Letters to the Editor
Leeandra Nolting
Published Letters: 177 Editor's Choice: 10
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this is the kind of bullshit...
[Read the article: Falling for StandUpGirl.com]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...that gives pro-lifers a bad name.
I am against abortion. I think it should be illegal except to save the life of the mother. I also support all sorts of social services for people with unplanned pregnancies, whether they choose to raise the child themselves or give it up for adoption.
The thing is, there are a LOT of unwed teenage mothers who considered abortion, were pressured to have an abortion by fathers/mothers/boyfriends, had their child anyway, and raised it successfully, despite the odds. Others had the child and gave it away for adoption. Few of them would say their lives were easy, but there are many women among BOTH of these groups that would absolutely encourage girls in their shoes to do the same and have the baby. What the folks who came up with this site needed to do was find them, have them tell their stories, HAVE THEM GIVE INFORMATION ABOUT HELPFUL PLACES TO GO, etc.
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to anonymous at 6:04 pm
[Read the article: Falling for StandUpGirl.com]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not sure that "needing to find another man" within a year is a good reason for an unmarried, pregnant teenager to have an abortion...
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"The Great Re-Learning"
[Read the article: The filthy, stinking truth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tom Wolfe wrote an essay by that name about the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in the late 60s. Seems that when all the hippie kids decided to do away with the uptight, middle-class rules about hygiene, they started coming down with rather medieval skin diseases...
I shower and wash my hair daily, but that's because I live in a tropical climate, walk a mile each way to work, and my hair is oily (my scalp will break out in zits if I don't). Your mileage may vary. Slathering on hand sanitizer, though, is ridiculous overkill. If anything, it dries out your skin and makes your knuckles crack, thus opening up the path for staph infections. Hand sanitizer is pretty good at getting rid of acne, though.
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to Parson Jim...
[Read the article: Feminists want just a female prez?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's a dirty job...and females are doing it alongside the men--the new company New Orleans hired to clean up garbage in the French Quarter has a bunch of female garbage collectors.
They do a good job too--though I think it has more to do with this company's making employees actually pick up the garbage on schedule than with the sex of its collectors.
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no access to birth control?!?!?
[Read the article: Teen pregnancy: It's baaaack]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't know where the rest of you all are from, but condoms/spermicide/sponges are all easily available at Walgreen's/ Wal-Mart/ CVS etc., and all of them include instruction booklets and information about failure rates. I really find it hard to believe that abstinence-only sex ed. is keeping kids from obtaining contraception. Even in the bad old days of no sex ed in schools, kids (well, at least boys) could get their hands on condoms--anyone else read "Summer of '42"?
Of the girls who get pregnant due to consensual sex without birth control, you're looking at at least three groups:
1. The girls who didn't want to get pregnant and know it will have serious consequences for their lives--it happened in a moment of passion, they didn't think it would happen to them, etc. Blame teenage hormones and teenage immaturity.
2. The girls who weren't trying to get pregnant, but are not really upset that it happened--often these girls are from lower socio-economic classes and didn't see much of an exciting future awaiting them anyway. Often, these girls see mothers/ sisters/ cousins having babies young, and it's taken as a matter of course.
3. The girls who were trying to get pregnant. Now you've got a whole host of motivations.
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it's their money...
[Read the article: Roundup: Do these punching bags encourage female violence?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If somebody's husband wants to buy his wife a piece of jewelry for giving birth, I don't care. Knock yourselves out.
What's problematic is the marketing by jewelry companies of specific kinds of (expensive) jewelry as appropriate "push presents."
Will this become like the (once only for royalty, then the very wealthy, now nearly ubiquitous) trend of buying diamond engagement rings? And the assumption that your fiance is less of a man if he doesn't plunk down two months salary on a rock?
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statuatory rape laws
[Read the article: Judge: 10-year-old "probably agreed" to sex]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's my proposal for statuatory rape laws (and these are regardless of the gender/orientation of the participants)
1. At least one of the partners must be under the age of 18 and the other must be at least 18 years old.
2. The older partner must be at least four years older.
Thus, you could prosecute a 40-something teacher for having consensual sex with his/her 17-year-old student, but not an 18-year-old senior for having consensual sex with his/her 15-year-old sophomore sweetheart.
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I saw a Ferrari convention not long ago...
[Read the article: Scientist: Women, stop destroying the planet!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My boss designed the posters for it and was the official photographer. Almost all the guys who were driving Ferraris were middle-aged guys, and most of them had middle-aged wives who also attended the convention.
Better way to reduce emissions: don't buy the giant SUV to haul your 2 kids around the suburbs in.
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does it matter that Clinton has wrinkles...
[Read the article: Campaigning while female]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...Bob Dole had a bum arm, or FDR was in a wheelchair? Um...no. Not on how they govern, and not on how other nations percieve them. (Even though FDR tried to hide his disability from the American people, Winston Churchill was well aware that Roosevelt was crippled. But somehow I doubt that was first in his mind...)
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wait, how old was Elizabeth Dole when she tried to get the Republican nomination?
[Read the article: Campaigning while female]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think she had wrinkles, jowls, and grey hair too. But I don't remember anyone seriously criticizing her for THAT.