Letters to the Editor
stilltheone
Published Letters: 506 Editor's Choice: 31
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Friendship in the 21st century
[Read the article: A friend is doing chemo. What should I say?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find the need of the LW for instruction on how to be a friend to someone who is ill to be very sad and sort of telling about the digital age. People seem to know instinctively these days how to be an "online" friend. This mostly involves self-defense -- don't give out too much information at once, protect your ability to basically drop out of sight if the contact becomes too burdensome or intimate. But once a friendship becomes real (as opposed to "virtual"), people seem to not know how to act.
I can't help but think that people used to know, without having to ask, how to be a friend under these circumstances, how to be helpful and caring without being overly intrusive, how to express sympathy but still be cheerful, how to express concern without alarm, all of that.
What's become of us?
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Midway...
[Read the article: Help! I'm a prisoner in a big suburban house!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Many cities (New York, Boston, Chicago, and others) are ringed by a series of close-in older suburbs that typically have nice old housing stocks on smaller lots, convenient mass transit connections to the city, sidewalks, friendly commercial districts, a real sense of small town culture, etc. You should investigate these places before you write off suburbia. They are in many respects the best of both worlds. You typically don't get those (ugly) double height entrances, media rooms, or 3 car garages. But you can find beautiful old houses that (particularly at your age and before you have kids) are fun to renovate. More importantly you can find real communities in these places.
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In what world is it OK to steal someone's lines and not give attribution?
[Read the article: The "plagiarism" problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Must be that cesspool of Illinois politics....Obama seems to skate by with the "bone-headed error in judgment" defense pretty often, here again as he did when he accepted Mr. Rezko's help to purchase his Chicago home. Interesting that both of these are on personal morality issues.
This guy is NOT being vetted properly by the press or anyone else. Rest assured that the machine behind Presumptive-President-Elect McCain will do so.
I have the sense that this guy's clock is about to be cleaned.
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Incredible..
[Read the article: My boyfriend danced dirty to make me jealous ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Man, I see some really neglected kids lurking in the background of this mess.
OK, and tell me AGAINNNNNNN, why is it that gay marriage would demean this venerable insitituion when straight people treat it like this???
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I'm just sick of the double standard.
[Read the article: The quest for universal healthcare]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When Hillary finally "abandons caution", as so many of her critics urge her to do, by supporting mandates to promote universal health coverage, suddenly the reporting becomes sympathetic to Obama's weighing the political costs in taking such a position and for settling for (indeed, starting with) half a loaf. His refusal to support truly universal health coverage represents ALL that I hate about him -- his sanctimoniuous derision of Clinton-type politics while at the same time carefully staking out positions that are capable of being interpreted sixteen different ways.
I find also remarkable his high support among African Americans, notwithstanding that they are disporportionately represented among the uninsured in this country. Transcending race, indeed. He's left his race in the dust on this issue.
Why can't the press state it more simply? At least on this issue, Hillary has more knowledge, more experience and a significantly greater chance of accomplishing real change that stands to benefit far more people.
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Get this straight
[Read the article: The gay marriage slump]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]wait500-- You are wading into a debate you are clearly not qualified to participate in. The idea that the purpose and justification for marriage is to promote procreation has been so debunked by so many commentators that no one who thinks seriously about the issue offers this as an argument any longer.
The idea that a civil right should be available only to those who intend to use it means that we should take the vote away from 65% of Americans who now have it (and this is the percentage that are NOT using their right in 2008, a year in which we are busily congratulating ourselves on enormous voter turnout in the primaries).
I should have the right to marry my partner. Full stop. Just like you. Whether or not I ever have children. Just like you. Whether or not my neighbors marry, live together without marriage, care about having the right to marry, or don't give a damn. Just like you.
If you believe otherwise, you are a bigot, pure and simple.
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Get real...
[Read the article: It's OK to vote for Obama because he's black]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jesse Jackson was qualified, charismatic and progressive. So was Shirley Chisolm. You're voting for Obama, not because he's black, but because he's white enough (I'm sorry, because he "transcends race" enough) to remind you more of Tiger Woods than Jesse Jackson and more of Shirley Temple than Shirley Chisolm. Full stop.
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Yeah but...
[Read the article: Dodd endorses Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This really seems contrary to where his sympathies were in the early debates, so I have to conclude that this has more to do with wanting to join a camp that he now perceieves as winning. So it's disappointing.