Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 111 Editor's Choice: 3
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The fallacy of therapists' observations:
[Read the article: Single women should be ashamed of themselves!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They judge ALL people of any demographic by those people of that group who are their patients.
I remember one such doctor-type a few years back (when it was still considered thoughtful for such people to opin on target groups) discussing how "terribly unhappy" gay men are."
He didn't seem to understand that OF COURSE all of his patients are unhappy -- that's why they go to him.
And I think the same is true of MOST therapists --- they don't seem to understand, trapped in their own professional mindset that THEIR PATIENTS ARE ALL UNHAPPY -- THAT"S WHY THEY'RE PATIENTS.
The happy folk of whatever group don't seek out quacks and morons with PhD's in Smarm Psych so they can pay $100+ an hour to be told they're not happy, but live their lives and struggle with their struggles. They do not seek out someone to tell them what they should consider NORMAL.
One has to be in considerable psychic pain to fail to recognize the psych scam. Oh there are some seriously good shrinks who want to move you through the process as quickly and successfully as can be done. But this therapist who has made a profession out of getting people to pay her to talk about fucking doesn't seem to be one of them.
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Ahh, how people love that word, WHORE
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For some reason, Ms Havrilesky (whose likes and dislikes as stated in her reviews are ones I almost always agree with -- and I have no doubt I will with these, too) and almost everyone else in our sexually-disturbed society seems to think that doing a job that isn't yr idealized dream means being a WHORE, i.e., finding out that you're not as much All That as you thought you were when you were in 9th grade, finding out that you had to compromise your dream to earn a living, is somehow equal to having to rent out your tender parts to whatever strange fantasies the "respectable" businessman from the suburbs has seen in Jenna Jameson Sylvia Saint movies or in such gynecophobic classics as Porky's or anything starring Michael Douglas or any of 10,000 "Let's Get Laid by Hook or by Crook" teenage boy films or -- on especially bad nights -- someone who remembers seeing "Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS" fondly.
It's not.
I am reminded of a comment made by a hooker* in an article in a magazine called The Organ some 35 + years ago (I'm reminded because the magazine's 9 issues have been collected and published by Ramble House Publishers** in a 300+ page book called The Organ Reader):
" We're not selling anything that doesn't belong to us -- and there isn't a businessman or politician who can make that same statement."***
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*
That woman DID enjoy her well-screened and selective participation in the field -- it wasn't until AFTER she retired that she could see the hideous dysfunction and psychic scarring that crippled her life and that she talks about.
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**
www.Ramblehouse.com
http://www.ramblehouse.com/organreader.htm
and available online from Lulu.com --
http://www.lulu.com/ramblehouse
http://www.lulu.com/content/1070802
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***
This is the reason I never diss any supposedly respectable type by calling him a whore. He should only work that hard and be judged so immediately and often harshly as a whore. Maybe I should call one of them a Bush or a Cheney -- a poseur who doesn't deliver what he promised but instead just has his pals mug you for the money. Or just be a bit more tolerant about people I don't know who don't live up to MY standard.
Politicans, on the other hand, insert themselves into our lives, and that, I think, gives us the right to laugh at them and throw rotting vegetables at them in the street, as they did with the only other president's son to become president -- John Quincy Adams.
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Obama's running mate -- not WHO but HOW and WHY
[Read the article: Why Obama should pick Hillary Clinton as veep]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I might as well weigh in on this, for all the difference it won't make.
(I have only seen ONE writer who is actually making sense about what criteria Senator Obama should use as a basis for his decision.
It was going to the question of what a President should want from a Vice President.
Because, frankly, Barack Obama should be able to win against John McCain even if he ran alone, without ANY VP candidate.
McCain is a man who is repeatedly -- and tiresomely -- billed as "the straight-talking candidate" which is grating and irritating, since these days, his only solid stable continuing principle on issues seems to be -- obviously -- "Any way the wind blows"
If Obama can't beat John McCain on his own, he doesn't have what it takes to be president.)
But, I read this in a blog and can't remember which one, which is annoying because I would love to give credit where it's due.
The blogger said (and I believe he or she was quoting someone else) that the choice of who to select as a running mate should not be made on the basis of who will help the presidential candidate get elected, but who will help the president govern and get RE-ELECTED.
I know, I know -- you gotta get elected to govern, but I believe I answer that objection above.
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