Letters to the Editor
Anna68
Published Letters: 157 Editor's Choice: 2
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Oh, LW my mom would LOVE you!
[Read the article: Can I have my wedding money now?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hear all the time: please elope! We'll give you cash!
My folks would rather invest money in a home than throw money at a party.
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not to be a work-nit, but
[Read the article: Does "problem talk" depress girls?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Real trauma doesn't tend to be the kind of stuff people pick over and over and over.
Actually, *real* trauma (as in psychological trauma) is the kind of stuff people are forced to pick over and over and over because they're brains have been rewired into a memory loop.
Please, everyone, lets stop acting like the normal angst of life is trauma. It isn't. Trauma is an actual illness requiring actual medical treatment. Angst is just ... angst.
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Queen Bees and Wannabees
[Read the article: I was betrayed by people I trusted]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hi, LW,
I don't know if anyone has referred you to Roselind Wiseman's Queen Bees and Wannabees ... or the fantastic Tina Fey movie based on it called Mean Girls. It's all about this kind of shit behavior, and why women engage in it.
Here's the interesting part: The girls who are the most likely to be targeted are not the "losers"! The girls who are the most likely targets are the girls who inspire jealousy in other girls!
"What?" you might say! "But I'm the ugly lesbian country girl, why would they be jealous of me!!!"
Oh, howdy! Let me count the ways!
You're smart. You're articulate. You are achieving academically. You know enough about yourself and feel comfortable enough in your skin to come out! You are probably profoundly unaware of the ways you are the cool people!
Maybe you're the funny one, the artistic one, the one who has real friendships with guys, the one who has a good relationship with your parents, or the one who is not worried about your weight! Or maybe you're none of those things, but there is some other aspect of you that is making these girls froth with jealousy!
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I saw Novak before Plamegate
[Read the article: Robert Novak's very sad story]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... during a 2002 taping of Crossfire with Paul Begala as the Liberal . He cut an equally impressive figure then: (Boe-Noe? Who is this guy Boe-Noe? Isn't he some kind of rock and roll musician?) It was barely literate. If there wasn't Affirmative Action for Conservatives in Media these days, I doubt he'd have a job at all. He mumbled on camera. He can barely write.
It would be nice if his outing of a CIA operative put him under the jail where he belongs. Certainly would have happened if a normal, reality based journalist had done same. But no. More Affirmative Action for Conservatives in Media. Nobody screams for his un-American head. Just Karl Rove won't invite him over to watch teletubbies and braid his hair anymore ...
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Okay, the environment is not a lifestyle choice ...
[Read the article: Plastic bags are killing us]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Reading these responses is like being stampeded by a bunch of chi-chi liberals, all waving their Whole Foods canvas bags while wearing their "Hilary for Prez" t-shirts. Canvas grocery bags are impractical on a large scale for the majority of Americans, who can't walk to Whole Foods from their upscale urban condo, and who are not high-income singletons on macro-vegan diet
I do get the frustration that leads people who don't live in urban areas to act like anyone who suggests that they change their lives one iota to respond to human pressure on the environment. Unless you live in an urban area ... where political pressure from these exact chi-chi yuppie high-income liberals keeps grocery stores in the neighborhoods that serve them ... a lot of environmental givens are impractical: use public transportation, walk more, and so on.
What I *don't* get is why all the "I'm more American than thou" folks don't say, hey, maybe the problem is 30 years of development and planning that assumes most people can and should depend on the automobile.
Tell your conservative Republican leaders that *you* want decent bus service in the town where you live. Public transportation benefits both residents and businesses.
Tell your local city councils to change the zoning laws so that you can encourage neighborhood grocery stores so you too can walk to them.
Partner with your church and organize carpools and grocery delivery to people who can't drive.
You know, there was a time when investing in infrastructure and pulling together and having neighborhoods with shopping districts you could walk to and being innovative was as pro-American and conservative as it came!
Nobody wants to take your "I Hate Hilary" t-shirt away. Please. Hate Mrs. Clinton. Hate lattes. Hate *us*. But hate us with a canvas shopping bag. You can put anti-us slogans *on* your canvas shopping bag. Be your passionate, conservative, anti-abortion, pro-business, flag-loving selves. Drink iced tea and eat hot dogs and go to church ... with a canvas shopping bag.
Because the environment is not a lifestyle choice. And pretending it is is just cutting off your nose to spite your face.
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Mr. Jones
[Read the article: Plastic bags are killing us]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are you saying that if we cannot change EVERYTHING all at ONCE, we absolutely should not change ANYTHING?
It is absolutely absurd to assume that personal virtue can fix half a century of mistakes. Yes, that much is true.
But if a lot of consumers all over the country begin changing their shopping habits to favor less plastic, food packagers and manufacturers will take notice in a hurry.
You start with what you have to work with. You do what you can. Or you can do nothing at all because no solution is perfect.
Which would you prefer?
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cutting off our noses to spite our face
[Read the article: Plastic bags are killing us]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think he may have not so much been suggesting doing nothing at all, but more decrying the whole hoity-toity attitude that a lot of "green" people seem to get. I saw it a lot in college and it drove me nuts then, too.
Okay, why does the existence of snotty college students dominate so many people's thinking to the point where it overrides their cost-benefit analysis on something as simple as this.
Snotty college students have existed since the invention of college. In every era they've had something to be snotty about. But are they the boss of me? No.
I'm really baffled about this.