Letters to the Editor
SarahLaughed
Published Letters: 5
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I think you are jealous :)
[Read the article: Fondling Stephen Colbert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like you, I love Stephen Colbert for his wonderful performance before Bush last year. His obvious embarassment with Fonda throws into even sharper relief his courage and talent at the Press Club dinner. I'm not much of a Fonda fan. I've always found her a little self-absorbed--trying to find oneself at 30 is one thing, but by the last autobiography, shouldn't she have been over her dad?
I don't think he was in on the joke, and that's what made it funny, both for my husband and me. And when he invoked the presence of his wife, it made me realize yet again how silly this family values argument is--as if someone can't be decent and faithful and a liberal.
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Making Choices
[Read the article: Parents speak to the upside of Down syndrome]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I was pregnant at 35, I did not have amnio because I DID do the math and decided that I had really good odds of delivering a health baby, and since amnio could only be done so late in the pregnancy, I knew I would not abort at that point even if I knew the child would have Down's syndrome. I had had a miscarriage prior to this (before 12 weeks) and, while I was saddened, there was clearly a different to me between my miscarriage and the stillbirth of a friend who had carried her child for nine months.
Those who argue that there are no guarantees are absolutely correct--my chronically ill mother outlived my vibrant, health mother-in-law who died four months after being diagnosed with liver cancer. She had to decide based on the odds whether to opt for continued chemo or hospice care. We still wonder if her death would have been less painful if we had encouraged her to keep taking the chemo so that a crisis would kill her, rather than lying in a bed six weeks in pain--despite the morphine--and praying to die. My sister works with catastrophically damaged children. It is painful to watch the suffering of those we love.
Certainly no one gets out of life without some suffering, but to judge people who decide not to bear a child under these circumstances is awful, especially since we so undervalue the sick, the elderly, the mentally ill, anyway. What if those parents die in a car accident? Who will care, then? My challenge is this: let's do what we can to make health care available, stop the war (my 19-year-old means as much to me as just anybody's fetus means to a pro-life protester, trust me!), and value the poor. The come talk to me about abortion. At this point, women's issues aside, I don't see how anybody could judge someone's decision to abort a fetus who has a debilitating problem (and yes, I'm glad with my disabilities--weak math skills, no sense of direction, one side of my face more prominent than another, middle-aged eyesight, that I'm alive). But if I had never been born...well, I wouldn't have gotten attached to this life, loved this old sagging self and the sagging selves of my friends and loved ones).
Sure I think doctors might present the option not to abort and offer to connect pregnant couples or women with parents who chose this option. It's nice some people are willing to adopt such children. Are you on the list? I'm not either.
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Jesushorses.com is not a parody
[Read the article: Today in Palin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think this is a parody, those these days it's hard to tell the difference. The link to www.creationmuseum.org is legitimate, at least. I know because I live in the drenched-in-red commonwealth of Kentucky where Ken Hamm of creation "science" and Answers in Genesis fame has raise the funds to build a multi-million dollar state of the art "museum" that teaches Kentucky school children and others that the Genesis stories are literally true and that dinosaurs did indeed walk upon earth at the same time as humans. They build it across from the Big Bone Lick dig site where paleontoligists uncovered mammoth fossils from the ice age (I'm an English teacher, and my husband the geologist would get more specific). So, no, it doesn't have to be a satire. My husband looked at it and agrees that it's probably NOT. Unfortunately, ignorance is also a small-town value.
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Jesushorses.org is not a parody
[Read the article: Today in Palin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now that I've told you I'm an English teacher, Hamm builT (not build) and I can spell paleontoligist!
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Jesushorses.org parody
[Read the article: Today in Palin]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks, Professor. Perhaps the idea is to out the creation museum. It's really tough when it's hard to tell what a satire and a parody actually is, though perhaps Swift would be familiar with the problem.