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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
ralafler
Published Letters: 167 Editor's Choice: 9
Women have been having periods for thousands of years, millennia before the invention of commercial sanitary pads.
And I imagine in Zimbabwe it's only been a couple of generations since traditional ways of coping with menstruation have been displaced by pads -- undoubtedly within the memory of the female elders.
Why they heck are they dependent on Western commercial "sanitary" products? Is it really unthinkable that they use what their foremothers used?
I feel for women who suffer, but is this really among the most important public health issues in Africa?
It's become a given that the American League West is the weakest in baseball, but is it really? Maybe it was at the end of May, before the A's went on their annual June tear and Seattle beat up on the National League, but how can a division that's over .500 be the weakest? If one division is over .500, then mathematically, at least one other division must be under .500. Since the American League is much better this year than the National League, even the weakest division in the American League is better than at least one and probably two divisions in the National League.
The American League West doesn't have a dominating team, but it doesn't have any patsies, either. Detroit, the White Sox and the Twins get to pad their records by playing the Royals something like 18 times (Detroit is undefeated against the Royals this year). Won-lost records aren't necessarily the best way to evaluate the relative strength of teams who play different opponents. Or to look at it this way, if two bad teams play each other and one goes 6-4, and two good teams play each other and split, does that mean the team with the 6-4 record is better than the ones with the 5-5 records? Of course not!
As for the rest of the column, put me down on the "fire Joe Morgan" side. He was a great player, but as a broadcaster, I've loathed him for over 15 years!
You might want to check your math before you proclaim the superiority of the NL West.
The NL West is an aggregate 10 games over .500. The AL East is 23 games over .500; the AL Central, despite the pathetic Royals, is 32 games over .500. The NL West has an aggregate .511 winning percentage; the AL East has an aggregate .526 winning percentage; the AL Central has a .536 aggregate winning percentage. In interleague play, even playing against the "weak" AL West, the NL West was under .500.
If you look at their record against other divisions in their league, the NL West is two games under .500 against the NL East, so it's hard to claim they're stronger. Their aggregate winning percentage is based almost entirely on beating up on the NL Central, so all their record really proves is that they're a lot better that the worst division in baseball.
Could the baseball world show any more contempt for them with the scheduling? Couldn't the networks at least pretend some semblence of fairness by giving them one evening start? Instead, A's fans are watching them play at 10 a.m. That's too early even to justify the hallowed October tradition of sneaking out at lunch and not coming back. To add insult to injury, A's fans got stuck with the unlistenable Joe Morgan, who prides himself on not understanding the A's and never fails to be contemptuous of their philosophy.
Of course, ESPN/Fox will claim that no one cares about the A's or the Twins because they're a bunch of no-names. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! They wouldn't be no-names if they got one-tenth the media coverage that the Yankees or the Red Sox get.
I'm not bitter about the fact that even when the A's are on a roadtrip back east catching their highlights on ESPN is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Nope. Not at all.
Colorado Springs may be "aggressively heterosexual" and home to the Museum of the American Cowboy and the Pro-Rodeo Hall of Fame. However, it's also home to the headquarters of the United States Figure Skating Association and to the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame and Museum.
I've always found the juxtaposition between the two halls of fame rather amusing. I don't know for sure which is older, but Colorado Springs' status as a "player" in the world of figure skating goes back to the '60s, when famed coach Carlo Fassi was working out of the Broadmoor Skating Club, with soon-to-be Olympic champion Peggy Fleming as his first famous student.
Maybe Haggard is a closet figure skating fan (in our culture, a man can't get much gayer than that!).
I was unaware that rodeo was an Olympic sport. Thank you for enlightening me. Furthermore, I wa s unaware that most Olympic sports are "professional." The fact is, figure skating has a long association with Colorado Springs; as I said, it became an important training center in the '60s, predating the Olympic Training Center by more than a decade.
In my many years on the internet, I've recognized the wisdom of not feeding trolls.
But Ann Coulter has gotten to the point where her insane rants actually cause rational conservatives to recognize the moral bankruptcy of the neocon movement.
So publish her bizarre writings far and wide -- the more people read them, the more people look askance at everything associated with her.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
