets an education and decent healthcare isn't a valid way to "promote the general welfare," I don't know what is.
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regarding children painting abstract art...
[Read the article: Here's looking at you, "Kid"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's been said that it's unheard of for children Marla's age to create abstract art--I'm wondering if that's because they are hard-wired at that age to paint houses, dogs, trees, etc., or if it's because they are actively discouraged from "just scribbling and splashing paint around."
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also...
[Read the article: Here's looking at you, "Kid"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...even if most kids, given the choice, paint representational art, what of the autistic and Asperger's kids who become obsessed with colors and patterns to the near-exclusion of things like faces?
(I knew an autistic kid at the preschool I worked at. Logan for a few weeks kept making triangles out of things. Blocks, dolls, markers, play-doh "snakes", you name it, it got arranged into triangle shapes. I have no idea why.)
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Am I the only one...
[Read the article: Sex, drugs and my 15-year-old]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...who prays that Gary Kamiya's son grows up to be a talented writer, so we can read what promises to be the hilarious account of "The Talk"?
If you want your kids to think of dope as dopey, let them see you stoned and dancing to Steely Dan!
Oh, and don't get stoned and drive. Maybe it's not as dangerous as getting drunk and driving...but you're still impaired. (I'm for marijuana legalization, but that doesn't mean I'm for stoned driving. Dramamine is perfectly legal and I need it to keep from throwing up on airplanes, but there's no way I'd drive after taking it because I can feel how messed up I am.)
Teach your kid a real lesson about responsibility and call a cab.
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what the hell is that judge smoking?
[Read the article: Roundup: Are Republicans secretly crushing on Hillary?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The prostitute sold her services for $100 to the first guy--prostitution on her part, solicitation on his.
She then agreed to have sex with another guy for $100--prostitution on her part, solicitation on his.
She then unwillingly had sex at gunpoint with three other guys--no crimes on her part, one rape each on the part of the three guys, all the guys are accomplices to each others' rapes.
(BTW, pulling a weapon on someone is assault in and of itself most everywhere. Using the weapon constitutes the battery part of "assault and battery." Look it up.)
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presuming the story is true as presented...
[Read the article: Roundup: Are Republicans secretly crushing on Hillary?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]At LEAST two rapes occured here.
The prostitute had sex with the first guy for $150. Not rape.
Then she initially consented to have sex with the second guy for $100, but revoked that consent when it became apparent that 1.) he wasn't going to pay and 2.) he was going to hold a gun to her head while doing the deed. I'd call that rape, but I can see where it might be at the very, very top of the slippery legal slope.
Then guy #3 and guy #4 have nonconsensual sex with her at gunpoint. That's plain and simple rape, right there. No agreement of any kind was EVER made between her and those two men.
Doesn't matter if she's a prostitute. Doesn't matter if she tortures puppies for a living while feasting on the flesh of newborn babes. She never consented, they forced her to have sex at gunpoint. That's rape.
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It's a playhouse...
[Read the article: Home-decorating dreams?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Lots of kids, boys and girls, play with them. Pretty much every nursery school has them. Sometimes the kids use them as intended. Sometimes they turn the toy stove into a gas chamber for G.I. Joe.