Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 1162 Editor's Choice: 79
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Middle class blacks and whites got ripped, too
[Read the article: Flooded and forgotten]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The trolls and right wingers try to blame the poor for it, but middle class homeowners of all races are getting ripped off, too. They paid taxes, and their homes are ruined. They are getting the run around from the insurers and government. These people worked as hard as the poor, saved moeny, and built their houses in the area they were steered to by the real estate agents and banks. They are dispersed and hurt. They lost everything.
Somehow "Black" and "poor" became synonyms in the media. But there are black middle class people in the Ninth Ward, and poor and middle class whites in Slidell, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, St. Bernard, etc. There are Black middle class people in those areas, too.
Some poor and middle class "values" whites always thought their race would protect them from governmental neglect. They have always been the values "Christian" voters, worrying about abortion and gay rights rather than corruption, economics and effectiveness. Now they are finding out that their race isn't going to get them any better treatment, and abortion/gay rights don't rebuild houses or make crooked businesses behave. For a whole generation of voters in the Deep South, the last three hurricane seasons were a revelation. Now those people are learning the lessons of the Great Depression.
The churches that are there are not the Dobson political churches. It's the ones who believe in Christ's order to relieve suffering. Dobson, Farwell, and a host of "political" religous leaders are now faced by people like TD Jakes. Talk seems very cheap now.
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What Not To Wear does not do a good job
[Read the article: The squeezing season]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I watch that show, and Stacy and Clinton consistently do a horrible job with overweight clients, especially apple shaped ones. They basically take them to Lane Bryant and tell them, "too bad the industry doesn't serve your size well". They told the plus sized red haired producer who cried exactly that- the industry does not serve her size, and she will have to tailor stuff. On Television Without Pity's WNTW board, people comment a LOT on how badly this show serves certain body types, so this is not just my opinion.
Outside of big cities, it is incredibly hard to find flattering plus size clothes. For teen girls in a small town, it is impossible. For over size 12 teen girls with limited budgets in Los Angeles (I shop the outlets there once a year)it's squeeze in or wear old lady clothes.
I went in my locla Marshall Fields and asked a friendly saleslady for "evening pants, not hoochie, not elderly, over size ten". She replied, "Not in this city". If you live in small town cities or conservative cities (like Minneapolis) as a plus size teen, you have limited options.
Most department store clothes are cut to a limited size 8 with a 32, 22, 34 body. They expand outward from those proportions. When you get to size 16+ the cut becomes distorted, with the tops becoming boxy, the chest too big, the colors awful, and the hips far to big. This model creates really ugly clothes in the plus size crowd. If your belly is outsize, you are SOL. The cut is really important here.
I feel for these teen girls. The fashion industry thinks American women are stupid. We've retaliated by driving several fashion houses to the brink of extinction, and closing our pocketbooks. That's why they are concentrating on the teens- easier to manipulate. Until the industry starts designing in a realistic way, my clothing budget will remain much smaller than my book budget.
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A good discussion
[Read the article: The lost boys of Colorado City]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This article and discussion are excellent. Polygamists have been using the TV Show "Big Love" to argue polygamy is benign. Warren Jeffs is simply proof that polgyny, in and of itself, in bad. Many Afican analysts argue that it is one of the bases for corruption, disease, and other problems that expand mortality and prevent modernity in places like rural Sudan, Nigeria (the North), Yemen, etc.
Some people ignore sexual exploitation of girls and brutalization of girls, going ape over sexual exploitation of boys and brutalization of girls. Polygyny hurts young boys and girls; the boys' stories are as heartbreaking as the girls. Where there are surplus boys, there is pain and a lack of survival.
Why these women have not shotgunned him I have no idea. These "traditional" women show us that the whole stay at home versus working thing is so much silliness. Real moms don't abandon their children.
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I have never understood Wonkette's attraction
[Read the article: Whither feminism?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]She has very little experience int he world, she grew up rather priviledged, and her observations are usually rather shallow. I think we give her too much credit when we say she is pointing to what has regressed while feminism focused on abortion. She thinks the fight is won. She thinks the ability to get away with vicious behavior makes women equal. It only makes elite men and women equal in priviledge.
Feminism does have to get beyond abortion, but the focus on the Middle East and Africa needs to increase. Cox's insult to the foreign focus just sounds very Paris Hilton. People who make less money or are different are just less interesting to her. Does she think they just exist to clean her apartment?
Perhaps women need to think harder about who gets to determine what is feminism. I do not think taking advice from this person is the way to help women win the economic and social goals needed to make society better for everyone, female and male.