Letters to the Editor
Amerigo
Published Letters: 955 Editor's Choice: 60
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Taking her licks...
[Read the article: I can't stand losing my beauty as I age!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well the LW has preempted any attempt on the part of regular male readers of this feature to tell her she had it coming as her punishment for being beautiful, but these words will not come from me, because I have often thought the same thing.
Women are like flowers. Each one comes into bloom and has her day in the sun. Some are annuals and quickly run to seed or bloat beyond recognition. Others are perennials that seem ageless. In Shakey's Antony and Cleopatra, they say of the Egyptian queen:
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety...
and so it may seem for a while, but the truth is that every juicy young woman eventually becomes a withered crone, none more so than those who strike a Faustian bargain with the plastic surgeon. The wrinkles disappear in exchange for looking like a piece of taxidermy, and no one beyond the looking-glass is fooled.
Men are a little more durable. Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady says "men are a marvellous sex", but we eventually droop and our heads fall and our molecules are recycled just the same as women.
The truth is that we pursue happiness for a while, and then we are pursued by the grim reaper, and though we may dodge and hide for a while, the result is a forgone conclusion.
This is why we have religion to cheer us up. O, Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Believing that there is a better life ahead is some consolation for aging, even if we don't really, really believe it.
In the end, you have to give it to the Old Testament prophet to tell it like it is:
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever...
Anyway, thanks to the LW for reminding us that we all have one foot in the grave. Sometimes we forget for a few moments, and we need to be brought back on task.
See you on the other side, LW.
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@ brightstar
[Read the article: I'm in love with my bandmate]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]God knows I try to kiss her and try to work up to it (though admittedly still Neanderthal on this working up to the kiss part).
Pull yourself together and stop whimpering, man.
You should not have let it get into this situation. You don't just kiss someone out of context.
Yes, this is Neandertal if what you are proposing is that you kiss her and as a result she gets so worked up that she loses control and lets you get into her pants, even though she pretended at first that she didn't want to. That stuff died out several thousand years ago.
Be a Homo Sapiens. Talk to her and ask her what she is looking for out of this relationship. Talk to her honestly the same way you do to Salon, only tailor it for your audience. Don't say that all women are ball-busting bitches, say that all American women are ball-busting bitches.
Build her confidence.
Say that you respect Chinese women because they are decent (like you, hah!) and don't go around with their Daisy Dukes half a yard up their ass crack, and yet they are sexy and pleasing to their men. Play to what you perceive as her perception of her strengths.
Tell her you want to have her as your lover, because you know she has a lot of love to give. Cock your head on one side and say please, but don't demand an immediate answer. Take her out to dinner and let her stew in her own juices. Make conversation on general topics, nothing emotionally challenging.
Chances are she will go home that night and lie in her cot imagining what it would be like to be your lover, and if this thought does not make her spew up the dinner you fed her with, then chances are you are quids in and she will come back to you and say "OK big boy, when do we start?". Or at least come back with some kind of counterproposal like "but I don't want a baby". At this point you can display your Homo Sapiens level of contraception and nonpenetrative sexual techniques and offer to provide her with a practical demonstration.
Tell her it won't hurt and that you will be very gentle with her. Soon you will have her eating out of your hand.
Then, maybe, a kiss might be in order, but just a very light touch of the lips to start with. No sticking your chew-tobacco stained tongue in her mouth or probing her private parts with your big, ugly, fingers with dirty, jagged nails.
Remember why Homo Sapiens outsurvived Mr. Neandertal. He used his head.
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Hocus pocus?
[Read the article: Can "Harry Potter" math save our schools?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sounds like that school had an annus mirabilis.
Not only is Pottermania helping in Math, but Rowling has single handedly resurrected the Latin language, years after even its main proponent, the Catholic church finally dropped it, and has supposedly done more for reading than anyone since Gutenberg.
Isn't it time for a Nobel laureate? Or at least an appearance on Oprah?
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Ofsted
[Read the article: Can "Harry Potter" math save our schools?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Office for Standards in Education, if anyone wants to know.