Letters to the Editor
Godmonkey
Published Letters: 161 Editor's Choice: 3
-
I understand
[Read the article: The science of strippers' tips]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]feminists' aversion to evolutionary psychology, since it can easily be marshalled to reinforce invidious sexist stereotypes. The reason for that is that it's essentially all a bunch of conjecture and pontification. We can't know the conditions and evolutionary responses that have led to our behaviors.
But still, our behavior is largely determined by our primate background. Like it or lump it, people. To suggest otherwise is, in a sense, to cast your lot with the fundies, frankly. We are animals. It may make you feel special to believe you're born an absolute blank slate with 100% behavioral free will. It makes other people feel special that they're god's chosen people, or that they are attractive and creative because their moon is in Scorpio. These beliefs are all bullshit to prop up people's egos and make them feel they are something else than shitting, copulating, ovulating beasts with highly developed frontal lobes and a surfeit of cortical tissue.
That said, we do have the free will to attempt to be better people -- and the obligation to do so. Furthermore, this study is absurd. Where was it reported, in between Tips from Heloise and Playing Bridge With What's-His-Face?
-
Silenced,
[Read the article: The science of strippers' tips]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You look so cute when you're flinging excrement. Menstruating, some?
-
Handlebar,
[Read the article: The science of strippers' tips]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You've got it precisely right. We're bedeviled, rather than buoyed, by our animal nature. (Those of us here who admiot to being mammals, that is.)
-
The dumb-ass
[Read the article: Maybe the "wide stance" was a better argument]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]should have pled "no contest" (unless no such plea exists in MN). Then he would at least have a little room to, um, tap-dance.
-
Connections with James Burke
[Read the article: I'm cheating on my husband and loving it. Is that a problem?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]just as it would be impossible for someone who espoused integration to get elected in Mississippi in the 1950s, it would be (at best) extremely hard for someone in this society to say they didn't want to be monogamous and find someone willing to have a lifelong relationship with them.
That's actually a very good point. The only thing I would add is that the science of astronomy -- particularly as practiced on the Italian peninsula -- bears a profound connection to powerful tobacco lobbyists and to the Federal Reserve.
Just as it would be impossible for somebody in 1311 who thought the Earth revolved around the sun to become a priest, it would be exctremely hard for a person today to stride into a 7-11 and get a pack of cigareettes without payng for them.
-
Brightstar
[Read the article: I'm cheating on my husband and loving it. Is that a problem?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's no way to impugn your candor. Sounds like you're honest with yourself and make no bones with others, either. Wow. That must suck.
-
Wish I had that problem
[Read the article: My daughter has ADD and we need more space!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would never minimize the difficulties of raising an ADD child, and I applaud you. But frankly, the "problem" of whether to move into a larger house, an option you can readily afford, or stay where you are, in a house you're fond of, is one that most people would kill to have. Myself included. Cary's advice seems sound broadly spreaking, whether or not a treehouse is practical in your locale. A detached garage structure with an attached "studio" would work in any climate, provided there's a backyard.
What you need to do right away is carve out some time to yourselves away from the kids. Get a babysitter and take a parents' night out once a week. You deserve it, and your kids deserve parents who aren't harried.
-
Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Be Such a Tool That You Don't Even Know You Are One
[Read the article: Why are Bluetooth headsets so lame?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Early adopters (of BT; of cellphones 15 yrs ago) just so happen to be precisely the people with the greatest proclivity to speak pompously -- seemingly for the benefit of us other poor schlubs on the bus, at the sandwich joint, in the beer aisle. They seem to feel it their duty to model the ten conversational habits of highly successful people.
They are annoying in much the same way that the nouveau riche are annoying. And, similarly, they're always talking about money.
-
The desire to remain childless
[Read the article: And baby makes two]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]is indicative of narcissism.
As is the desire to have children. Here we are: ancient bloody brutal bastards in a horde.
-
Vegans who drive personal vehicles
[Read the article: Earth to PETA]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]can shut their self-righteous yaps about global warming. I can easily afford a car, but choose not to own one -- and I live in Dallas, which is about as car-centric as you can get. In short, I deliberately inconvenience myself for the sake of the environment. I sometimes wish I had a car, especially when it rains (as it did this morning), but still I don't buy one! By contrast, I wonder how many vegans really crave cheeseburgers on a regular basis. They all seem to think meat is gross, so it's not exactly a moral triumph that they abstain from it.
Man, all this talk about cheeseburgers has got me hungry. Lunchtime!
-
I went out once
[Read the article: My wife thinks I'm cheating on her -- but I'm not!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]with a jealous freak like that -- for four years, in fact, living together for one-and-a-half, a substantial relationship by most measures. There was a period of a year in there where the relationship was long-distance, which was when her jealousy hit its apogee -- damn near everything was suspect, it seemed.
Like the LW, I was not cheating on her. But years later, I found out that she had cheated on me, more than once, during that long-distance period. Ha!
Your mileage may vary. I'm just sayin'.
-
Matt Prescott,
[Read the article: Earth to PETA]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do you or do you not, sir, own a car or fly in commercial airplanes?
And do you or do you not ever miss the flavor of meat? Or is it something you never liked much in the first place?
Do you or do you not think that global cessation of meat production is a feasible goal worthy of your energies? Would you be willing to engage that industry and challenge it to make positive, environment-friendly changes in the ways it gets its much-demanded product to market, or do you "not negotiate with evil"?
You guys need to hire a couple of Hare Krishnas in your PR Department. They manage to make vegetarianism look cool and enlightened. PETA makes it look like a series of tired rants animated by sophomoric anger and self-righteous hypocricy.
-
Anonymous
[Read the article: What the Republican Revolution has wrought]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nobody here owes you a resume of their credentials. Shoo now. I think I hear your cousin callin'.