Letters to the Editor
Quiet Type
Published Letters: 656 Editor's Choice: 32
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Greatest hits, indeed
[Read the article: Sparring with Snow]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You know what would be a really useful history book for high-schoolers? One that has a whole chapter listing Bush's lies and dry-drunk attempts to speak in general, and a whole chapter listing Tony Snow's contemptuous spitting at all of America.
Kids need to learn just how close our precious democracy has managed to come to fascism.
And make a version put to music the kids can listen to on their headphones, too, just in case they don't really want to read or something.
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Take a page from the business world
[Read the article: My son is almost 30 and won't leave home]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If it's really your son's lack of contribution to the household that's disturbing you:
Do it the way business does. A businessman I know who is constantly hit up by charitable and arts organizations says this to callers once his personal donation threshold is reached: "I'm sorry, my accountant says I can't make any more donations this year."
Try that type of nuts-and-bolts approach with your son: "I've been told I need to research financial realities that apply to women my age and income, and I've discovered I absolutely MUST find ways to conserve and grow my cash if I don't want to spend my old age in poverty. I'm shocked myself to find that I'm in trouble here and need to take some critical steps NOW."
If it's more your son's (or your) mental health you're worried about -- I don't know. I'm not so sure anymore that two loving family members of any age living together is such a terrible thing -- unless you're making each other miserable.
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P.S. Suze Says:
[Read the article: My son is almost 30 and won't leave home]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Even Suze Orman tells parents of limited means who are stuck between the rock of their kids' college educations and their own retirement to sock the money away for THEMSELVES first. Her rationale? The kids can get student loans, the kids have decades to pay them back, to make progressively more money in their careers, etc., but the older parents have a much shorter timeline to work with, can become ill, etc.
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Alternative to cuckquean:
[Read the article: What do you call a female cuckold?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bearded Lady.
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About those pieces of paper:
[Read the article: The Iraq debate: Caving in before it begins?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bush could write a plan for withdrawal; Congress would write a plan for withdrawal, but so what? You don't think that plan would become as big a sneering joke as the big benchmarks?
We have an alleged leader who thinks the Constitution is a piece of paper; do you think agreements and timetables and plans concerning Iraq are of any binding importance to him?
How did we come to an America like this? And how do we get out of it? I'd like to see a "plan" for that.
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Excuse me:
[Read the article: The Iraq debate: Caving in before it begins?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Congress would write a plan for withdrawal"
Excuse me - make that "could," not "would." I guess some fuzzy wishful thinking slipped in there.
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You don't HAVE to have friends.
[Read the article: I'm a new university student. How do I make friends?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I re-read LW's letter, and I don't think he is particularly hungry to make friends so much as he thinks he's SUPPOSED to make friends, and he seems to me to be trying to figure out how to accomplish this goal without too much inconvenience.
So I'm not sure all this positive energy, "join a club," "smile at folks" stuff is actually addressing the real question.
I would say to LW, if along the way of living your student life you make friends, great. If you don't, don't sweat it. If you mostly like to be alone anyway, college just kind of naturally provides easy, organic opportunities for the acquaintance thing, and you can be perfectly content with that. Real friendship of the heart does take some work and probably more hanging out together than you may be up for anyway.
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Republicans are Fishers of Men.
[Read the article: What you missed while watching "Rescue Me"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'd say the fish stuff is a reference to the fish symbol of Christianity, intended as a reassurance to the Christian Right viewing public that all these guys are, indeed, very, very Christian and Right.
But the other interpretations are a lot more interesting, not to mention accurate.
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Inquiring minds want to know:
[Read the article: I let my friends stay with me and now they're evicting me!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]With baby coming, it's definitely time for SOMEONE to get out, but the question is who:
Whose name is on the lease? If it's yours, without theirs, I can't see where there's any question who belongs there.
If they go, could you afford the place on your own? (You brought them in at a time when you couldn't.) If you can afford it on your own anyway, stop throwing away money on rent and buy yourself a place already.
How much do you adore this place? Is it a one-in-a-million great place it would break your heart to leave?
Roommates SUCK. Getting out could be the best thing that ever happened to you.
That is all.
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Reagan Power
[Read the article: The scruffy charms of an insecure president]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Ronald Reagan on Dubya - 'A moment I've been dreading. George brought his ne're-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida. The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I'll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they'll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work.'"
It pains me to realize that, had this 1986 statement been widely publicized before GW ever began campaigning, he might easily have had no campaign at all.
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Comedy, and tragedy
[Read the article: Hit her, baby, one more time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For God's sake, all this bizarre hand-wringing about what it all means! I got suckered into watching the post-game video, and here's what's really going on: Britney Spears is a comic genius (unlike Sarah Silverman).
The only important thing to take out of the essay is awareness of the casual cruelty of bigshot stupid men towards nature's wonderful, beautiful animals. THAT's a problem worth handwringing about.
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Heavy, not fat.
[Read the article: Hit her, baby, one more time]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the reason she is being perceived as "fat" is because she was unable to dance. Those lumbering non-moves and gracelessness were creating an overall impression of heaviness. (It works the opposite way, too: Some heavy women who move quickly and lightly don't register as heavy at all.) Obviously she's lost the super-sculpted waistline she was known for. But nobody who'd see her hanging around a beach would consider her "fat."