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Oresta

Published Letters: 170
Editor's Choice: 6

Thursday, November 19, 2009 07:02 AM

Please Fix "Continue Reading" Link

It's still not working!

Sunday, November 15, 2009 06:50 PM

Jaysus, this Crap Is Still Going On?

I'm 76. Having three daughters born in the 50s and early 60s, I thought by now all that silliness about gender preference was post-feminist over. Evidently its vestiges are still out there.

After our first two daughters were born, we were frequently urged to "try for a boy". When the family doctor since my childhood delivered our third daughter, the disappointment in his voice was palpable as he told me - immediately upon deliverly - "it's a girl".

Aaron, sons are not clones of you. Whether or not you have a one, you're still here only once. You don't get a vicarious second chance through a boy- child living for you all over again. Nor do daughters for their mothers.

Oh, and "sea change" doesn't come from motivational speakers. It comes from Shakespeare. Look it up.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 05:01 PM
Original article: Dobbs quits CNN

I Lost My Post Prandial Drink in the Keyboard

“Some leaders in the media, politics and business have been urging me to go beyond my role here at CNN and engage in constructive problem-solving,”

I haven't laughed this hard since I

listened to Fred Allen on radio.

So is this fool admitting that his zenophobic schtik wasn't "constructive"?

Monday, November 9, 2009 11:28 AM

Two Realisitic, a Third no so

A donor boycott for the the first two demands is a powerful strategy for a realistic goal, but the demand to kill the DMA is asking for results the Democrat Party - even if it were willing to go there, which it isn't - is undeliverable; not enough Americans are there yet, given the initiative outcomes in California and Maine.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 08:47 AM

PATRIOT Vote Nitpick

"The USA PATRIOT ACT was over 300 pages long, and Congress voted to approve it the day after it was submitted, without reading it. They voted "yes," save one."

Actually, it was only in the Seanate there was only a single no Feingild - may his tribe increase). In the House, there were 66 noes.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 08:22 AM

Funny Name?

Scozzafava translates lterally as "Scottish bean".

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 08:12 AM

Ayn's Salon

From the cited Bloomberg review:

Branden and his wife, Barbara, became Rand and O’Connor’s best friends when they all moved to New York in the early 1950s. The younger couple was part of the inner circle, known as the Collective, that gathered at Rand’s New York apartment on Saturday nights. Alan Greenspan was also a member in good standing.

Sometime in the late 50s, a friend of mine was visiting New York. He saw a notice in the paper for an oppotunity to meet with Ayn at the apartment. Since the meeting was open to the public he went. My friend recounted to me that a young women there commented to Ayn that in one one of her novels (Fountainhead?)a woman subsequently falls in love with a man who, upon first meeting her, rapes her. "Who," asked the young woman rhetorically, "possibly would want to be raped?"

"I would," said AYN.

Thursday, October 15, 2009 04:25 PM
Original article: The boy and the balloon

Shades of O.J.

... being driven up and down the expressway for (how long was it? 35 minutes? 45?) with the TV cameras unblinkingly on, and much of America watching, watching, watching...

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 06:54 PM

Rrewritten last paragragh. Geeze!

Though I never waited tables, Steinem's series of articles on her experience had a profound influence on me.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 06:48 PM

Yo, Bernbart

I am so with you on this. I remember my winters of discontent at home with a couple of lovely pre-school children, while moss was growing on my frontal lobes, living in an intellectually sterile suburban social mileau.

Though I forget the magazine I was getting at the time, I'll never forget the profound effect the article by some Smith(?) graduate, who went underground to do an investigative report on the demeaning state of Playboys waitresses, had on me. Thoujg never having even wited tabls in a neighborhod bar, the deeper message in her series resonated with me.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 11:48 AM

@arsene

"MAD MEN DOES NOT IN ANY WAY DEPICT THE 1960s"

arsene, how old are you? I'm 76 and that is pretty much what I experienced in my early years as a professional woman from the mid- 50s to the mid-60s. MM has got the gender relationships exactly right from the boorish behavior the secretaries endured, to the Ob-Gyn doctor's behavior toward his patient Peggy, to the psychiatrist's unprofessional treatment of Beth in discussing her case with her husband as if she were a minor.

In that decade, I lived through the pre- and post- Feminine Mystique years. I can relate to the MM women who are just beginning to get intimations of "getting it".

(Full discosure: I've come late to the MM series via Netflix and have seen only seasons 1-3. I'm looking forward to watching Episode 1 of Season Four tonight.))

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 01:39 PM

Oops!

Make that "ethnic", not "ethic".

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 01:38 PM

Today, in classrooms all over America,

eyes were crawling the ceilings and staring out windows, while hands were fidgiting with supplies, text-messaging under desks, poking the nearest classmate, etc.

Nothing, absoluting nothing, is so boring to kids across the entire socio-economic-ethic spectrum than adults - any adults -exhorting them to study hard and do well in school.

What a tempest in a demi tasse.

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