Letters to the Editor
Mlle. Thunderpants
Published Letters: 6 Editor's Choice: 1
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What's more important than good asparagus?
[Read the article: How to be an asparagus superhero]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Phoebe Nobles made me laugh twice before coffee. She made me think about asparagi I have loved and of the terrible "asparagus pudding" my relatives serve. And she understands my fear of white asparagus. What other vegetable can you eat with your fingers on formal occasions? There's something naughty/sexy about that.
The LW who wishes Nobles would write about more important things--well--this essay was written without knowing we'd all be sitting around watching footage of another mass murder on the day it was published in Salon. LW, do you only think weighty thoughts? Do you never muse on the mundane? You might question Salon's decision to print essays on "unimportant" topics, but do you really need to pick on the author for having such thoughts and writing about them so charmingly?
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re: RON
[Read the article: The other mothers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Another thing to factor in is whether caretaking parent (let's say "Mom") will return to work after kidling is in school. We have a PT nanny so I can work 20 hours/week out of my home. I don't make much after I pay the nanny, but continuing to work means that I won't have a big "mommy gap" in my resume. And I'm assuming that all the ever-so-understanding posters here would want me to go back to work--the Broadsheet trolls have drilled it into me that the worst thing on earth is a greedy, sponging female who doesn't contribute to the household economy!
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Give and Take
[Read the article: Flying the child-unfriendly skies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've never asked for much from my fellow passengers. I don't recline my seat because I don't like it when it's done to me. I leave the mutual armrest for the other person. I don't use the bathroom very often, if at all and I willingly move when asked. I switch seats so traveling companions can stay together and I don't get stuff in and out of the overhead compartments during the flight. I bathe. But now I have a child.
When she was 3 mos., we took her to meet her aunts and grandparents and I was in agony the whole trip. Broadsheet had *just* posted another of these articles, bringing out all the nastiness, and I looked at the faces around me, scared that I was going to see it on them. She did OK, my kid. She fussed a bit, I nursed a bit, her dad took her into the bathroom for a bit. On one leg, we had an excruciatingly polite soldier next to us. I offered to buy all of our seatmates drinks. I apologized each time she peeped, and my husband was downright angry that I was so afraid of causing discomfort to others. I'm not asking for license to let my kid run the aisles, kick seats, or the like, but I am asking for the bread I cast on the "good passenger" waters to be returned, for people to remember that many parents don't want their kids to be an inconvenience any more than you do, and that in just a few hours, the flight will be over.
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Otiose comparison
[Read the article: Panic on Wall Street]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Andrew Leonard, I expect better from you. I read your column on a regular basis because you have a gift for clarifying a complex issue that keeps the essential underlying structure intact.
Your betting metaphor, however, is otiose. Betting is considered by some to be a distasteful activity, and it serves no direct purpose for the players or teams in the competition. Barry Bonds is not made stronger, faster, or more accurate because I bet my mother a twenty on the date of his record-breaking home run.
Investing is, on the other hand, a huge part of why we are economically successful as a country. The purchase of treasury bonds is an act of economic patriotism, and corporate IPOs and bonds directly fund their economic activity - the influx of cash allows a company to fund a startup, expand to new sectors or buy out a weaker competitor.
There is no industrial revolution without the concept of distributed ownership. And the distribution of risk is the foundation of pension funds, social security, health care, and any other version of insurance. The principal actors in your morality play are not unscrupulous people that have base gambling addictions; they are institutions that exist to pay for your bypass surgery, send your child to college, and rebuild your house after a flood.
In your haste, you missed what I think is an important facet of this panic. There are a lot of banks and funds left holding billions of dollars in CDOs. There is no standardized market for the sale of these derivatives, so their sale is difficult and decentralized. In the flush of catastrophe, the many current owners are forced to sell a lot of difficult-to-sell CDOs into a declining market. This, to quote The Economist is the fastest way to lose money yet invented.
The real panic is that no one knows what the CDOs are really worth, but the panic will undoubtedly overshoot the bottom of this market and there will be a lot of money made by buying them back.
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So far, so good
[Read the article: Diaper-free nation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We started ECing my 10-month-old a few weeks ago. We never go "diaper-free", but rather, a few times a day, I take her to the potty (15 minutes after she's nursed, or upon waking from a nap). I use the ASL sign and make it sound very exciting. She was thrilled and seemed perfectly happy to use it. She even used the sign for it. The first week or two we were catching 2-3 pees/day. Last week, she decided to learn to walk, so she couldn't concentrate on anything else. We're giving it a rest for a little bit, and while the jury is still out, I think we like EC. The daughter seems happy, we're saving diapers, and it's been no extra work, really.
Also, we're not hippie freaks.