Letters to the Editor
mte
Published Letters: 79 Editor's Choice: 5
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Some Plastic is Carcinogenic, some may not be.
[Read the article: Ask Pablo]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's a guide to the toxicity of plastic:
http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/114/picnic
It's from May 2006, so it may be somewhat out of date. My Nalgene plastic bottle (made from untrendy white plastics, is made of high-density polyethylene, which doesn't leach. Other Nalgene bottles are made from Polycarbonate. You can use the reclycling codes as a rough guide, though "Category 7" is for miscellaneous plastics, some of which may be toxic, and some which may be nontoxic.
As for the ethics of Nalgene, Nalgene products were used in almost every laboratory I've worked in, and many of those laboratories have had nothing to do with animal research or "testing".
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Words Have Meanings
[Read the article: The economics of Barack Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And left-libertarian is one of those words.
It has two very specific meanings (1) to mean libertarian socialism/classical anarchism (2) to mean agorism. There are several similarities, particularly between mutualism and agorism, so that the two meanings overlap.
Among others, these include:
1. A rejection of the state, a demand for voluntary organizations instead of coercive ones, and a preference for decentralized organizations instead of centralized ones.
2. A rejection of state-based property claims (generally rejecting intellectual property and rejecting the claims of the largest recipients of state contracts and subsidies).
3. A distinction between economic means (a.k.a. industrial means in some syndicalist texts) and political means, defending economic means and denouncing political ones.
There's a big different between left-libertarianism and smaller-state progressivism.
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A rip off eh?
[Read the article: VHS, mon amour]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There 's very little substance, and not much style to that "Amanda Show" skit. It got old after the first "This movie.. better", and may have been greying well before then.
In any case, O'Herir praises the sentimentality of the movie, while dismissing the remakes as "pretty funny in small doses". A skit show can't be "an achingly sweet, shambling creation that takes its time." That's just not the nature of the medium.
-Jeremy
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Judging from the review ...
[Read the article: The unlikeliest gangbanger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... the Black Kings kept their members in line. In my experience, police departments are either unable or unwilling to keep their members in line. I've taken enough beatings from our official protection rackets that I'd much rather deal with their competition.
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As a trans' woman
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I took enough beatings from the teachers and other students. I imagine I would have faced even more beatings and had even more trouble finding myself later on.
Of course, many people would rather that I be dead than that I be who I am.
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When I open a novel...
[Read the article: The man who ruined the novel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I want to read a story, or explore a setting, or both. The traditional novel form is very good at supporting stories and not bad at supporting settings. (Some appendices, short stories, etc. can do wonders for settings).
Writers can still experiment within the traditional novel form, just as painters can still experiment on a traditional canvas. Or wall. Or other flat surface. They can also experiment with other supports, it all depends on the work.
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Not "the next day"
[Read the article: "Battle in Seattle" rocks Austin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The police brutality began hours before the broken windows. Almost every study of the events makes that clear; Jonathan Oppenheim's account, and the Seattle Police Department's own records, both put the first tear gas attacks at 8:30-8:40 AM on Tuesday morning.
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"divorced from reality"
[Read the article: "Battle in Seattle" rocks Austin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Of course the center and the right aren't "divorced from reality" when they support the invasion and occupation of Iraq (which has killed a million Iraqi civilians), when they pretend global warming isn't happening, when they pretend macroevolution hasn't happened, etc.
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It started after the police started shooting
[Read the article: "Battle in Seattle" rocks Austin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You can check hundreds of on-the-spot accounts from the protesters and the radio logs from the police. Moreover, most of the people in the black bloc had been involved in the earlier protests and many of them had been gassed in the earlier protests. Many of the organizers of the Direct Action Network street blockades were anarchists; the affinity groups structure, consensus decision making, lock-down techniques, etc. were all derived from anarchist experience.
Blaming anarchists for bringing property destruction to N30 is like blaming classical liberals for bringing property destruction to the Boston Tea Party.
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Aaagh! Get your facts straight!
[Read the article: "Battle in Seattle" rocks Austin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The cops were firing rubber bullets hours before some of the protesters (less than half of the anarchists, and some of the non-anarchists) started breaking windows. Nobody torched anyplace. Nobody brought on the police violence.
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Create choices, don't abolish them.
[Read the article: New debates about the oldest profession]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Many prostitutes are working the streets because they face massive medical bills, or they face blacklists, or worse. They're getting exploited, not because they can't make good decisions, but because they don't have as much power as the state, the insurance racket, the pharma racket, or various government-sponsored union-busters. Cracking down on prostitution can push people from bad jobs as prostitutes to worse jobs as day laborers, or can pressure them into paying more protection to their pimps. (Similarly, cracking down on day laborers can push people from bad jobs as day laborers to worse jobs as prostitutes; it's somewhat subjective).
Other prostitutes see the occasional trick as a chance to make some extra cash.
Other prostitutes have their own reasons.
All these people would benefit from changes which increase their bargaining power (decriminalization, legalization w/o brothels, unionization, improved working conditions in other trades, etc.) and would suffer from changes which reduce heir bargaining power (crackdowns, ID laws, etc.).
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Punishing people for making mistakes...
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Doesn't help them. It may help the folks profiteering off the police force, off the prison system, and off protection from the police. But it won't help the people on the street. It can't.
Moreover, it assumes that the lawmaker knows more about the challenges the streetwalker faces than the streetwalker does. What do lawmakers know of being blacklisted? Of being unemployable, or uninsurable, and facing debt?
If the gov't has seized the good choices and sold them to its crony real-estate speculators, and it bans the bad choices, that only leaves the worse choices.