Letters to the Editor
KitchenGirl
Published Letters: 642 Editor's Choice: 39
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Conspicuious consumption and moral obligations
[Read the article: Train-zilla ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No one ever says if someone goes out and buys a Porche that they have to do something in return for humanity. Or if they buy a vacation home. Or a Prada bag. But I hear that a lot regarding weddings. What is it about people spending money on a wedding that creates some debt to humanity?
Actually, people say things like that all the time. "If you have the money to purchase X, why don't you just purchase X-minus instead, and give the rest to charity?"
As far as weddings go, the problem that most people (including me) who bitch about extravagance have is that it is not just conspicuous consumption, but conspicuous *waste*. That $10,000 dress will never be worn again, those $7000 flowers will wilt and die, that china, that seven-tier cake (that nobody likes anyway) with the fondant icing the in shape of your chalet in the Italian alps, all of the trappings of an overdone wedding are transient -- the exist for ONE DAY and then they're gone.
A huge house and a expensive sports car are certainly overpriced (unless they're 100% solar and a greasecar respectively, in which case I admire your moxie!) and the money could better be used elsewhere, but at the very least they have a lasting value. People will live in that house, and someone will transport themselves around in that car.
I'm not saying everyone should wear burlap sacks for wedding dresses, or drive 20-year-old VW shell vans, or live in reclaimed-wood shacks. Heck, I love nice things just as much as the next person, but I do think that being a good citizen of your country, and a good tenant of this planet, involves some level of stewardship.
Dial it back just a little bit, or if you're not going to do that, then send the flowers to a shelter immediately after the reception (while they're still fresh) to make the people there feel a little bit more human in their hard times, give the leftovers to a soup kitchen, and cut up that 2-mile train to dip in insecticide and give it to an anti-malaria group to sell.
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$85 per plate
[Read the article: Go ask Alice]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To the smart husband, 85 dollars is for 4 courses plus an apperitif. Sorry, it's not per plate.
That's what "per plate" means.
$85... that's almost twice what I pay for groceries for a week, on a week when I splurge on nice cuts of meat and/or nice cheeses as a treat to myself.
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Authensensitivity
[Read the article: Train-zilla ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The world's scariest wedding dress
It looks Adobe Photoshopped.
http://www.xkcd.com/331/
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The heart wants what it wants
[Read the article: My husband is groping my sister]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am always amazed at heart's ability to blind us all (myself included, right as I type this in fact!) to what we know in our heads to be the right thing to do. We can turn our eyes away from betrayal, from insincerity, from lies, from all these things that break us and destroy our spirits as long as we can end the day with the warm arms and soft words of the one that we love. There is nothing anyone can say to change us or to make us see all these things that our hearts distract us from. The best advice I ever got from a dear friend, as I was eating myself alive with despair in a loveless relationship was "You'll leave when you're ready to leave." When your spirit has reached its capacity for sorrow, you will be able to walk away.
The other best piece of advice I got was from this same friend, quoting a Sarah McLachlan song: "Hold on to yourself, for this is gonna hurt like hell"
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God, this is depressing
[Read the article: May we congratulate you on your divorce]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Who celebrates a broken heart, and asks for presents?
People are so freaking greedy.
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Smart Cars
[Read the article: Who needs a Prius anyway?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh yes, the version sold in North america has a diesel engine.
Seriously? Nice! That means you can run it on vegetable oil.
Is VW selling diesels in the US? I thought I heard that they are, or are going to, but I don't know if that was just a rumor.
The Smart Car is *perfect* for tootling around in the city, if you also happen to live in the city. It's definitely less-perfect if you want to travel outside the immediate area.
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Hahaha, yes!
[Read the article: Linguists: "Moist" makes women cringe]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I *hate* that word, and so does every other woman I know. My guy friends are totally oblivious to the word's effect, I had to explain it to one of my friends and he was astonished.
I also have a friend who despises the word "nipple".
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Bad things do happen to smart people sometimes
[Read the article: Was a nanny's murderer aided by Craigslist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's sort of surprising to hear that folks (including 24 year old actresses) need to be told these tips.
You know, sometimes really really bad things happen to smart people. The overwhelming majority of people on this planet are not psychopaths, and people are usually quite safe, even if they take minimal (or no) precautions. But occasionally, intelligent people can do all the right things and still wind up on the wrong end of a gun. Crazy is crazy, and if you have the dire misfortune to encounter crazy, your survival has as much to do with luck as it has to do with whether or not you met someone in a public place or had a cellphone in your possession.
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"... thinking outside the box..."
[Read the article: Feminists want "vagina" all to themselves?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hahahahahaha!
Outside the box, inside the box, around the box, about the box, all over the box!
Hilarious!