Letters to the Editor
statgirl
Published Letters: 10
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not necessary to read this
[Read the article: Salon's new letters registration policy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just wanted to keep my previous user name.
Oh, also, I like having the letters paginated-- when there are a bunch on a topic I'm interested in, it's nice to quickly see where I left off. Or could there be an option along the lines of "number of 'results' displayed per page" vs. "view all"?
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Implausible reason?
[Read the article: Life-changing sanitary pads?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you think menstruation isn’t a likely reason for these girls to be missing school, here’s a story. A friend of mine was in the Peace Corps about ten years ago and taught at a school in Zimbabwe. If a girl’s menstrual blood leaked through her clothes, the headmaster would cane her in front of the class. He said it was to teach them the lesson that hygiene and clean appearance were important, but my friend said she never saw a single boy get caned for wearing dirty clothes (and they often did). An anecdote, yes, but apparently none of the Zimbabwean teachers considered it unusual. (And thanks, S.E. Michigan, for the BBC link.)
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Oh, pot...
[Read the article: New Yorker: Women largely irrelevant in near future]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Excluding War Room and Broadsheet, nine of the articles posted on Salon today are written by men and two are written by women. That’s about 82%. I laugh every time this comes up here—not because I don’t think it matters, but because Salon generally doesn’t seem to do that much better than the rest. But maybe the New Yorker could follow your lead and start publishing female writers primarily in a pink version called the New Yorkette?
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Paglia, the intellectual anti-intellectual
[Read the article: Real inconvenient truths]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From my perspective as an actual scientist*, virtually all the major (adulatory) claims about Paglia’s intellect remain to be proved, given her inane comments on global warming. Many other posters here have amply taken her to task, and (contrary to the claims of some of her supporters) provided Evidence and Facts and… wait for it… Sources!
So I’d just like to add something more general about the denial of anthropogenic aspects of climate change. A couple years ago the New Yorker had a three-part series on climate change, and one of the scientists interviewed for the piece expressed bafflement that the general public was so unconcerned about this issue, when the scientific community is (and has been) increasingly alarmed about it. He pointed out that usually the public is much more concerned about things than is warranted by the science—for example, the public’s assessment of the risks of nuclear power compared to the risk assessments of the nuclear scientists, i.e., the experts—and global warming was the only case he could think of where the opposite was true. The anti-science (and just generally anti-intellectual) culture that seems to pervade this country these days is going to doom us (economically, medically, environmentally…).
* for the record, my field of research is not climate change but that other dirty word, evolution, so I’ve had lots of experience with the science-deniers.
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Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man
[Read the article: Real inconvenient truths]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Majorajam makes an excellent point about skepticism. If a scientist with training in my field wants to challenge the conclusions I’ve drawn based on my data analysis, I’ll take on that debate any day. If someone who knows nothing about my field (and has no training in science to boot) wants to insist that I’m wrong, well… whatever.
About fossil fuels: the problem is that combustion of fossil fuels is a very recent (on a geologic timescale) source of CO2—the carbon sequestered in fossil fuels has not been part of the atmospheric carbon cycle for millions and millions (and millions…) of years. There is a natural background level of CO2 emissions from volcanic activity, cellular respiration by living organisms, naturally caused forest fires, etc. So although burning fossil fuels is not the biggest source of CO2, it’s the biggest contributor to the increasing levels of it in the atmosphere.
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Bill, you're such an elitist!
[Read the article: Say it loud: I'm elite and proud!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]And I adore you for it. This reminds me of one of the Get Your War On strips where the guy says:
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherf***er in the room," I’ll be an elitist!
Sadly, the t-shirt with that one is sold out…
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How is this not funny?
[Read the article: U.S. soldiers used "comfort women," too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“Roughly 65 percent of Bernoldini employees echoed Halterfeyer's sentiments…” (that’s the guy who said "I don't know where Lydia gets off acting like the big cheese all the damn time," and described his female boss as “bossy”).
“… female employment had swelled to 35 percent of the company…”
See, if 35% of the employees are female, that means 65% are male, which coincidentally is the same proportion of employees who think their (female) boss is acting like... a boss. Get the joke?
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Enough pills already
[Read the article: The new skinny, sex-crazed you!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What exactly is the medical connection between weight and libido? Certainly I can see that a person who is unhappy with their weight (whether thin or not) might not feel attractive and therefore not be very interested in sex. So how about addressing the body image issue, or treat the weight issue if necessary (by pill or diet or whatever)? On the other hand, someone who is happy with their weight (whether thin or not) can experience depressed libido too, in which case weight is unlikely to be the underlying cause. Both of these conditions deserve attention, but wouldn’t it make sense to treat them independently? But here comes this magic pill (maybe eventually) that couples the treatment of two potential health issues that aren't necessarily related, which coincidentally are two big components (gotta be skinny! gotta be sexy!!) of the stereotyped female ideal. It irritates me a bit for that reason (and it would irritate me if they were developing it for males too). But also I’m sick (in general) of our obsession with medicating people to treat them for, well, living. Maybe they’re developing a pill for that.