Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 434 Editor's Choice: 18
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two suggestions...
[Read the article: Kick off those heels!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have to dress up for work on a daily basis, not because of a dress code, but because I work in sales and am on commission. I gotta go with what gets the job done.
1.) On shoes--buy dance shoes, and have a cobbler put sole savers on them. Seriously. You can get these in a 1.5 inch heel and they look professional and like regular dress shoes, but they're made much better and are far, far more comfortable.
2.) On pantyhose--buy support-weight stockings with the elastic band at the top, and buy them for women who are 6 feet tall. (I'm 5'7"). These will come up to as high as you need them, and they don't rip easily.
The support-weight pantyhose unfortunately has the tendency to roll into a tight little rope around your waist when you sit down. They need to make the reverse of control-top hose--that is, with a regular-weight panty and support-weight legs, but alas, I have yet to find this.
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there are no safe jobs...
[Read the article: Our cupboard was bare]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My Dad took a unionized factory job in 1978, even though he had a college degree, largely because it was widely considered a safe way to support a family. Uh...guess what happened there?
For people who find themselves occasionally in the author's situation, one thing to look into is whether Angel Food Ministries is in your town. Basically, a local church teams up with Angel Food's corporate office and sells groceries at a deep, deep discount once a month. You place your order (prepaid) on the local website or with the church office, then show up at the church parking lot on a given Saturday to pick up your food. Because there is no store--they unload the boxes right out of the truck, and because there are no employees--the workers are all church volunteers, there is not much overhead, so they can sell the food really, really cheap. You can buy as many boxes as you need--a box will feed a family of four for a week with only minimal additions from the grocery store. Here in New Orleans, I can get a $100 box of food for $31. Meats, dairy, vegetables, pantry items--they're all there, they're all good, and none of them are spoiled.
You don't have to be a member of the church to take advantage of this, there isn't any Jesus-pressure other than being given a flyer inviting you to Sunday services, and at least everywhere I've heard of, there are no income guidelines. (I think they decided that doing that would be more hassle than it was worth.)
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@magdelyn
[Read the article: What does it mean to be an "anti-feminist"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In more liberal cities, the lesbians tend to take over certain bars on Ladies' Night. In pre-Katrina New Orleans, Wit's Inn would be overflowing with them every Tuesday. (I think the special was $2 beers for ladies, but I'm not sure.) This probably wasn't the original intention of the bar owners in making Tuesday Ladies' Night, but it was a smart business move. What they lost in revenue from selling cheap beer even cheaper they more than made up for in volume, plus exposure.
I wouldn't complain about discrimination if bars had a "Men's Night," but that's never gonna happen because, in general, it's a stupid business move. Women generally don't go out to pick up falling-down drunk men. If they did, you bet every bar in the country would have "Men's Night."
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computer science used to be a "safe" field for bright American kids to go into...
[Read the article: Our cupboard was bare]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but when's the last time you called customer support and your call WASN'T answered by a cheerful person calling him/herself "Brian" or "Mary" in a thick Punjab accent?
No job is perfectly safe. No one can plan for everything. Having three children WITH YOUR HUSBAND doesn't seem to me to be a hallmark of irresponsibility, nor does taking charity for a brief period of time when you really DO need it to feed those kids.
Just pay it back and then some when you have the resources, because unfortunately, the poor will always be with us.
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@Laurel
[Read the article: Our cupboard was bare]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I haven't read the Terrible Mother blog (for some reason my computer keeps conking out when it tries to load), but $120,000 for a master's in creative writing? Is that what Heather Ryan paid, out-of-pocket or through loans, or are you pulling that number out of your ass?
I have an MFA in Creative Writing. It took me three and a half years to get (thanks to a little delay from Hurricane Katrina--it's hard to complete a thesis when your thesis committee is scattered to three different parts of the country). I didn't pay a dime in tuition during that time--like over half of the students in the program, I "paid" for the program by teaching freshman composition. That wiped out my tuition and fees and gave me a small stipend. The stipend wasn't enough to live on ($7,000 a year), so most of the rest of us took some subsidized loans and tended bar/ babysat/ tutored/ waitressed to make up the difference.
Even WITHOUT an assistantship, tuition at my school would have been roughly a quarter of what you're implying her MFA cost. I'll agree that paying $120,000 for an MFA is stupid, stupid, stupid. For that particular degree, you should only go to a school that costs that much if they'll waive the tuition in return for your labor.
I'll also disagree that having children while living in rented student housing is necessarily a bad thing. Depending on Ryan's age and medical history, waiting until finishing school and owning a home before having children may not have been an option. It's only been since WWII that the majority of Americans own their own homes--were the majority of our ancestors irresponsible? Married Student Housing exists for a reason--to provide cheap housing to non-traditional students and their families. These apartments are often half to three-quarters the cost of similar civilian apartments, and have the benefit of usually being close to campus. Not only that, but there are probably other mothers with children of similar ages there as well, making trading babysitting duties easier.