Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 177 Editor's Choice: 10
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they are wasting animal control officers on this?!?!?!?
[Read the article: Ellen, the dog bullies and me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Dogfighting is going on in this country. So is cockfighting. There are rabid racoons that get into people's garbage and present a real danger. That's what our taxes are paying animal control officers to take care of, not for taking little yippy dogs away from preteen girls. (Like previous posters, I'd wonder if the officers in question could be charged with theft, since they had no legal grounds for taking the dog.)
When you adopt a CHILD from a private agency, the agency may have certain income/housing/family size/marital qualifications for prospective adoptive parents. Let's say John and Judy Smith want to adopt a baby. They meet all the standards--they have a $100,000 combined income, a four-bedroom house in the 'burbs with a big yard, no other children, and have been happily married for ten years. They get a baby from the agency.
Five years down the road, they're divorced, their combined income is $30,000, they live in tiny apartments in the inner-city ghetto, and they've had quadruplets in addition to their adopted child. Does the adoption agency get to take the kid back? HELL NO. No one can take the kids--adopted or biological--unless the parents mistreat them.
A dog is not a child. Legally, it is property. Once the dog was signed over to Ellen, the shelter had no legal interest in that dog anymore. There are laws against mistreating your pets, but Ellen was not violating any animal cruelty laws by giving the dog to her hairdresser.
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it's a definite double standard...
[Read the article: Why aren't boys allowed to be victims?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...and the amount of damage done isn't dependent on age, gender, etc.--it will vary according to each and every case.
Kids of both sexes and all sexual orientations have ALWAYS lusted after their teachers. The onus is on the teachers to, you know, NOT HAVE SEX WITH THEIR STUDENTS. Even if the kid in question is an 19-year-old high school senior and the teacher is a 21-year-old fresh out of college (an age difference that most people wouldn't bat an eye at). One is the student; the other is the teacher. What's so hard about waiting till the student graduates before making your move?
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the boss is totally in the wrong
[Read the article: My boss says I'm a lesbian but I'm not!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not sure what's the best course of action to take, other than flat-out telling her, "I am straight, not that it is any of your damn business. If you keep trying to make it your business, I will complain to YOUR boss about your inappropriate behavior."
As to your dress, I'm not saying you should "girly" yourself up so that people automatically know you're straight. (I'm pretty girly-looking myself and I've been mistaken for a lesbian because I was seen having dinner with my shaved-head, tattooed lesbian platonic friend. I knew this was a risk, but Sarah's friendship matters more than what people who don't even know me think.) But, like it or not, society HAS set up certain unspoken dress and grooming codes that speak about people's sexual preferences and availiability. It may not be ethically right, but it is reality. I can't put on a leather miniskirt, FMPs, and three-inch false eyelashes and go traipsing around my neighborhood without being mistaken for a hooker. Maybe it isn't fair, but you can't dress androgynously, not shave your legs, wear no makeup, rarely date, and be a friend of the LBGTQ community without making people think you're a lesbian.
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what a REAL slutty Catholic schoolgirl looks like
[Read the article: No more Slut-o-ween!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My Halloween and/or Mardi Gras costume: for six years now I have been the pregnant Catholic schoolgirl.
I got a real Catholic schoolgirl jumper and Peter Pan blouse at Goodwill. The blouse buttons up to my throat and the skirt of the jumper comes to the middle of my kneecaps. I got a set of white knee socks and a pair of saddle shoes. I put my hair in pigtails and took off all my makeup and jewelry except for a crucifix necklace. And I made a "baby" out of a beanbag pillow and a truss made of pantyhose. I have seriously fooled many people into thinking I was about seventeen years old and nine months pregnant in real life while wearing this get-up.
I did it because I got sick of seeing the cliche porno slutty Catholic schoolgirl costume--barely-there skirt, low-cut blouse, hooker makeup, thigh-highs, FMP Mary Janes, etc. No real Catholic schoolgirl, slutty or virginal, could get by with going to school like that.
What was interesting was that one year I was teaching preschool, and the teachers had to dress up for Halloween. I wore my costume, sans baby, largely because it was completely modest as well as comfortable and practical for chasing kids around in all day. The kids just thought "Miss Leeandra dressed like a little girl for Halloween!", but boy, did I catch flak from the other teachers!
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ridiculous
[Read the article: Band on the run in New Orleans]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I live and work in the French Quarter. Forty, fifty years ago, this was the worst section of the city. Now it's one of the most expensive.
In the Quarter, seems like every damn night there's a "second line"--really, a hired brass band being trailed by a bunch of white conference attendees from Peoria listlessly waving their handkerchiefs. The city trots out this image of itself because it's what the tourists expect.
But when the real thing happens in a poor black neighborhood, the police shut it down?
It's a funeral, people.