Letters to the Editor
Tibbi_Sunshine
Published Letters: 9 Editor's Choice: 1
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Well, blue collar labor kinda sucks.
[Read the article: Where have all the line technicians gone?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I mean, to be honest about it. Your try telling kids who grew up sitting around on a cushy couch playing PS2s that they can earn an honest wage but they have to get hot sweaty and dirty to do it, or they can sit in an air conditioned office all day and surf the internet when the boss isn't looking and see which one they pick. My husband does blue collar work, most of my family did blue collar work--and it takes a lot out of you physically. I can't say I'd blame someone for choosing web surfing over dressing up in pounds of rubber in July heat, sweating like Anna Nicole Smith in a marathon, and then grabbing a live wire.
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This is really reaching
[Read the article: Real! Live! American girls!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Most of these objections to AG Dolls seem completely far-fetched. When I was a girl I was thoroughly bored with civics and history until I started finding stories about historically significant women. I burned through them like wildfire and can still remember the stories on Dorthea Dix and Mary Todd Lincoln like yesterday, so I was thrilled when AG books came out. I've shared the same stories with my daughter and she has two dolls, Molly and Janice Paisley (one of the Just Like Me dolls) and she plays with them any way she wants to. She has them go on adventures with her and they're companions in the car and anywhere else we go. Were the expensive as hell? Yes. But the stories are lovely (and truthfully no more sanitized than any other kids' story. Anne of Green Gables? The Little Princess? Nancy Drew? Does having a neatly packaged ending preclude you from being a good story for a kid?) and the dolls are lovely, and she gets to learn history that sparks discussion.
And I would hardly call them patriarchal--we're into the Samantha books right now and it's already mentioned changing roles for women and draws a decent distinction between the rights of different classes that you can discuss. Why does Grandmary say "Ladies don't earn money" but Nellie and her sisters have to work every day? Why does Cornelia think that women should be allowed to do what they want including work? There are so many educational aspects to it that you're just overlooking on purpose.
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Get rid of the carpet altogether
[Read the article: I'm living in filth!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seriously--IKEA has laminate flooring starting at just over a dollar a square foot. That's ridiculously cheap, and it won't look a nasty mess like carpet will. The carpet in our house is ancient and yucky (although not poo stained) so replacing it for cheap is what we're getting ready to do.
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Just four episodes...
[Read the article: The lost "Profit"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but all I can think when I see Adrian Pasdar is, Hey! There's Profit! There's Profit flying around on Heroes! There's Profit married to a Dixie Chick! He's seared in my brain.
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CFLs don't work in my house
[Read the article: The light-bulb wars switch on again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have tried, repeatedly, to switch from the old light bulbs to the newer, greener, happier ones, but the blow anywhere from 2 hours after putting them in, to 48. I haven't had a CFL last more than two days here. Incandescent--no problem they have a perfectly normal lifespan. So what do I do when there's no more incandescents? Sit around in the dark? Or I could change my light bulbs every two days which doesn't sound terribly green to me.
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It's about education, and little else
[Read the article: Why don't those hillbillies like Obama?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was born and raised in Prestonsburg, Ky--a true native Appalachian--and can say that I have seen the same fate meted out to fellow Appalachians that has been meted out to Kerry and Obama based solely on educational level.
It's not held against you that you go to school, get a degree or even an advanced degree, but you must go out believing exactly as you did going in, or else you've committed the sin of "getting above your raising" and obviously have a weak spine and no sense of self.
Obama speaks from a place of education, and Clinton speaks from the gut. She speaks in terms of conventional wisdom, while Obama is brimming with statistics and the psychology of American classes.
Having grown up in Arkansas, Clinton instinctively knows how to put forth an educated opinion that still resonates with her roots, while Obama, having grown up all over the world, is essentially rootless--a thing of utmost suspicion to any Appalachian.
It is a fine, fine line--and one that is poorly understood unless you are from a rural area. The Democratic candidate fails to see how the Appalachian can't see that helping across socioeconomic lines brings everyone up, but the clannishness of your average Appalachian instinctively refuses that argument.
Until you can look at the area and understand the self-defeating ways that we have been availed to so much welfare, but remained so impoverished, you'll never understand how to sell a candidate here.
This is an area of fatalism, and you can't sow the seeds of hope like you can elsewhere.
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@BabyGrumpus
[Read the article: Why don't those hillbillies like Obama?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Good point. Once moving there she obviously paid close attention to the locals.