Letters to the Editor

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Lestat1

Published Letters: 462     Editor's Choice: 21

  • I think it makes sense

    [Read the article: Why Google only tells you what you already know]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    Any why so many people make lousy scientists.

    It's truly hard to change your mind once you already have formed an opinion. I can't recall where I heard it but it went something like someone is more likely to forgive you for being wrong than being right.

    It's why those of us who hate your fiance, won't tell you we hate your fiance, so that when the marriage goes kablooey, they'll come to you instead of hide from you to hear the inevitable I told you so.

    People hate, hate, hate being wrong.

    Plus i've seen it happen here on the postings in Broadsheet, say with teen pregnancy. Some people are convinced there is more of it now than say in the 50's. Then when you point them to proof that there was actually more in the 50's than today, out comes the slew of but this, but that, that can't be right because of this and that.

    So I think in this internet age, when so much information is available to support whatever your point of view, critical thinking skills would probably the most valuable skill we could ever teach our youth.

  • Not to say that your does not suffer from OCD and BDD

    [Read the article: How looks can kill]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    His drawings are quite accurate and the thing that always struck us in watching him put pencil to paper when drawing a face was that he would put in the details (eyes, nose, mouth, etc) and then surround them with the shape of the head. This is the opposite way most artists would construct a drawing, yet everything in his work fit together perfectly.

    Most artists? Ha, I've been in art classes my entire life, from 5 years old and on. Until you take formal training, almost everyone who's teaching themself to draw, draws the eyes, nose, mouth, then fits the head around it. It's the formal training that teaches you to draw the shape of the head, then about halfway down put the eyes, nose and mouth. I still don't do it the "correct" way. I just don't like it.

    I do not have any aspect of BDD, I'm very detail oriented, have a photographic memory and much more observant than most of my peers, as in I used to like to play pretend Sherlock Holmes. His artistic talent is wholly seperate from his disorders, though his natural ability to see details that most people ignore may contribute to the harshness of his BDD.

  • I looked at the paintings

    [Read the article: The veil meets American pinup art]
    [Read more letters about this article: Here]

    I'm not quite sure what I think of them. Are they meant to be humorous? Due to the technique, the subjects are rather flat and seem more cartoonish than the fleshy reality of women, or even in the ability to mimic the pin up art of the late 20's. Plus, some of the poses are stiffer than the images they are representing. So that may harm the artists vision of intent, that perhaps each treatment of women, covering them completely or having them half naked is something that women have to struggle with and why do they struggle with it. Is either version correct, is either version wrong? I couldn't take them as serious as I think the artist wants you too, unless he wanted them to be sort of lighthearted.

    I'm not sure it's all misogny against women. I think the burqua is more restrictive, because I believe it reduces men and women to nothing more than walking talking genitalia. Oh no men cannot cope seeing a woman in a normative state, he's helpless to his penis. Or that a woman's body in and of itself is sinful and must be covered.

    Though the walking around half naked, also serves the same sort of purpose. I know you get horny peeps, here's my boobs, here's my butt, here's my legs get turned on when you see me, I want you to be reduced to your genitalia. I belive the difference lies in that I don't have to wear mini skirts and high heels. I can just wear jeans and t-shirts. Women in the west have a large variety of clothing they can choose to wear to express themselves. I can be a sexy siren one day and a dowdy makeup free the next. It seems as though the burqua and whatever the fundamentalist men wear are called, are bland nearly identical clothing. It's like they are awash in a sea of the same.

    Now we are always focused on the burqua because it also covers the face and hair. But I have been noticing that fundementalist males can be just as covered as a woman. Baggy linen pants, a long baggy linen shirt. A beard and wearing whatever their little knitted hat is called. They show slightly more skin than a woman, but not much.

    So I just think it's a difference between some cultures remaining in the sex is wrong, sex is bad, you should never ever be horny except when you are married and the flip of sex is good, sex is fun, who cares if you get a little horny looking at someone as long as you keep your hands to yourself.

    Women and men are almost always going to be sexual objects to one another until you know them personally. When I see a strange man half naked and I think damn, yummy, like in that David Beckham spread am I really objectifying him? Am I being misandrist? Or am I just a healthy young woman who likes having sex?

    I just don't know if women in the west are required to wear skimpy clothing or if plenty of women, some whom I know, enjoy wearing sexy clothes to be noticed?