Letters to the Editor
BadReligion
Published Letters: 509 Editor's Choice: 7
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Bad English
[Read the article: One nation, not just speaking English]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I should see the film Idiocracy. Apparently, it depicts the English language degenerating into Ebonics, Redneckese, and Valley Girlish. All kidding aside, that's a serious problem. Many people born and raised in the U.S. speak neither English nor a language brought to the U.S. by their parents/guardians. They instead speak a homegrown gibberish. Now that I think about it, they probably couldn't read this paragraph, or write one like it.
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In lieu of TCF
[Read the article: PSAs in your panties?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If I may be so bold, I'll answer Mikes Pace's question.
Some organizations try to gently, tactfully inform Africans that FGM is extremely harmful and pointless. They have some success with this, but it seems to me that there's a better solution.
FGM is mostly practiced for superstitious reasons. It cuts across different supersitions, as it has been found in branches of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and animism, as well as syncretic variants of the above. It's yet another way in which Religion Poisons Everything. The solution, then, is to secularize the society.
How? Poverty tends to cause superstition, and development (even without great wealth) tends to lead to secularization. Even in the U.S., the most religious rich country, less than 30% of the population attends regular church services. Most of the poverty (not all) in the world is the result of First World (not just American) exploitation of the Third World. This exploitation (imperialism) manifests itself in three ways: Grossly unfair trade, debt slavery from the World Bank/IMF load sharks, and violence.
To eliminate all of the above, we could elect more avowed anti-imperialists like Sherrod Brown, Dennis Kucinich, and Ron Paul to Congress. Of course, we could also attack the problem from above by electing a President like Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, Brian Moore, et cetera. Similar examples exist in other developed countries.
An Africa liberated from imperialism would probably begin to develop, and thus secularize, in short order, bringing an end to such barbaric, superstitious practices as FGM.
Anti-imperialism is the answer to everything. Yes, I know there are religious groups that share my political beliefs.
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Education?
[Read the article: PSAs in your panties?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Education doesn't occur in societies where it's privatized and completely unaffordable, under the terms of the World Bank/IMF's structural adjustment programs. I'm talking about imperialism in the present.
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Why spend money?
[Read the article: Sex and money: A week in review]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't understand why porn is such a big industry. For one thing, I don't find it very appealing, and for another, it's available for free. Why pay for it?
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How long does it take?
[Read the article: Slipped through the cracks]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've often wondered why it's assumed that it takes forever for women to take the extra steps needed in the restroom. All that only takes a few seconds, right? Then earlier, somebody mentioned children and menstruation, and that made some sense. Even so, I remember somebody who attributed the long women's lines to time spent primping. Is there any truth to that?
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Like the Eskimo and the Missionary
[Read the article: Buying abortion drugs online]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Don't these papists believe that the souls of the aborted go straight to Heaven?
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Sea World memory
[Read the article: My wife left me because the dolphins at Sea World gave me an erection]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]No, not that kind of memory.
Does anyone else remember a show at Sea World called "Wheels"? I distinctly remember seeing it sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s at the San Antonio Sea World. At the time I thought it was ridiculous, since it clearly had nothing to do with anything aquatic. That's true. It was also ridiculous for many other reasons.
It was set in some sort of dystopian community, a la Metropolis. I think the roller skaters, known as "foot rollers," were on the bottom of the society. Bicyclists composed the upper crust, I think. The plot involved a foot roller rebelling against the class structure. He may have had to save the princess. I remember the king, the royal spokesman (which I remember as "smokesman," and thinking it was a pun,) and of course all the stunts: bicycles spinning inside a circular cage, a climactic battle fought on a spinning metal girder, et cetera.
I can't find any information about this online, or anywhere else. Does anybody else remember this?
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Cookie-cutter girls
[Read the article: This just in: Adolescence sucks]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's what we called the girls who looked like the girls on the covers of those aforementioned series. There's a big difference between them and the girls who buy (for example) vampire books. I see this at my job all the time.
Are the cookie-cutter girls the depressed ones? I thought the latter girls (and boys too, of course) were more likely to be depressed... not because they wanted to be one of the cookie-cutter kids (who wants to join the jock 'n ditz crowd?), but for plenty of other reasons.
I think this article (perhaps both the original and the Broadsheet article) conflates two separate realities of adolescence.
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Blast!
[Read the article: This just in: Adolescence sucks]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My mistake! I conflated two Broadsheet articles, forgetting that they were distinct. Never mind.
Robert Smith of The Cure (often cited as a musical icon for depressed adolescents) mentions in an interview on his band's excellent 2002 DVD Trilogy that he does't understand the term "teen angst." He says he sees no signs of it being exclusive to teens, so why call it that?
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Cookie-cutter girls
[Read the article: Prada: The new puberty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's why buys those things, that's who's on the cover. Cool chicks read better stuff. I see it at my job all the time.
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nwpt883
[Read the article: My wife left me because the dolphins at Sea World gave me an erection]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That was a sweet story. It reminds me of a story told by Peter Buck, guitarist for R.E.M. He had just finished a tour and was exhausted. Sitting on his porch, he noticed some kids throwing a ball around, and promptly started crying.
And nobody remembers "Wheels"? Nobody?
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Kufir77
[Read the article: My wife left me because the dolphins at Sea World gave me an erection]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do all those things trigger bloodlust, or at least malice, in you?
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Vasumurti
[Read the article: Bush: Birth control = abortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was wondering when Vasumurti would return, spouting the same old stuff. In that case, I'll do the same: Don't these religious types believe that the souls of the aborted go to heaven? And if heaven is perfect and eternal, and your mission is to save souls, and if being born possibly jeopardizes your salvation, isn't abortion perfectly desirable?