Letters to the Editor
Herself
Published Letters: 182 Editor's Choice: 17
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Wild Moggies
[Read the article: I hate my cat!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I adopted an alley cat from the SPCA. He's a dear cat. He was weaned too early. At 10 weeks, he started to terrorize me. He bit my ankles, he stalked and hunted me, he divebombed me at night. The advice I got (from all people, my shrink!) was "Get another cat."
I did. They spend happy hours sparring and wrestling. My ankles have been unmolested since the second cat's arrival.If you get a kitten, get two. Never get just one.
Once the cats hit about 8 years of age, by the way, they stop being tiny terrors and act like proper housecats.
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Its been a week
[Read the article: The art of snooping]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm still waiting for the punchline.
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No, you don't need to stuff yourself with fish every day.
[Read the article: The end of the line]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are entire cultures who pride themselves on eating endangered animals because it makes the individuals in those cultures feel like kings. It is scarce and expensive and therefore a way to prove that one is affluent. I don't know how we educate them.
Then there are the medical fads du jour. I have spoken to women who shriek about how they absolutely must have omega 3 fatty acids or they will die young, get wrinkles, have stunted children or miscarry. "Daily salmon!", they insist. First of all, that nutrient is available in things like walnuts and flax seed oil. Secondly, there are millions of inland people who are doing just fine without a steady diet of Trader Joe's salmon fillets. I never hear a centenarian talk about getting longevity from salmon fillets. They all seem to have lived a long time by having a daily cigar and a shot of bourbon for 82 of those 100 years.
There are two or three thousand things we humans can eat, and many of those thousands of things are not fish. Pity our focus on the grand trinity of chicken-fish-beef and its handmaidens corn-wheat-carrots has blinded us to the need to preserve the biodiversity that gives us those two or three thousand other things we can eat.
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What about beer?
[Read the article: A protective cover for your cocktail]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The best way to avoid getting dosed with roofies is to order a bottled beer and keep your thumb on the opening of the beer. The second best way is to enjoy cocktails with friends, not with a crowd of brawling frat boys on booty patrol.
It seems a clever idea for girls who are paranoid, don't drink bottled beer, and who don't pick their drinking companions wisely.
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Animals in Movies
[Read the article: "Evan Almighty"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The more I learn about using animals in movies, the more angry I get about the continued use of animals in movies. Some animals train easily, like dogs. Others can be cued, like cats and horses. But then there are the non-domesticated animals, the truly wild ones. They have requirements that Hollywood cannot give them. For example, one may think elephants are cute and tameable, but they are large and dangerous. The way they are trained for movies is to beat the crap out of them with bullhooks and ankuses. It makes my blood boil to just think about it.
With all the CGI technology available, there's no reason to have some of these animals in movies. "Jumanji", for example, had CGI animals. Maybe they don't look as naturalistic as real animals, but we're suspending belief pretty radically to think that Steve Carell is going to fit two of everything on an ark.
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But What About The Kid?
[Read the article: For now, the baby's name is "Baby"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Everything in the articles seems to point to the parents' egos. They want to be seen as au courant, stylish, and edgy, but not to the degree that the kid is going to get regularly pantsed in the schoolyard. In their desire to appear interesting and cultured and educated, they are saddling their kids with names that have too many apostrophes, are difficult to pronounce, or tell the world "My parents are dorks".
One example given was with a normal mother-to-be and her wiseassed software engineer husband who wanted to give the kid a stupid name. This has more to do with his desire to be a wiseass than any real concern with his child. That family clearly needs to get a dog, so he can exercise his sense of humor on a creature that does not need to apply for a job at some point.
There are reasons why some names are so common. One reason is that they are easy to spell. When you name your baby Clytemnestra, Calliope or Krysty'lle, come up with an image of that child in preschool, trying to spell that name with a Crayola in a clenched fist. Isn't it a little cruel to throw all those syllables at a kid?
Another reason for the old names is their ease of use for nickname purposes. When the kid is bigger, do you think that her friends are going to address her with her four syllable, Classically inspired name? No, she's going to get a monosyllabic nickname. Why not make it easy on her friends. Elizabeth is Liz, Margaret is Meg, William is Will, and so on. A kid without a nickname is socially dead. Dead, I tell you. If a kid does not have a nickname, even if it is unflattering, she may as well be invisible.
Then, there is the issue of Grandma Mary's will? Who is grammy going to leave all that money to? The kid named Brytny or her little namesake Mary Junior?
The last reason is one that has many names in many cultures. Some call it "crabs in a bucket" others call it "cutting the daisies in the tall grass". If someone stands out, everyone else attempts to cut that person down the the level of the crowd. Why single out your kid for ridicule. Look at what the common baby names are for the year, pick #20, and save your money for something useful, like buying carbon offsets for that huge momvan you just traded your convertible for.
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Modest Couture
[Read the article: When covering up blocks the sun]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'd always thought that, at least with the more affluent people, there were courtyards that were sufficiently concealed from street view where the women could sit in the sun.
One solution would be to develop a fabric that was modest, yet allowed UV to penetrate.