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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
lonewolfy
Published Letters: 641 Editor's Choice: 21
...I was ambivalent in my opinion of Barry Bonds until he made the following statement:
"...I don't wanna hear y'all talk about Babe Ruth any more. I got his home runs, I got his RBIs..."
WTF?!? It's one thing to say you are as great as the Bambino - it's another to actually BELIEVE that baseball fans around the world will forget about Babe Ruth because you've put up similar stats, Mr. Bonds.
Barry has no class, Joan. And he will be forgotten by every non-Giants baseball fan in a couple years....can you say the same about the Babe?
One more thing - as a minority progressive, I'm a so sick of fellow "liberals" playing the race card everytime a public figure who isn't a WASP get scorned and vilified. Jackie Robinson was a classy, talented player who experienced racism.
Bonds? If he were whiter than John Tesh, I would still despise him and his disdain for the game and its fans.
So Joan - in the interest of TRUE equality and civil rights - I ask that you please stop sullying and demeaning the people in this country who experience true prejudice and discrimination by knee-jerk reflexively crying racism to defend your baseball idol.
{After all, you wouldn't, say, lambast anyone who criticizes Ann Coulter as being automatically misogynist, would you?}
Good grief - the level of scorn and hatred towards fathers and husbands in this letter thread is appalling...
"...psychologically and financially autonomous"
I'm guessing you've never been in a healthy, long-term relationship with a man, huh? Because one of the initially scariest - yet ultimately most fulfilling - aspects of long-term commitment is TRUST. Insecurities about "autonomy" have a lot more to with your own state of mind than with deadbeat boyfriends/fiances/husbands.
Both parties in a romantic relationship, regardless of their gender, enter into an unspoken compact that in some way they effect on each other's lives (not that I didn't use the word "dependence"; if it is true autonomy you crave, then there's probably a hermit hut up in the hills with your name on it.
As for the father bashing...almost every father I know around my age (late 20s-late 30s) takes the time and effort to be present in their children's lives, help out their wives as much as they can and balance their work schedules around time invested with their families. Is it easy? Hell no. But by and large, they don't complain. They just do their best to be nurturing and co-supportive parents.
In short, they deserve much better than to be vilified in the way you knee-jerk reflexive "All Dads R DeadBeat", psuedo-feminist letter writers have been doing.
"There's always that wrenching moment when you find yourself asking, pathetically and rhetorically, "How will I live without 'Star Trek'? Without 'My So-Called Life'? What else will I ever find to watch? Will I ever like anything as much again?"
Thankfully, as a longtime "Simpsons" fan those are torturous questions I will never have to ask myself. =) 400 episodes and counting - with no cancellation in sight....ay caramba!
RIP "Veronica" & "Jericho".....
I was 12 in '91 as well, and I couldn't agree more that it was a great time to be a young music fan. The only album I'd add to your list from that year is the last great work of Metallica: "The Black Album".....
Sometimes when I listen to the local modern rock radio - with all the tuneless, droning post-nu-metal riffs and lead vocalists who think heavy off-key bellowing is what metal is all about - I think how spoilt we were to be able to enjoy artists and bands who could actually write decent MELODIES.
Kurt (RIP) and 'old' Axl....man, I miss those guys. =(
If Breathed were to post a strip were the parents' sexes were reversed - i.e. two dads instead of two moms, and in the final panel a neurotic, overbearing, smothering stereotype of a mother is portrayed - NONE of you would have a problem with that, right?
None of you would be excoriating Breathed for daring to imply that sometimes women *gasp* make bad parents, too, and that mothers should not be automatically sanctified...right?
None of you would be bellowing that Breathed is a sexist, misogynistic pig...right?
Yours truly,
The Hypocrisy Police
After reading your letter, I think I'm in love....=)
Yours,
A Lusty Social Libertarian
To all the writers who are saying that Iranian treatment of women - such as porn stars in this case - is no worse than sexism in the US:
If a woman commits adultery in the U.S., she might suffer gossip on the part of her coworkers, neighbors, etc.
If a woman commits adultery in Iran, she gets stoned to death.
If a woman wears short shorts in the summer in the US, she may get sexist catcalls from men.
If a woman exposes anything above her ankle or wrist in Iran, she's arrested...or, depending on the mood of the Islamic police/male villagers - stoned to death.
If a woman holds hands with a female lover while walking down an American street, she may get dirties looks from Xtian evangelical fundies.
If a woman is even suspected of being intimate with another woman in Iran....can you guess what happens?
Yup - bring on the stones.
***************
I oppose misogyny of any kind - but this asinine attempt to equate American sexism with Iranian sexism is analogous to equating a parent who yells at their kid to a parent who beats their child to death.
And by the way, I despise Dubya and the neocons just as much as anyone else - but just because they unjustly want to invade Iran does NOT give the latter a free pass to make a MOCKERY of human rights and freedoms.
If you believe that it does, you're not only a hypocrite but a fascist as well...
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
