Letters to the Editor
Geenius at Wrok
Published Letters: 98 Editor's Choice: 9
-
McCain
[Read the article: GOP product launch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Will people please stop referring to McCain as a "maverick"? Dig up his speech from this event at the NY Times: '“Anybody who says the president of the United States is lying about weapons of mass destruction is lying,” Mr. McCain said.' He's just another GOP sleazebag/toady who can't even adhere to his own campaign finance 'reform' law.
-
keep pushing my buttons
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The incessant blare of CNN followed by the endless blasting of "special security announcements" which ceased to be special the day after they started is a hazard. Screaming kids? Eh, that's what they do. You can bitch about it, I guess, but kids don't have a volume control unlike the CNN monitors and the garbly PA systems.
Look, most airports suck. DTW is pretty nice if you're on a Skyteam flight (and God help you if you're not). EWR ain't bad, unless you have to connect between terminals. AMS is a nice place to idle while waiting the inevitable five hours between arrival from the US and the onward KLM connection. AMS is also pretty damned quiet compared to US airports.
But that's about it. Oh and free advice: never, ever take a connection at LHR that involves changing terminals, unless you have at least three hours between flights. What a disaster.
-
Nothing new here...
[Read the article: Immigration nation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Unfortunately, too many of them seem hell-bent on recreating the tradition of Mexican anarchy within my nation’s borders.
What did you do, besides having been born here, to claim "my nation?" Anyone with means and motive could settle in what is now the US up until maybe 150 years ago. Did the settlers from Europe get permission and visas from the Natives?
My maternal ancestors were "illegal" immigrants from France about 250 years ago. My paternal ones, Polish Jews, came here in 1905 back when it wasn't a Sisyphean task to obtain the necessary papers. Poles, especially Jews, weren't exactly welcome then. Guess where they went? Jewish ghettoes. It didn't matter that they were Poles and the rest might not have been because everyone spoke Yiddish. There's a parallel to Latin American immigrants: everyone speaks Spanish, except the Brazilians. Maybe that's why there's Brazilian neighborhoods in some cities, but you won't find many Little Tegucilgalpas.
This is "F*ck you, I got mine" hypocrisy. You're here, or you immigrated the "right" way, so now nobody else can come in? Disgusting.
Immigrants legal and not are this year's political piñata. It was us queers in 2004. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. In 2008 some other unlucky population will be "it."
"Mexicans" are the least of this country's problems. Illegal/undocumented workers built the latest housing boom; they slaughter your cows and chickens, pick your lettuce, etc., and because their masters are bigwigs who keep filling the campaign coffers, no politician is going to do squat other than bloviate and fart loudly near election time.
These aren't jobs "Americans won't do" because it's hard, dirty, dangerous work, they're jobs "Americans won't do" (a phrase is fraught with racist, jingoistic themes) because nobody else is willing to do these jobs for the sub-minimum wages they pay. Crack down on "real Americans" who exploit immigrant labor, not on an illiterate peasant from Oaxaca with an extended family to support.
The urge to improve one's life is human nature. Borders and visas are artificial constructs; the desire to lead a better life is innate. All the former do is increase the urgency and determination of the latter. I say throw both borders wide open. Past the initial inrush from the south, half will leave within a year once they realize life in El Norte is as hard and cruel as it is at home, only it's colder, and the Canadians probably aren't interested.
-
inevitable
[Read the article: China sticks it to The Man?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're shocked! shocked! that some media mouthpiece trumps profits over workers' rights? where have you been for the past 50 years?
OK, I'm just being mean.
So what are we going to do about it? boycotting cheap crap from China only hurts the Chinese, since the peripatetic factory owners will pull up stakes in a minute for, oh, Laos or Bangladesh, anywhere else that's cheaper with worker-hostile and bribe-receptive governments.
I have long maintained that the last great sweatshop nations will be those of coastal Africa, once the rest of the third world gets tired of being brutalized so Wal-Mart goobers can save two cents on underpants and the share price remains propped up.
-
not quite
[Read the article: Big love]
[Read more letters about this article: Here](Incidentally, there are many homosexuals who dig fat people, too. Look up "bears").
yeah, as long as you fit the bear stereotype of a fat hairy dude with a beard who'd have a huge build even if he wasn't fat. if I hear one refer to his partner as "husbear" just ONE MORE TIME I'm going to go Tasmanian-devil on his big dimply ass.
If you're just averagely-plump, short, and non-hirsute, well, they want nothing to do with you, and neither do the gym-bots. bears are generally as shallow as any other sub-genera of homosexual. I'll stick with thoroughly-average queers, thanks.