Letters to the Editor
Amerigo
Published Letters: 955 Editor's Choice: 60
-
Tough one!
[Read the article: Battered and fired]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Note that:
#1. She had not yet started the job. How much sick leave can a small business be expected to grant to an employee who has not yet started the job? Was she asking for unpaid leave?
#2. Presumably there is a pending court case over the attack on the woman. Is the ex-husband countercharging that she initiated the violence? This may sound like a crock of shit, but people with domestic violence records or charges are not allowed to work with children in my state, and probably not in hers.
#3. From a risk management point of view, the presence of this unfortunate woman is more likely to pose a risk of workplace violence, which is not what you want in a kindergarten. Although I do sympathize very much with her situation, putting myself in the position of her superior at the preschool, one can see that this is quite a dilemma with potential that could lead to the complete destruction of the reputation of the business.
I hope Broadsheet will report on the eventual outcome. I would certainly be interested in knowing more about the judge's ruling. I suspect it will go badly for her, but it will be interesting to see what points of law take precedence.
-
Publicist
[Read the article: Couric goes to bat for Lohan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Quite frankly I do not know who Lohan is, except that she is one of the female supermarket checkout tabloid rat pack.
I believe Lohan employs a public relations company to keep her doings and her face (and possible other body parts) in the news media.
Why is Couric not reporting on this?
-
No Limit Hold'Em
[Read the article: Requiem for a poker game]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No Limit Hold 'Em tournaments are a fascinating diversion and I love to play online. I have modestly successful results in the tournaments I play in.
The author is to be congratulated on winning a 300-player tournament to qualify for the World Series. This in itself is a fine achievement. Just to win any 300-player tournament, even when many opponents are inferior, requires strategy, concentration, and luck.
To win the Main Event at the WSOP takes all of these in spades, because nearly all the opponents (possibly bar a few celebrity entrants) are all good players too. It is like winning the Masters at golf. In the end a lucky shot might clinch it for you at the kill, but it would take supreme skill to get into position to have a shot at the title.
The mathematics of the game are fairly simple, and I doubt whether the most successful players rely a great deal on computer analysis. By far the most important computer involved is the human brain and the way it deals with a constantly changing environment at the table, whether online or in the flesh.
Incidentally, I should say that I greatly prefer online play, because my local casino (two hours away) allows smoking.
-
Rippping off the poor
[Read the article: Usury: Back and better than ever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a landlord of poor people myself, I have been able to observe that there is a great deal of money to be made out of ripping off poor people, though I cannot say that any of it is coming my way. In fact, if my tenants cannot pay their rent on time, I am more likely to give them an extension than to drive them to the payday load sharks--though I cannot say the same for the electricity company.
You have the payday loan sharks, and then you have the income tax refund loan sharks. Because poor people aren't good at filling in forms, they often pay someone else to fill in a fairly simple form to claim an income tax refund and/or Earned Income Credit at the start of each year. During this process they are often aggrssively sold on the idea of an "instant refund", which is actually a very expensive loan, so that they can get their Earned Income Credit immediately and not wait a day or two. (Another tendency of the poor is a complete failure to delay gratification.)
These income tax refund companies are well known and are in some cases publicly quoted companies. I urge Salon readers not to use them.
Then you have the liquor stores located within walking distance of where poor people live, which make a fortune selling the beer that is the main nutritional support of poor people, and the cigarettes whose butts poor people use as a form of confetti around their homes.
I agree with the poster who says that Religious America Inc. has very little to say about this. As a lapsed Christian myself I feel very uncomfortable with the way the poor are farmed for profit.
American is supposed to be a democracy, yet we have two political parties. One represents big business, landowners, inherited wealth, and super-reactionary religious sects. The other stands for college educated professionals and homosexuals. No one much represents the poor, and in fact they may not even have transportation to the polling stations which are rarely as close to where they live as the pay day loan center or the liquor store.
Now wouldn't it be nice if someone asked the odd question on behalf of the poor at a presidential debate? Just for noblesse oblige, you understand.