Letters to the Editor
Laurel962
Published Letters: 475 Editor's Choice: 37
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I hate to have to say this again...
[Read the article: The secret life of sperm]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but due to the "anonymice" posting here (BTW: Salon, bad idea when you put this into effect, we used to be able to tell them apart!), I am forced to repeat the obvious: why aren't you retards using condoms?
Yes, ANY method of BC can fail, but condoms USED PROPERLY have an effectiveness of well over 85%. If you add spermicide, the effectiveness JUMPS to 99%. Those are about as good as any odds on any human activity are going to get. If that's not "good enough" to protect you from the horror of having a child, then I guess you really do have to forgo having intercourse, and stick to other methods of sexual pleasure.
Why is it so hard for male egoists to accept that you do NOT have a god-given right to condomless sex, and still get to opt out of parenthood? You don't. And your "rights" of opting out of parenthood are different than a woman's, because sex is something you are doing to another person's body (pregnancy) and not your own.
Condoms and spermicide are cheap, available at any drugstore (even in the most Christian parts of the deep South), and fully within the control of any man to use, with or without his partner's consent. If you seriously believe you are sleeping with a woman who would put holes in your condoms so she'd get pregnant (this wouldn't be likely to work with the addition of spermicide anyhow), then BUDDY, YOU NEED TO FIND A NEW GIRLFRIEND. If you sleep with partners (this applies equally to men and women) who you KNOW are this untrustworthy, then you only have yourself to blame.
As far as Mr. Adam Venit, the Hollywood big shot who is paying $370,000 a year in child support: first of all, he's an incredibly rich millionaire and what applies to him is really not applicable to the vast majority of people. Even so, Mr. Venit is paying less than 10% of his gross income for the care of his children. Is that really unreasonable? What is a reasonable percentage of gross income to pay for your flesh and blood children, concieved voluntarily with a wife you presumably used to love? 5%? 2%? I mean, Mr. Venit is getting to keep over 90% of his millions for himself and any subsequent kiddies and/or wives. Plus that $370,000 is tax deductible!
Assuming you are an "ordinary Joe", and you earn $40,000 a year, would you be willing to pay $3700 a year for the support of TWO CHILDREN in an expensive city like Los Angeles? Or do you think even that is too much? Because proportionately, that's about teh same as Mr. Venit is paying. And I'd like to see a custodial single dad just try and raise two kids on that pittance! In my state (Ohio), the standard for child support is roughly 15% for one child, and 17% for two children. By that standard, Mr. Venit is getting away with murder here.
To recap: Have all the sex you want with all the skanks you want to have it with. But if you don't want to have a baby, use a CONDOM WITH SPERMICIDE, each and every time you have sexual intercourse. If you don't, you are taking the risk of getting another human being pregnant, and being on the hook for child support for a kid you presumably do not wish to have.
If you can't accept this simple equation, then you deserve whatever results you get.
(PS: As far as BC pills for women; yes you can get pregnant by missing one pill if you are on low-dose pills. In fact, you can ovulate if you even take one single low-dose pill LATE, instead of on schedule at the same exact time each day. It does not require skipping several pills. You are confusing low-dose (safe) with high-dose (less safe) BC pills.)
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I now pronounce you boring, unfunny, PC political propaganda
[Read the article: "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If I am reading Ms. Zacharek's review correctly, "Chuck and Larry" is a boring, unfunny movie (most movies with Adam Sandler ARE, after all) with lame jokes and unbelievable characters and situations -- but that's OK because the film promotes the politically correct affirmation of gay marriage.
So now films can be poorly written and comedies completely without laughs, as long as they promote "correct social values". Ouch! This from a film critic? That's pathetic. I'd expect it from a dreary gay studies professor at a left-wing university, but a film critic is supposed to tell you if a MOVIE IS ANY GOOD. Not if the movie is "good for you".
If Right Wing Christian Conservatives have not got their panties in a twist over this lame comedy, is it possibly because it's simply not any good, and that hardly anyone will watch it (besides die-hard Sandler fans, and who can explain THEM?), and it won't have the slightest influence on any national debate over gay marriage? Because it's stupid and unfunny? Hmmm. Just wondering.
The idea that you should watch bad movies because they promote "correct social values" sounds so awfully Soviet and totalitarian. They don't even crank this stuff out in the Russian Republic or PRC anymore.
If the concept of gay marriage has merit, and wide public support (debatable), then would we have to be force-fed loud, laugh-free, PC harangues about it?
I am not offering this as a critique of the actual film, which I have not seen, but of Ms. Zacharek's review, which is pitiful and which Salon should have been too embarrassed to print. A dishonest film critic with a political agenda, who recommends bad films because they advance a political cause that she supports, is worse than having no film critic at all.