Letters to the Editor
domini
Published Letters: 1093 Editor's Choice: 76
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Married people do join the military
[Read the article: My wife wants to join the Peace Corps]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The military has trained counselors and systems to deal with just this. SOme people take advantage of it, and stay together. Otheres act like idiots, and get divorced. There's good stats on the effectiveness of intervention, communications, etc.
Long distance does not doom a relationship by itself. Selfishness and obstinateness, along with craziness, does. You don't have to be separated for those things to kill off a relationship. Perhaps these two got married without having the discussions over the future they should have, or his circumstance changed, and he assumed she understood that. You can't assume in a marriage. They can work this out, if they want to. I'm not sure this LW wants to.
Marriage involves give and take. SO many people these days seem unwilling to compromise, and so willing to frivilously give up on marriage. That's truly sad.
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Are people really this stupid?
[Read the article: Hadji Girl]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Even though this song is incredibly insensitive, former posters are right in that it was meant to be consumed only by other soldiers who are dealing every day with the same thing the songwriter is dealing with.
They DO this. I have students in Iraq who talk about this happening. It's always happened in most wars, from the ancient to today, in WWII, Vietnam, etc.
The Iraq jihaddists are not nationalists- they are SUnnis who are angry that they can't screw everyone else around anymore. They are killing Shia in really nasty ways, and trying to provoke retaliation. Stop making the evil one sided. Our soldiers are trying, and it is angering for me, military historian, to see people automatically demonize our soldiers who have no idea what war is. People lure people to ambush in war.
If Islamists don't like the song, excommunicate the Wahhabists.
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Anti-abortiona activists are attacking contraception by calling most of it abortifacet
[Read the article: The misrepresentation of abortion's "middle ground"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perhapst tactically contraception and abortion should be treated separately
but it's important to be clear on the facts: oppositon to abortion and opposition to contraception are, for the right, the SAME issue.
The opposition of secular people to abortion is based on the idea that people have access to contraception. Anti-abortion radicals (like Randall Terry) think ALL hormone based contraception (from the Pill to Depo Provera) are abortifacets, or early abortions. They are already conflating contraception with abortion in an effort to restrict access.
I live one town over from the idiot in Wisconsin who not only refused to fill the woman's birth control prescription but kept it, arguing that it was his right not to fill it because the Pill, to him, causes abortions by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg. These people believe life begins at fertilization and are trying to get state legislations to declare fertilization, not implantation, the beginning of life. The science does not back up the claim that the pill are prevents implantation of fertilized eggs, and the fertilization/beginning of life argument is controversial. This is the direction of the fight.
I do not see abortion as a positive good, but a necessary element. I also think the best way to prevent abortion is contraception, education and opportunity choices, and helping single mothers get college degrees with money and childcare so they can support their offspring and won't feel the need to get an abortion. If people don't feel they need it, it wouldn't happen.
I think the politicians don't really want to prevent abortion, and neither does Operation Rescue or any of the other people who want bans. If abortion became unnecessary, they would lose the best fundraising bogeyman they have. It's easy to think about abstract unborn than to actually help people here.
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KStone
[Read the article: Breast bullies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are you going to cite the Slate article you copied? Some people might like to read all of it.
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I'd post the link
[Read the article: Breast bullies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]BUt my copy has the pay link on it, not a free one. Not ripping you, KStone. I thought about it immediately, too.
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Found the Free link and citation
[Read the article: Breast bullies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sydney Spiesel Tales From the Nursery:The health benefits of breast-feeding may not be what you think.
Slate , Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. March 27, 2006 http://www.slate.com/id/2138629/
accessed 6/15/06
For the kids I know who will cite it in some academic paper. Here's the full, correct citation.
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The best way to keep people away from drugs
[Read the article: At 19, I've already seen drugs damage my peers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When I was a teen, my father's friend, his son, and an adult friend of mine took me to an adult party. They pointed out all of the drunks and the druggies and made fun of them. They had me listen to how people tslked about the stoned women as sluts, look at how they acted, and at how unattractive drunks were. They showed me, they didn't lecture. It was int he course of an evening when they treated me as an adult let in on a secret- these people were ugly, boring, and vulnerable to exploitation.
I've never done drugs because of wht I saw. I've also lived (and had friend live) near a crackhouse, and had crackheads for neighbors. I think the people who make fun of the sober people, or who think meth and crack are harmless, have never lived near it or seen the devastation of the inner city. Once you've stayed in SOuth Central or the Neutral ZOne, and seen the reality of what Chris Rock describes as "Crackheads will steal your heat", you are not as blase about crack, acid, angel dust, or meth.
If that makes me boring, too bad. Weed isn't as dangerous as advertised, but the others are. And weedheads are pretty boring.
If you can't enjoy driving a high performance car without a big roll of ganga, somethings wrong with you. Let me drive a Porsche, and I won't need the weed, thank you very much. Since I'm not smoking up my money, I have a fighting chance of owning an elderly Porsche.