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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Kathleen L.
Published Letters: 146 Editor's Choice: 12
I have to weigh in with the parents here (of which I am one). No, I would not allow my daughter to run wild and annoy other patrons in a bar, and I agree that strollers impede access to the bar or the bathrooms -- but the suggestion that kids must therefore be banned completely is a false choice. As with other patrons, kids should be allowed in, providing their behavior is reasonable. Restrictions on underage drinking are for the protection of kids -- not to insulate people who hate toddlers from having to deal with an entire segment of the population.
Where I live (Los Angeles), a babysitter, particularly on a weekend, gets paid $12.50 an hour with a guaranteed minimum of four hours. That means I shell out fifty bucks just to walk out the door. Please don't imagine "hiring a babysitter" is as simple and casual an act as it was in your childhood.
It does seem to me that Cary has failed to examine the possible cultural issues at play. For one thing, I think others have pointed out that it may be that LW's boyfriend would be committing a serious faux pas by refusing to take the money.
The length of time that passed after the money disappeared indicates to me that the host may have a pretty good idea where that money went. I haven't lived in Africa, but I have lived in India and I know that under the circumstances described -- a locked house with limited access and only a small number of possible culprits -- this host may have figured out exactly who took that money. The host may have preferred to return the money himself, rather than have the matter reported to the authorities.
I am curious to know how he supports this conclusion, but I can't say it's got me worried just yet. There are many reasons why people have large families, but conservative "values" have little to do with it. Cultures where enormous families are the "norm" are, almost without exception, located in regions of extreme poverty and high infant mortality. As educational and economic opportunities rise, people opt for smaller families. Voting Republican has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Broadsheet presents Phyllis Trible, a feminist theologian profiled this weekend in the Winston-Salem Journal.
Please tell me this woman is not named after the Star Trek creatures.
Looks like they're finding endless ways to recycle the same bad advice for singles: delay sex because, well, just because. You're ready for sex when, well, not yet but some day. The truth is, if you advise high-school kids to abstain, you're encouraging them to marry young, and everybody knows youthful marriages fail in astronomically high numbers. Better they should learn to use birth control, handle sexual relationships first, and marry later in life.
I suppose it's hard to give up the delusion that girls have no interest in sex; that their real interest is "true love". I suppose we are not ready to give up the bias that the most devastating thing on earth for a young girl is to wake up next to a "jerk" and realize she had sex with him the night before and now she doesn't love (or even like) him.
But. I suspect there's one thing even more devastating: realizing you had to marry the guy first to learn this.
I'll counsel anybody for free: delay marriage -- indefinitely if you like -- but delay marriage until you're older.
"When you go to the store to buy some milk, pick up a box of powdered milk, put it under the bed. When you do that for a period of four to six months, you are going to have a couple of weeks of food. And that's what we're talking about."
Uhm, do that for four to six months and you're gonna have rats under your bed. .
Mansfield's examples of manliness include Humphrey Bogart, Harry Truman, the police and firemen who risked their lives on Sept. 11 and Margaret Thatcher.
What about the police and firefighters who risked their lives on 9/11 but aren't male? You know, they let girls do those things now. They even let gays do it, are they manly too?
Whether the men who risked their lives on Margaret Thatcher are manly -- well, you'll have to ask Mrs. Thatcher. That's the first I've heard of this particular feat of manliness.
(Why yes, proper grammar and punctuation is a female trait, I guess, why do you ask?)
They should really focus their energy on making life a little more bearable for female children in Haryana and elsewhere in India.
The enforcement of laws against gender-selective abortion is an impossible task in India -- the technology is there and readily available. Declaring this practice to be illegal isn't enough of an incentive. The greater problem is that, particularly in these remote villages, Indian parents know their girl children will be born to an unbearable and heartbreaking life.
In a culture that readily accepts arranged marriages, the practice of "trading" daughters with other families could ultimately be beneficial: bringing your neighbor's daughter into your own household can serve as insurance against dowry-death and similar inlaw-inflicted cruelty your own daughter might otherwise suffer in the house of a stranger.
...and they wonder why so many Rajasthanis are aborting female fetuses.
Everybody deserves respect -- until they do something to deserve losing it.
By the way, has anyone explained which jokes were "over the line?" I didn't think anything was over the line.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
