Letters to the Editor
dawdler
Published Letters: 101 Editor's Choice: 11
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"Passion" is now equivalent to "very interested"
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have said "passion" means "ardent love" or something like that.
But now it appears to mean "very interested".
These days, you can't get through a job interview without being asked "what are you passionate about?" Which really means "do you have any hobbies?"
I think job interviewers and corporate america in general likes to use "passion" as a synonym for "intenstly interested" because it sounds a bit weird to ask "what are you zealous about?"
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Galael - Not Quite
[Read the article: Oh, horrors: Childless marriages, unwed cohabitation!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree that the "selfish" accusation by the other LW was totally baseless.
But some of your statements are a bit misguided.
I will continue to help put YOUR children through school until I die
Wrong - they're OUR children. Unless you plan to ship all children to another country, we're all screwed if they turn out bad. They'll f__k up the whole country unless they're educated properly (which is arguably not happening anyway, but...)
I would definitely agree that not everybody should have kids or feel obligated to have kids, because we don't want too many kids. Kids are a choice like everything else and we're all free to make choices as we see fit. And yeah, we get a deduction for the kids - but there are plenty of deductions out there - buy a house and you get plenty of deduction.
government programs that benefit me not at all
Not directly, true. But see above.
but every woman needs other "breeders" to replenish the the society that supports you
Although stated in a vulgar way, it's nonetheless true. Each generation funds social security for the last. We're already behind. Frankly, I don't expect to see dime one of my social security. Maybe I'm a half-empty guy - but when I see how our gov't and corporations do their accounting, I don't have a lot of faith that we'll make up the difference before the boomers retire. And if we do, it'll be by taxing the heck out of the current and next generations. I would argue that this is a GREAT argument to LEGALIZE every fricking immigrant in the country forthwith so that they can start funding gov't coffers that the current administration has tapped.
you ungrateful son of a bitch
Can't argue with that... :)
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The Root of All Suffering is Desire
[Read the article: Does self-help breed helplessness?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That is all
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When are we going to get threaded comments?
[Read the article: Katie Roiphe's morning after]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That is all.
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when are we going to get threaded comments?
[Read the article: Mom's a pothead]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that is all
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Empty Inbox doesn't mean the mails are gone
[Read the article: Empty thine in-box]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There seems to be an assumption that if you "empty" your inbox, the emails are deleted.
What about sorting into folders?
The emails are still there, still searchable, categorized, etc.
Your "river" is still there, but your inbox is nice and empty. The inbox is the place to watch stuff as it comes in and deal with it. If it gets too big, you can lose track of stuff that you may not have dealt with yet.
For some people ignoring or not responding to emails is OK. For others, it's not.
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Did the Sisters Get the "Cash" Option? If Not, They Need to OK this "Deal"
[Read the article: Can I have my wedding money now?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's the deal. I think that your parents AND BOTH OF YOUR SISTERS need to bless this deal. If all parties agree that it's fair that you get "your wedding money" now, then I think it's fair.
Were your two older sister explicitly given the option of "taking the money" before they had their weddings? If not, it's very possible that one or both of them would consider the fact that you're getting an OPTION as unfair. After all, there is an intrinsic value to the OPTION itself (as any finance prof will tell you) and if your sisters had known they could get cold, hard cash, they might have taken the damn money too! If your sisters did not get the OPTION, why should you?
If the sisters got the same option, then, by all means, the money is yours. But I'm guessing they didn't. So you need to get their blessing on this little scheme of yours.
And IF everyone approves (which I doubt), I still think it right to subtract the value of the option from the amount that you get. I.e. since you get the option to choose, and (I'm assuming) they didn't, you are getting something of additional value (the option itself) and thus the value of that option should be deducted from the funds that you get.
You all will have to determine the value of the option in this case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-Scholes
(I know, I'm a finance dork)... ;)
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"Outing"?
[Read the article: More bad news for Rudy Giuliani]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This whole thing with Giuliani's daughter is tawdry. Slate's article was simply yellow journalism. The fact that a candidate's teenage daughter supports another candidate means next to nothing. Teenagers rebel and regardless, people have a right to their own opinions.
Further, plastering a 17 year old girl's Facebook profile all over the web is just a bit skeevy.
Finally, Caldwell's article goes beyond just noting the fact that the daughter was in Obama's Facebook group. I'm not a supporter of Giuliani but Caldwell's reporting is just nasty. Reporting the details of a candidate's private family dysfunction serves no journalistic purpose. I would have hoped that we would have learned our lesson after the Clinton witchhunt. Here's a snippet of Caldwell's piece. As you can see, she really covers the important issues of the election...
It's not news that Rudy and his two children, Caroline and her 21-year-old brother Andrew, have a rocky relationship. Caroline and Andrew are the children of Donna Hanover, Rudy's second wife. In March, Andrew, who is a junior at Duke, told the New York Times that he and his father had been estranged for some time, and he has spoken candidly about his objections to Giuliani's marriage to Judith Nathan. And after the wedding, the Times reported, Giuliani also stopped attending Caroline's high-school events. Though he went to her high-school graduation, he left without speaking to her and did not join in the post-graduation family celebration, according to the New York Daily News.