Letters to the Editor
Malusinka
Published Letters: 350 Editor's Choice: 49
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Be Glad you can blame in on senility
[Read the article: I think my dad's too old to vote]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My father's in his 80s. His mental agility is great. I hate the choices he makes, but he can defend them with clear, reasoned arguments.
My brother has autism. He votes in every election. He makes choices I approve of (he votes a straight Democratic ticket) but I'm pretty sure if he could articulate his thought processes, I wouldn't think they were clear or well reasoned.
In the end, the two balance each other out.
That's democracy. As Churchill once said, it's the worst form of government except for every other form.
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The difference between 20 and 30
[Read the article: I quit being a musician because I couldn't play without drinking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is that at 20, the world is full of possibilities. You'll be the next Mick Jagger or Leonard Bernstein. You'll be president, olympic gold medalist, etc.
The fact is that most people aren't. Realizing that is part of growing up. You have to learn to feel satisfaction in being good, not best. And to realize that a lot of public recognition for being the 'best' is luck and marketing, not skill.
Decide if you want to be a starving musician or have a different career and a great music hobby.
Let go of your need to have someone else prove to you that you're the best and enjoy who you are.
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Infanticide
[Read the article: Indians prefer boys]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Infanticide was practiced in most cultures. In many cultures there is a naming rite (like Baptism) a week or two after birth. That's when the baby is accepted into the community. Before then, killing it doesn't count as killing a person.
Christians had foundling hospitals, which had astronomical death rates. (Usually well over 50% and sometimes close to 90%). That these hospitals were death traps was well known. Leaving an unwanted baby at one was little more than infanticide.
But killing a child you've accepted and named, like Andrea Yeager did, has always horrified all societies,even ones that still practice infanticide.
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Why call them Boobs?
[Read the article: Shocker: Angela Merkel has boobs!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Boob is a disrespectful sounding word that also means jerk or idiot.
Breast is the normal word.
And furthermore, I suspect the vantage point of the photo greatly enhanced the perception of the extent to which Merkel's neckline plunged.
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No common ground is going to be found
[Read the article: Anti-abortion, pro-Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]By people who assume that the other side is characterized by the most extreme positions it contains.
Polls have shown that the majority of Americans want safe, legal and rare abortions. There are, of course arguments on the details. Few people think that women should have the right to kill a near full-term baby in utero and extract the pieces as part of a right to choose.
Few people like the idea of a raped woman forced to bear an unwanted child when a promptly taken pill would induce her period if it was a week late.
What Obama has shown is an ability to see the nuances beyond the entrenched positions, as opposed to tarring all pro-life supporters as abortion-clinic bombers who believe that ignorant teenagers will remain virgins until someone tells them about the birds and bees on their wedding night.
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Penis and Poopness
[Read the article: The birds, the bees, the sperm donors...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When My daughter was 3, she was envious of her baby brother's penis. Not only did she come to some terms with it: He has a pee-ness, but we both have a poop-ness (the place where poop comes out), but she wanted to know why he had something she didn't have.
I pointed out that she has parts he doesn't have. I named ovaries, fallopian tubes, Uterus, vagina, vulva. She showed no interest in what these were, she just snatched the last-named term and told the oblivious baby: 'Ha-ha, I have a vulva and you don't!'
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Mack
[Read the article: Obama and Clinton fizzle in Philly]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The deficit has ballooned since the Clinton era because? Bush's tax cuts? Or maybe it's war in Iraq? Fact, since the Clinton years, the top 5% of income earners are paying a LARGER percentage of tax than before. Fact: The war in Iraq has cost the US Gov't the five hundred billion dollars so far.
Further, inflation (which I hate) would solve a lot of problems. It will lower the real value of debt and housing, helping to relieve the mortgage crisis. Dollar devaluation (another thing I can't stand) will make American products more competitive and discourage imports all without ending free trade agreements.
I predict inflation in our future.
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Taxes (Mack)
[Read the article: Obama and Clinton fizzle in Philly]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The rich now pay a higher percentage of total taxes paid relative to total income than they did in the past.
This matters more than the percentage paid on declared income. Why? Because the rich have much more leeway to choose between keeping wealth as assets and declaring it as income. When taxes are high they avoid declaring taxable income and pay less tax.
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Is this a joke?
[Read the article: George Bush and the Neanderthals]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Or an article?