Letters to the Editor
Allie_
Published Letters: 1252 Editor's Choice: 109
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it depends
[Read the article: I feed the poor but eat with the rich]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are you dining with the downtrodden to feel virtuous, or are you doing it because you enjoy their company? Blessing them with your company to make yourself feel better is at least as patronizing as refusing to eat with them.
I think your friends are jerks for being too good to eat the food they serve to others. I think you sound as if your heart is in the right place. But I can't see into your heart. You tell me: which is it?
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re: get them out of the city
[Read the article: Pit bulls are innocent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My neighbor whose throat was ripped out by her next-door-neighbor's pit bull lived in the country, on a dairy farm in the middle of several hundred acres of land.
Please don't send all the pit bulls to the country. We don't want them here either.
Someone posted that there hasn't been a fatal pit bull attack by a single dog in 20 years. I can't argue that point because I haven't looked at the statistics. But in Memphis, earlier this year, a man had his arm ripped off by a pit bull while waiting at a bus stop. His life was saved by two passing strangers who beat the dog with a crowbar. An attack doesn't have to be fatal to be horrifying. I know of two local attacks that left the victims crippled. I've never heard of anyone being crippled by another breed of dog. I think if someone's arm was ripped off at a bus stop by a Golden Retriever, the news would have mentioned it.
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one year?
[Read the article: King Kaufman's Sports Daily]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, I don't see him playing in 2009.
Salon's a pretty select crowd, not very representative of the general football-loving population. From what I've observed on the chat boards at ebay, which are much more open to people of all educational levels, the general consensus is that Vick should... die. This from blue-haired little old ladies who hand out Bible tracts, middle-aged women who collect dolls, Nascar lovers and guys who sell wrestling memorabilia. Those people, the middle-class people, overwhelmingly think Vick deserves to die. They email chain letters to each other about petitions trying to get him banned for the sport for life. So far I haven't seen a single poster who wanted to take the risk of defending him in public.
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you didn't make yourself
[Read the article: I'm so damned judgmental!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cary, thanks for picking this letter; it gave me a good loud laugh at myself. I could write a letter like that! I have no problems except that I'm better than everyone and I'm not very good at hiding it...
The cure, I've found, to this way of thinking, is to remember that you didn't make yourself. I'm no more responsible for having whatever amount of good sense I may have than I am for having a straight nose or being tall. Someone or something way back at the beginning of time started the great big bowling ball of everything down the lane. I don't even control my own thoughts! Someone or something made me; I didn't make myself. I didn't make my brain. I didn't feed my mother whatever she ate while she was pregnant with me. I can't guide my neurons.
Recent research found that people who were asked to move their left or right hand at random reported that they were freely choosing which hand to move - even when the choice was made for them by electronic stimulation of their brains. If there is such a thing as freewill, science isn't doing a great job of finding evidence in favor of it.
A world without freewill is a little alarming to contemplate. Maybe you and I were destined to be officious pricks and destined to feel bad about it and you were destined to write a letter to Cary and I was destined to respond to it. Or maybe not. I have opinions but I'm also aware that I have a very limited perspective from which to form an opinion. The one thing that seems certain is that the rest of the universe doesn't order itself to my will... so why should the parts of the universe which make up "me" be any different?
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difference between friendship and enabling
[Read the article: I'm so damned judgmental!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hi Judgy, read your reply.
I'm not so sure you need to worry about empathizing with a friend who's sleeping with a married man. It's wrong. You're allowed to say so. Yes, there's a fine line between hating the sin and hating the sinner, but that line is there. You aren't allowed to say, "I'm better than you because I would never sleep with a married man," but you are allowed to say, "That really isn't right, I'm not here to make you feel more comfortable about something you shouldn't be doing anyway." That holds true for addiction of all kinds, whether the addiction is sex, spending, or a substance.
It is easier, sometimes, to help people, if you've been in their shoes. That's why we're lucky to have someone like Cary, a grade-A certified recovering fuckup. Every now and again Cary gets a letter from someone with a problem he's never experienced, and then his answers aren't likely to be very good. Perhaps you'd do better to realize that you don't have the life experience to offer insights to some of your friends. Someone else would be better able to help these particular friends. You can just be a friend, you don't have to be a rescuer.
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who spanks the husband when he starts a fire?
[Read the article: Spare the rod, spoil the wife]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Title says it all, really.
This strikes me as a sort of fetishism, like men who want to wear diapers. These ladies seem to get off on being children. It might seem like that's their business, but it's not, really - we're all obligated to shoulder our responsibilities in this world.
I have to wonder, what happens when one of these wives becomes a widow? Does she suddenly have to grow up?