Letters to the Editor
AKA Smith
Published Letters: 4572 Editor's Choice: 83
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Cosmic Mojo
[Read the article: Unstable starlets and little-girl voices]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you want to talk about the part of SW that used to belong to Mexico, then it includes Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah -- you get the picture.
However, most Texans don't really think about themselves as being any particular part of the US other than just Texas. Texas used to be a nation. Everytime some people here get really upset about the goings-on in Washington, they talk about succession, pointing out that we have a national constitution and system of government already at hand. However, some of those folks are weird. By their rhetoric, they make the Oklahoma City bombers look liberal.
To make it even more confusing, West Texas is not the western half but that pointy westward tip. The panhandle -- the northern-most part is not North Texas. That would be closer to the Dallas-Fort Worth-Denton area. Sometimes even I get confused.
I just know that no one here makes fun of my accent -- although no one can quite place it. When I lived elsewhere, men loved my accent. Women? Not so much.
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Employers rarely want to accomodate anyone.
[Read the article: Pump it]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you are a rainmaker in a powerful law firm and have your own office, you can pump away. If you are a valued employee who has put in a few years at the office, you may be accomodated.
As someone who has worked in the field of disability, I can tell you that employers hate to make accomodations even if not doing so violates the law. In fact, if they are able to determine during the interview process that a person has a disability, employers will generally not hire that person. That is why I always advised consumers/clients with hidden disabilities not to disclose a disability until they discern that they have a need to request an accomodation.
Employers discriminate. Does that mean we should repeal the ADA? I don't think so.
Employees with disabilities often need their co-workers to make adjustments. Does that mean we should repeal the ADA? I don't think so.
As to whether or not people's behavior plays a role in disability, I am here to tell you that it often does. Lots of young people become disabled (wholly or partially) due to auto accidents in which they were drinking. The law still covers them when it comes to discrimination and accomodation.
Many children are born with fetal alcohol syndrome because their mothers drank. The law still covers their needs.
If it were determined that there was an element of choice in homosexual behavior, should discrimination against gay and lesbian people be against the law even so? I think it should be.
Many employers often love to discriminate. (Maybe there are some would love the right to fire Salonistas for some of the things they post at Salon.) Many employers love to control all aspects of their employees behavior during working hours. Sometimes they even like to control employees behavior beyond working hours. If employers were eager to allow women to pump breast milk for the benefit of their children, no law would necessary.
The law proposed would most benefit working class women and those who work as administrative assistants in offices. In other words, those women whose bosses view them as easily replaceable. Those women would then enjoy the same benefits as CEOs, professional women, and others who can make the choice to pump.
The workplace would then adjust because the LAW would say it has to.
It wasn't so long ago that employers could legally ask a woman if she was married, how many children she had, whether or not she planned to have children, and even whether or not she was on birth control. Not surprisingly, some employers still ask those sorts of questions, even in violation of the law.
Changes are never easy for any culture/society. Is that a reason to make no changes? Why stop?
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KStone,
[Read the article: Pump it]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are you referring to babies as being a "special class" of people? The mothers might get the privacy and a clean room to pump in (restrooms are not clean), but is ultimately the babies who will get the benefit. It is odd that you think of all babies as a special class. Are there other groups who you think get special benefits? Homosexuals, for instance?
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Good points, Sean2006,
[Read the article: Unstable starlets and little-girl voices]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I didn't know the information you posted. We tend to think it is the British that use accent to distinguish class. In the good old USA, we like to forget we actually have "classes" and to pretend that anyone can move from dirt poor to filthy rich by dint of hard work.
It is really funny/sad to me to see how the lower classes ape the upper classes and usually get it wrong. It is all for naught because what really determines power in the US is not class but money.
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Thank God for Helen Thomas!
[Read the article: Face of a psychopath]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I actually got tears in my eyes reading her exchange with Snow. However, I wondered if it is really possible for a person with a conscience to have a real conversation with a person with no conscience.
I wish we could clone Helen.