Letters to the Editor
Aparecida
Published Letters: 41 Editor's Choice: 6
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Loud, rude, and slipshod is no way to go through life, son
[Read the article: At her majesty's pleasure]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For a long time, many of us baby boomers have been insulated from the notion that overseas travel is a serious business. A lot of us began traveling to Europe as children or teenagers during the late 1960s or early 1970s when our older family members could take advantage of low prices and nascent economies emerging in the wake of World War 2. We continued to travel overseas as so-called students. (Junior Year Bender wouldn't have had the same cachet.) Then later, when our economy was strong and cheap airfares abounded, we could go on company junkets and kid ourselves into thinking we were cosmopolites. All the while we could cheerfully waltz through the borders of foreign countries without reading the fine print. For the past forty years we have been able to ignore a basic truth: We enter another country's sovereign territory, and we fall under the jurisdiction of its legal system.
Peter Kurth did not deserve imprisonment and serial rape, just as many visitors to our shores receive grotesquely unmerited treatment that is out of proportion with their actions.
Kurth's case is a "perfect storm" of international paranoia, nationalistic tension, and really bad personal decisions. It is indeed chilling to me that Kurth's travel and family history made him suspect. But then I picture myself on that plane, crammed in with an incoherent screaming man. You want to be an activist? Fine, picket city hall, picket the prison gates, be tireless in your efforts to expose torture and wrongful detention. You want to travel for seven hours in a tin can with 300 other people? Sit down and shut up.
If nothing else can redeem this situation, I hope that we readers can learn to read the fine print, inform ourselves about other countries' laws, and finally grow up. A casual 'net search on "Passport Expiration" yields several sites with information that could have alleviated Kurth's passport issue. A quick read of the security signs that advise travelers to check for personal property might have ensured that Kurth left JFK with his laptop. Printing his contacts' names and addresses and keeping them handy would have given him more options in London. And, yes, not playing into the "obnoxious American" stereotypes might have helped the airline and law enforcement officials make different decisions.
The actions of our country have put all of us into a new and very evil era. And for many of us in the overprivileged class, there's a new and unpleasant truth. Those rules that for so long applied only to other people (routine harrassment, discretionary enforcement of the law) - those rules now apply to us.
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If you really care about the student
[Read the article: Sexual harassment in art school]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Go back to page 1 and re-read the letters from Sandra M. and Wonder Woman. If you care about the student, behave like an adult in this situation. Stick to the facts, get rid of the third-hand gossip and purple prose, and focus on being helpful and supportive. Words like "lothario" and "ickiness" make me think you are a bit too hooked on the drama of the situation. Please get over that. Indulging your own negative feelings about the advisor will not help the student.
Before you do anything, understand your university's stated policy on sexual harrassment. Then do a little research. How have past cases been handled? Have reasonable outcomes been reached? Has the university ever been sued? If, after talking to the appropriate dean (Student Life, Counseling - the titles vary) you believe that following the written procedure will produce a helpful outcome for the student, follow the rules, and document everything you do.
Begin by asking the student what she needs right now and what she would like to have happen. Remember, it's really about this young woman and the resolution that would be most helpful to her.
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Controlling her body
[Read the article: Abortion, shmashmortion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Does anyone remember what happened after Katherine Heigl's character learns about her promotion, early in the movie? She will now be in front of the camera. So her new bosses tell her that - although they can't directly say she needs to lose weight - that she should "tighten things" or perhaps go home, weigh herself, write down that number and plan to lose 20 pounds. Perhaps the character was, in her own way, claiming the right to do what she wanted with her own body.
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Link to interesting article on "hostile environment"
[Read the article: Her sexy T-shirt says "Kitty Not Happy" -- is that OK at work?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here's a link to an article on the legal definition of "hostile work environment":
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/harass/breadth.htm#IIIF
If the LW felt harassed by the real or imagined suggestiveness of the T-shirt, he should have contacted HR. If he was concerned for the young woman's well-being (wanting to advise her on better ways to conduct herself during a difficult time), he should have asked a mutually trusted third party to be there when he brought up the issue.
But, as was mentioned earlier, he could have learned all that by consulting his company's HR handbook.
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Miami
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Security: everyone yells.
Staff: no one understands English. Or Spanish. Or Portuguese.
Mice: greet you warmly in the departure lounge as you're waiting for that 11:00 p.m. flight