Letters to the Editor
Malusinka
Published Letters: 350 Editor's Choice: 49
-
Low Tech Shopping Lists
[Read the article: Brave new grocery shopping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not going to type up my grocery list. What drugs are they on? I bet the thing is a failure.
I've long thought grocery stores should have shopping lists by aisle. Paper ones that I can put on my fridge and put a nice low tech tick mark on when I need to buy something. Having the grocery store organize this by aisle means it will make my shopping faster.
I'd even download the lists from a website. Development time for the store? A few hours. Increase in customer loyalty? High. After all, if you take your list to the wrong store, the list is not by aisle. And yeah, they can stick in advertising, as long as the list doesn't become too cumbersome. (It needs to have, say, pickles, but not Vlasic Extra Dill Kosher Pickles, Vlasic Extra Dill unkosher, Vlasic medium Dill etc taking up 75 pages.)
BTW, I admire American supermarkets, especially the cereal aisle. They are monuments to consumerism. Not even England has anything close. The ingenuity embodied in so many permutations of grain, sugar and food coloring! I always tour the cereal aisle when I'm in a grocery store in the States. (But I know better than to actually try most of the amazing offerings)
-
Personal
[Read the article: Breast cancer testing for minors? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It seems to me that the decision to test women for breast cancer young is personal. I have always assumed I'd get it (but post-menopausal, which is not the BRCA genes) because my maternal grandmother, my maternal grandmother's only sister, both got it. Then my mother did.
Kids watching family members suffer from a disease are going to draw their own conclusions. And they might just win the lottery. Finding out they don't have the gene would be a big relief and finding out that they do, perhaps not such a big surprise.
How can experts know what an individual kid is thinking, fearing?
-
Oh yes, let's have a bible-run country
[Read the article: Holy Constitution!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let's start by putting the emphasis on the 10 commandments:
First we need a radical overhaul of the law based on the 10 commandments:
1 Worship only God, no one but God
2 Don't make or worship graven images
3 Don't take God's name in vain.
4 Keep the Sabbath day holy
One through four. The most important precepts. That's of course what we should focus on. And of course, the bible helpfully tell us how to implement this new focus:
Deuteronomy 13:6 -- If you hear in one of your cities that some people have enticed the inhabitants of the city to serve other gods, if you find it to be true, you shall put the inhabitants of the city to the sword and destroy it utterly.
I guess that means the end of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Oh, well. God's work is God's work.
So, rooting out heresy is the number one focus. The next focus of the ten commandments tell us how to run our fellow citizens' lives:
5 Honor thy mother and father.
7 Don't commit adultery
9 You shall not bear false witness
10 Don't covet your neighbors wife or possessions
I'd really like a job with the thought police rooting out criminals like Jimmy Carter who have lusted in their hearts.
Last, and obviously least, deals with some of the stuff of US law:
6 You shall not commit murder
8 You shall not steal
Yep, I'll be voting for the Huckster!
-
Just a question.
[Read the article: The economics of prostitution]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If prostitution is made legal, will those helping (booting) welfare moms off the welfare rolls point out the availability of these legal jobs to the young welfare moms who have no skills and have dropped out of school?
-
Ancient India had polygamy, didn't it?
[Read the article: The economics of prostitution]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In polygamous societies, the rich have multiple wives and the poor are not always guaranteed one. To preserve the social order and deal with the men who have no ability to acquire marital sex, the society needs prostitutes.
So, one could argue that ancient India's legalization of prostitution is a cynical move on the part of the elite, which allowed them to monopolize the country's women at the expense of poorer men.
Not exactly a society I'd like to emulate.
-
Anonymous, most 1st world countries must be 'Puritan-founded'
[Read the article: The economics of prostitution]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Because I haven't seen many first world countries where prostitution is legal. Please name them (other than the Netherlands). I guess the US counts as a country where prostitution is legal, as it is in some counties of Nevada, isn't it?
That makes two. Please let me know all the many others.
-
Facts about taxes paid
[Read the article: Did somebody say "recession"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Check out the IRS data. In 2000 (before the Bush tax cuts) the richest 5% of earned 35% of the income earned and paid 56% percent of income taxes paid. In 2005, the richest 5% earned 36% of income earned and paid 60% of taxes paid.
The richest 1% earned 21% of income earned in 2000 and 21% in 2005. However, in 2005, their percentage of total taxes paid jumped two percentage points.
My family probably counts as rich and I sure as hell didn't see my tax bill drop with Bush's cuts.
So, I'm having trouble understanding the conventional wisdom that the tax cuts helped the rich at the expense of the poor.
And the corollary that repealing them will help the middle class and poor.