Letters to the Editor
Sunfell
Published Letters: 25 Editor's Choice: 5
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Happy HollyDaze
[Read the article: How the secular humanist grinch didn't steal Christmas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I heartily agree with what Mishima666 said: the Religious Right is nothing without an enemy to rage against. Any enemy. So, every season, they take out their list of grievances against the secular world, and start howling about 'attacks' on Christmas, Easter, Christianity, and [insert item here].
It's gotten much worse in the past few years. Their angry ranting is everywhere, gumming up civilized discourse in a phlegm of hateful resentment of everything remotely secular. Their fears are played upon and amplified by the leaders in their parallel universe, and they spill from their churches, to infest everything around them with their hate and fear.
Funny, I thought that Christianity was about love and tolerance, not hate and fear. This Christmas craziness is simply another inflamation of something that has gone very wrong with Christianity.
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I feel your pain
[Read the article: The real war on Christmas]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think that a steady diet of right wing talk radio has rotted my own father's mind, turning him into a 'dittohead' and a very angry hardnosed Republican. He could not hear anything about Bill Clinton without spewing a stream of invective that turned the air blue. I was afraid to tell him that I was selected as a founding volunteer at his Presidential Library because I figured he'd disown me.
Happily, he didn't, but I am not looking forward to Christmas dinner, because he'll find some reason to berate me for my own moderate-to-progressive beliefs, my non-Christian faith, and my nonconforming ways.
If I could find some way to selectively jam the talk radio and Fox TV that he listens to and watches, and that he parrots like the Republican Borg Collective, I would. I blame them, as you do, for the collective poisoning of our American community. I can only wish that the propogators of all the hate, anger, and misery will get their fair and balanced (heh) karmic return- and in public, where we can watch them spin in the wind.
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Humor is the measure of a person
[Read the article: Funny women a turnoff for most men]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So, funny women are a turnoff for 'most' men. I'd love to see the size and age of the sample- younger guys tend to be more insecure than older ones, and what they find 'funny' is often meaner and more physically cruel than genuine humor. Too bad.
I will not hide my light under a bushel. Nor will I cease to come up with bon-mots, non-sequiteurs, puns, or dry, wry observations that collapse a room into hysterics. I've spent 40+ years polishing my wit, and have reduced my 'come-back' time to mere seconds. Properly applied humor breaks ice, diffuses tension, and is a great measure of a stranger. A person without a genuine, mature sense of humor isn't one I'd want to keep company with.
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Parallel universes
[Read the article: Ringing up baby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I used to be annoyed by the various glimpses into the parallel universe of the spawning uber rich and their excesses, but now I'm just amused. If they want to treat their kids like soulless accessories, and spend too much on stuff that is going to choke a landfill (or eBay) in six months, let 'em.
I can care less about these people and their baggage. They are amusing and pitiable, but just barely.
Someone should write about single, childless tightwads who are doing well in spite of the theft of their hard earned wages and retirement by the husbands and companies of the abovementioned pitiable people.
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Lumping us in together
[Read the article: Talkin' bout my generation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have never understood why the statisticians like to add the first four years of the 60s to the baby boom. We who were born between 1960 and 1964 are a unique cohort unto ourselves, but have been continuously drowned out by our elders.
Think about these things:
The Kennedy and King assassinations barely registered with us.
The Summer of Love was past our bedtime.
We were too young to be drafted to go to VietNam.
We were old enough to understand Nixon's impeachment and the oil crisis. We graduated high school and college in the late 70s and early 80s. And we were 'twentysomething' when 'thirtysomething' was on the air. Yet, we're still lumped in with the Boomers.
My parents were teens during WWII. We're stuck in the middle, silenced by the noise of both the Boomers and their offspring. We're the Silent Generation. We're the Cold War kids. We get to pick the scraps of what the Boomers leave us- if they leave anything at all. I have to retire at 67. Or is it 72? I'd have to check. Thanks, boomers, for not much of anything.
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Portion sizes in restaurants
[Read the article: Supermarket sleuth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I live on a very tight budget, which means that eating out is a luxury for me, rather than the norm. I always go to restaurants which serve giant portions, because for me, it's like getting three meals in one setting. The same holds true for things like Chinese takeaway. Some might see that little cardboard box as one serving, but I see three, and I get three. So, using this system of estimation saves me money when I do eat out.
I've learned to translate labels on food into plain English. If the label is plastered with stuff about good nutrition, as it is on the Mac& Cheese boxes, I know that the actual nutritional value of the contents is inversely proportional to the blather on the box. Fresh broccoli and other veggies in the produce department don't have any blather on their wrappers, and they're some of the best things for you to eat.
My rule of cooking is simple: keep the ingredients as close to their original form as possible. That means spending a bit more on fresh ingredients and using time to put them together. Cooking from scratch might be more time consuming and labor intensive, but your body will thank you for your care.