Letters to the Editor
Allie_
Published Letters: 1252 Editor's Choice: 109
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interesting what's missing
[Read the article: Does self-help breed helplessness?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I can't help but find it amusing that when this woman had a nearly-perfect life but felt there was something missing - it never occurred to her for one moment to turn outward.
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re: Juliebird
[Read the article: Junk food education]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What healthyskeptic said. Plus, cheese is extremely fattening compared to what you get out of it.
How hard is it to grate cheese over whole wheat pasta? How hard is it to wash a bunch of grapes? How long does it take to grill a chicken breast and zucchini slices?
1) Harder than buying a pasta entree or eating at Olive Garden (which has NASTY greasy food). 2) Harder than opening the wrapper of a candy bar. Requires a sink. A candy bar can be purchased and eaten in the car. 3) Longer than it takes to heat a frozen dinner.
The grocery stores are starting to deal with this a little bit, as people demand healthier foods. It's now possible to buy pre-washed, pre-peeled carrots in little bags that are single-serving and take a long time to go bad. I can get edamame in a bag that goes in the microwave now. But we're still a long way from good food being as convenient as junk food.
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barriers to employment after prison?
[Read the article: Why Cory Booker is mad as hell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Can someone give me more specific information on Newark's barriers to employment after prison? (Which are, reportedly, draconian.)
Does this make sense to anyone? Aren't we supposed to be hoping that people who have gotten out of prison will find legitimate employment? If they aren't allowed to, what exactly are they supposed to do?
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re: Thrasher
[Read the article: Why Cory Booker is mad as hell]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thrasher: how? What are you suggesting? Please give specifics. I'm not being facetious, I want answers. My neighborhood is going to hell in a handbasket and nothing anyone is doing about it locally seems to be working.
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Memphis heat
[Read the article: Air head]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm from Memphis and I think you're insane. People die here from heat. You speak as if there's virtue in losing sleep and being unproductive.
Don't worry, you won't fail to notice summer. You can still sit outside and drink iced tea. In my family, it's summer when you start craving cucumber sandwiches. It's summer here when a friend from Germany requests to be taken to Graceland and the weather report says 108 degrees and you open the car door in the middle of nine square miles of parking lot and the heat off the asphalt is like a punch in the face. It's summer when you ask for a cup of ice so you and your friends can take turns dropping ice cubes down each other's shirts on the walk from the air conditioned store to the air conditioned car, and the melted ice just mingles with the sweat soaking your clothes and your deodorant must be pretty damn good because your armpits are the only dry spot on your shirt.
This isn't an all-or-nothing matter, you know. You can have an air conditioner and turn it on only enough to be tolerable. I notice Broudy's worried about his father-in-law's reaction but doesn't mention his wife's opinion. If I were his wife, I'd take the AC and make him sleep on the balcony.
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re: weight gain and exercise
[Read the article: Junk food education]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My husband and I were discussing the responses to this article and he made a comment which surprised me. He said that although he makes video games for a living, if he had a child at home, he would not allow his child to play video games. He states: "Video games are for adults who have jobs which allow them to buy video games. My kid would hate me because dad would have the coolest job in the world, yet he'd be the only kid not allowed to play the games I made. And the problem is he'd have no one to play with because his lardass friends would all be sitting at home in front of their computers."
This pretty much tallies with my philosophy, which is "Kick 'em out the door when they get home and don't let them in until the sun goes down."
AKA Smith - it's not technically necessary to play an organized sport to be fit. I distrust the explosion of team-sports-playing kids, because team sports inculcate values which I think America is poisoned with already. You mentioned dance, and I think dance is a great idea - far too few of us are really good dancers - but this doesn't have to mean formal dance classes, either. When I was little, no one in my group went to any sort of organized group of athletic people - we just rode our bikes endlessly around in circles, climbed to the top of the magnolia tree (the neighbor yelled at us that a branch would break, but it never did), broke off pieces of dried pokeweed and had pirate swordfights, and other similar activities. In other words, playing.
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re: men and women
[Read the article: Chatty Cathy, Taciturn Ted?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not convinced that men make a big attempt to impress women when they talk. Or if they do, they aren't very good at it!
AKA Smith - were you kidding with your letter about how men and women should give up on each other apart from reproduction? If you're not kidding, that's the saddest letter I've ever seen you write. That's not the way I feel at all. I have equal numbers of male and female friends, and my best male friend - my husband - is a delightful conversationalist. Life is not a contest between men and women. When it becomes one, both sides lose.
Regarding the differences between men and women - every study ever done on this subject has found that the range of differences WITHIN sexes is greater than the differences BETWEEN the sexes. Saying, "Well, men as a group tend to, therefore this individual man must be..." is... ahem, how shall I put this... just plain stupid.
So quit it, all of y'all.
Sorry, had to get that out of my system.