Letters to the Editor
David Schlaefer
Published Letters: 33 Editor's Choice: 3
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Proportional Award System
[Read the article: Obama can't close the deal ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The reason neither can close the deal is because of the proportional award system for delegates that the Dems use combined with the popular vote/caucus split in democratic primaries.
A proportionate award system may make sense in parliamentary elections to ensure accurate representation of the electorate, but it's a bad way to choose a single, national candidate.
If we had a similar system in our presidential election-- proportional delegates with a certain bar that must be met to actually win-- we would have had several presidential elections in American history with no outright winner.
Add to that the "superdelegates"-- party elders whose envisioned function was to stop a far-left candidate from winning a close primary battle and taking the party down to sure defeat in a general election-- and you have the current mess.
Barack Obama's passionate supporters don't want to hear this, and the media doesn't make much mention of it-- but if the primaries were conducted winner-take-all fashion, Clinton would have clinched some time ago. It wouldn't be this close. And if a simple popular vote tally was used (with Florida and Michigan voting and counting), it would have been closer, but Clinton would also have already wrapped it up. As dramatic as Obama's rise has been, his ultimate victory (presuming he does win) will have been possible in no small part because of the weird demonratic primary system and the dual oddity of two big states not counting.
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Not Buying
[Read the article: How Hillary Clinton botched the black vote]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't buy any of this. Perhaps Clinton could have done a better job with black voters, but the overwhelming majority of black voters would have voted for Obama in any case, barring absurd gaffes on his part. Its all about identity politics in the Democratic party. I suspect this is only the beginning. From now on, no field of Democratic national contenders will ever be "complete" without at least one serious minority top tier candidate; and I suspect there will be tremendous pressure to always field a P/VP ticket with at least one minority member from now on.
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Spitzer's Disgrace
[Read the article: Michael Wolff on sex and the Dems]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Elliot Spitzer did not disgrace "himself, his wife, and his daughters." He disgraced only himself. Don't tar his his family with the same brush just because he was a jerk.
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Better Things to Worry About
[Read the article: If I die, I want my friends to raise my children]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Let me get this straight; you put together a will with legal assistance, you have ample financial resources and so doubtless dealt with myriad inheritance and probate matters, you probably set up trusts for your children-- but instead of discussing the guardianship issue with your attorney, you have to turn to an online advice column?
If you can't even broach this topic with your friends, then they're not the right guardians. And it's absurd to generate so much mental angst over so unlikely a possibility. The odds of you and your husband both dying are miniscule. Do you stay up at night worrying about one of your children dying? About your house burning down? About the market crashing ala 1929 and losing all your investments? These dire tragedies, and a thousand others, are all much more likely to happen than you and your husband meeting with an accident that leaves your kids unexpectedly as orphans.
Stop acting like a stereotypical navel-gazing liberal. Go see your attorney, and if you just "can't" discuss this with a friend, put your folks and your most together sib down as guardians and be done with it. After all-- nothing is going to happen!!!
BTW, this letter reminds me very much of one a few years ago from a similar sort also contemplating her and her husband's demise. The problem then was that the LW's sister and brother-in-law went to church (gasp), weren't politically liberal, and the brother-in-law had served in the military-- so despite the fact that all the kids (cousins) involved were close, the family was a close-knit family, etc., the LW proposed selecting a non-family guardian that shared her political views rather than family with whom her kids were already close.
Not quite the recipe for a great Thanksgiving that year....
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Sexual Commodification
[Read the article: Little girls gone wild]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mieszkowski makes excellent points about the hypercommodification of sexuality in western society, one particularly troubling aspect of the "disease of affluence" that afflicts the U.S. today.
Sex is arguably our most powerful and most primitive instinct-- the very drive to reproduce, our most fundamental biological "goal." And it has also become the most powerful marketing tool ever known to man. We are bombarded now at all times and at all ages with sexual imagery telling us to consume, consume, consume. Small wonder that Madison Avenue, with money to be made, reaches ever deeper into the creche to find new customers.
In the past, normative morality taught us that little girls shouldn't dress like sluts and toddlers didn't need Hooters t-shirts. But normative morality has largely gone by the wayside under the twin assaults of lefty relativism and conservative greed. The left's assault on normative morality began as an attempt to redress injustice (racism, sexism, etc.), but it didn't stop there; and girls and young women are now invited to balance their gains in education and the workplace with the freedom to participate in their own sexual objectification like never before. And the right? Conservatism sold out some time ago. Too much money to be made to care.
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Keep it away From Kaivopuisto!
[Read the article: A giant vulva bicycle taxi hits the streets of Finland]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If Pales bikes over to the park on Vapuu, some very confused young men may really make fools of themselves (even more than usual).