Letters to the Editor
Herself
Published Letters: 182 Editor's Choice: 17
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The Real Solution
[Read the article: Bamboo shoots and trees]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Buy less stuff. Move into a house that looks OK to start with instead of scraping it. Ask yourself how much clothing you need. Stop shopping as a form of entertainment. When you are walking or driving along the street, look at all the stray pieces of clothing that are cast into the gutters as garbage. I don't suggest you pick it up, but dollars to donuts, the clothing is probably in good condition (after a washing). The problem is that people shop for entertainment, are wasteful about clothing (because slave labor has made it so cheap), and don't want to live with a house they have moved into - they have to scent mark it so it is "theirs")
Do that, and you will do more for the environment than selecting "green" products you probably don't need in the first place.
Oh, yeah, and the less an object looks like fiber, the more work and chemicals will have to go into turning it into fiber. Sheep wool, easy. Rayon, not easy.
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Needing an editor
[Read the article: After years of being meek, I'm suddenly screaming at people!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I grew up being verbally belittled by my family and then kicked around the schoolyard as a kid. My family continued to belittle me, but I got less invested in being "nice".
When I was 13, I met a brassy girl who got on my last nerve. I pushed her out of the chair. When she hit the floor, she said, "Its about DAMN time!" From her, I learned how to use words to defend myself. We're still friends 35 years later.
One thing I have noticed about people from my background as well as the LWs background is that sometimes that liberating anger is a re-creation of the abuse they recieved. Be very very careful about how you assert yourself, especially when and if you have children. Don't do it to them, otherwise you are perpetuating a cycle.
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Get a room
[Read the article: I peed at my desk in third grade and now I'm afraid to sing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Tell her there are really nice antianxiety medications that can help and spare us the incoherent riffs.
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That Was Loopy
[Read the article: My boss wants me to apologize to his wife]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's right up there with the employee who gave a really bad first-effort class and blamed one of the engineers who gave her a bad review for the class not going well.
Send email to the guy saying that you have nothing to apologize for, you were just friends, and that he needs to clean his own house. Bring a date to the networking event. Make sure he's cute.
Oh, and don't get involved with people at work anymore. Bad idea.
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Let the kids police themselves
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I was a teenager, we hugged each other all the time. If someone grabbed my titty, I belted him. Problem solved.
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Situational Friendships
[Read the article: My neighbor is having coffee with somebody new]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People wind up having relationships with the folks they see daily. People have "work friends" and "tot lot friends" and neighbors they have coffee with. Once the situation changes, like a new job or Junior going off to school or schedules changing, those relationships often change. Having those true lifelong friendships come out of it is a lot like dating. You meet lots of people, but if you want it to last, you and the other person need to make the effort to sustain it in light of other changes in context.
That said, I totally understand feeling hurt. Maybe if you really like this neighbor, you can have happy hour when you get home from work. That'd give you a context to keep the regular contact going.
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Banana peels?
[Read the article: Smoke this!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I was in kindergarten, I heard that hippies were scraping, drying and smoking banana peels. My monther, who was quite the Drama Llama, rushed us kids off to the doctor to have him talk to us about smoking banana peels. (Why a five and seven year old would smoke banana peels was beyond me). He told us that he and his teenaged daughter spent an evening trying it and it didn't work.
I would dearly love to see how the overprotective and litigation-phobic school administrators and parents are going to handle this. Will kids be issued butt plugs so they cannot defecate while at school? Will guards be posted in each lavatory to make sure the kids come out empty handed? Will children who defecate during school time be suspended, like that wacky and out of control girl who chastely hugged her friends on a Friday? One detention for Number One and two detentions for Number Two!
The real solution is to let the kids have access to beer and pot. We already know how that stuff works and we can share ours with them.
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Lots of Industrial Strength Idiots On The Internet
[Read the article: Think you're anonymous? Watch out.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have been on the internet for a very long time, now. I have had people offer to do unspeakable things to me, to my livestock, to my possessions and to relatives I don't have. I've been insulted and villified and harassed.
What I do is to remove all of my material from that venue and not log into it anymore. Period.
There are lots of other online venues and there is Real Life. Even though I have lots of links on linkedin.com, I suspect if I need a job, I will be talking to people I know personally. Even though I have tried dating sites, I find myself dating people in my social circle, not strangers from online.
I am sad that these women are shit magnets right now. That's a problem with being a young woman. Lots of masturbators get off on harassing them. But, they can save themselves a lot of time and grief by realizing that this is a small section of a large internet and they don't need that, or even the internet, to have successful careers and friendships in the future.
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Actually...
[Read the article: Opus]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There was a penguin at the Audubon Aquarium named Patience, who lived for 25 years. So, let's just say Opus is more like 36, assuming he's a blackfooted penguin.