Letters to the Editor
Herself
Published Letters: 182 Editor's Choice: 17
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Another Lesson About Quick Fixes
[Read the article: The true cost of doing business in China]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People love cheap. I got a Prius for two reasons. One was 9/11. I knew it was about gasoline. I figured what I did was tantamount to stamping my feet and shaking my tiny fists in impotent rage, but it made me feel like I was doing something. The other was that buying gas once every three weeks instead of two meant I had more time to do other stuff I like better. But, people kept coming up to me and gravely telling me I was not saving money by buying a Prius. Big duh, dumbass. I know I paid 10K more for what was basically an Echo with a spoiler fin and a groovy electric motor. I was not about just saving pennies on gas. Its not all the money.
I watched people go bananas about India for cheap programmers and am watching them go bananas because they did not factor in all the planning they need to do to make it work. The company I work at had to allocate an executive to outsourcing and he had people putting in solid work here to make it happen. Other companies are sitting and saying, "Buh?" when they get the bill. India's infrastructure is still catching up. A server crashes there and I look up the Bangalore weather report. Dollars (or rupees) to donuts, there's been a big rainfall. I digress.
Now China. Of course, we forgot that "made in Japan" used to be a bad thing. Japan had to catch up. I don't think they sent us poison in our food and medicine. They just sent stuff that broke a lot. Much better now. I like Japanese stuff. But we're back to China and no one even thought to inspect their process or help them out or teach them stuff. No MacArthur plan. No efficiency experts. No one learned anything. Its cheap! Shiny! Let's buy lots of it! Dead pets, dead kids, and I am regularly call food manufacturers and clothing retailers and ask where the stuff is made.
But, as long as its cheap, the careless will buy.
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Put The Plastic Fork Down
[Read the article: Does plastic make us fat?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm at the same weight as in high school. I eat things out of plastic containers. Yet, my peers grow ever wideways. I've noticed that they still obligingly clean their plates, just like their depression-era parents insisted they do. I also see them picking up seconds. I see people in restaurants, dinner parties, picnics and buffets.
My overweight peers think I am uncharitable and claim it is genetics, big bones, slow metabolism, or Big Agriculture and that I am a Bad Person for pointing out the food-fat connection. I've been lectured to by folks to not bring up the subject in conversation, as if I were some small child who shouts "pee pee" in church.
I did do an experiment where I stopped feeding my pets corn products and they did lose weight. I pointed that out to my friends who insisted that corn on the cob, Doritos, tortilla chips and so on were not "bad" corn and that the "bad" corn was somehow squirreled away in products that those poor, dear, low income people were being force fed by Big Agriculture.
But, go ahead. Give them another talking point. I hate plastics because they pollute. If you can tell other people to do so by telling them they'll lose weight, that's fine. They'll tell you that somehow, magically, Trader Joe's prepared meals in plastic are OK, because its, you know "organic".
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Take a Page From A Welsh Tom Jones Fan
[Read the article: I have the hots for my stepson]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I read a funny anecdote about Tom Jones a while ago. He was in a Welsh club and gave a great performance. Women threw their knickers and keys onstage and he got a roaring ovation. After the show, he ran into an older Welsh couple who had seen the show. Jones asked the husband, "How do you feel when your wife throws her knickers on the stage like that?" The man grinned and said, "Friend, you pump the tires and I ride the bicycle."
Stepmom can use all of this pent up sexual energy to give her old man a rousing good time.
Good on her for wanting to do the right thing. I agree maybe a therapist for her would help her sort out her feelings. I think the lad will eventually find a girl his own age and all will be well.
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Shit Breaks. It Gets Fixed
[Read the article: The scourge of E. coli conservatism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm a liberal. I'm a bunny hugging, tree worshipping freak of a liberal.
However, I am also a grownup, a homeowner and an armchair scientist.
Shit breaks. Sometimes it breaks catastrophically. Sometimes you miss a detail. Sometimes you don't. A 1924 era pipe exploded and killed someone and freaked out midtown Manhattan. I feel for them. I take off my virtual hat to mourn the poor victim. I also know, as a former Manhattanite, that shit breaks.
It has nothing to do with conservatives or liberals. It has to do with the fact that NYC is a huge, complex city with a lot of details and one can get overlooked. The so called e.coli conservatives cleaned up NYC, got the public toilets working and did whatever magic conservatives do to get crime to drop.
So quit whining and taking potshots. Guiliani and Bloomberg have done a fine job of repairing the crap from Dinkins, Beame, and Koch.
I would not want them in charge of the country, because the country is about people and about foreigners. But I have found, as a tree worshipping and bunny hugging freak, that somehow those conservatives do pretty well on local stuff like crime, potholes, and public toilets.
Its good we have two parties. I wish we had more. Then more problems could get solved by the groups who focus on those problems.