Letters to the Editor
Learned Hand
Published Letters: 25 Editor's Choice: 1
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Surrendered Wife
[Read the article: How to become the perfect, "surrendered" wife]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just have one question: If I get my wife to surrender to me, will she still support the family? Because if not, it doesn't seem like a good enough deal.
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Mormons aren't Christians
[Read the article: A cause they've long ago forgotten]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Mormons are Christians in the same way Muslims are. They both believe the Bible and have an extra book and prophet they revere. The only difference is that Muslims see themselves as a different religion and Mormons (sort of) do not.
It is perfectly reasonable that Evangelical Protestants don't see Mormons as Christians. They don't use the same scriptures. Should Jews think that Christians are Jews? They believe the Torah don't they?
I don't think that Evangelicals are the only people to exclude Mormons from the realm of Christians. There are sound theological reasons for making the distinction. Mormonism is a faith that descends from Christianity. Christians are not Jews and Mormons are not Christians.
Whatever you might think of the idea of excluding Mormons from the group of the people you consider Christians, it does not mean that people who hold this idea necessarily exclude other people from the Christian label. While it is true that there are some Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians who would also deny that Catholics are Christian, this is by far a minority position.
The vast majority of Christians of all stripes who feel that Mormons are not Christians will not also exclude other mainstream doctrinal groups from their definition of Christianity. In other words, most Baptists will acknowledge that both Methodists and Catholics are Christian despite the various theological differences they may have.
I am an atheist myself, I don't have an iron in this fire. I do think it is important though to be clear about doctrinal differences and fair to the people who hold those varied beliefs.
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Amy's
[Read the article: What happened to plain old vanilla?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have eaten sporadically at Amy's for over twenty years. It is really not that different from what the author says about these other chains.
Amy's does not make their own ice cream. The "Sweet Cream" flavor is the ice cream base that the chain buys from the company that does make the ice cream. It serves as the foundation for all of the their other flavors, which Amy's does create in terms of flavoring the Sweet Cream until it is Dutch Chocolate for example.
I have fond memories of Amy's from the '80s when I was a college student. However, as my tastes have grown towards the Haagan Dazs and Ben and Jerry's side of the ice cream divide, I now find Amy's ice cream to be unspectacular and verging on a little boring. And although as another commenter mentioned, the "tiny" is available, the other sizes are in fact both enormous and expensive. The tiny is also not available for crushins.
With all that said, I do still take my son to Amy's every once in a while, and I certainly would never go to Marble Slab instead. I also have fond memories of their very good mint ice cream flavor, which is almost never available.
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Reasons for C-Sections
[Read the article: Who's too posh to push?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My wife and I recently scheduled a C-Section for our second child.
For our first child we went through all the classes on natural childbirth, pain management and breathing. As it turned out, our son was perfectly happy where he was and uninterested in coming out.
Once we got to ten days past his due date, we checked into the hospital for an induction. Even withe the drug, my wife never progressed past early labor and never dilated more than three centimeters. They broke her water to try to move the labor along, and the we then had to go for a C-Section once they discovered myconium (fetus poop) in her amniotic fluid.
If you look only at statistics, it would be easy to lump my wife in the "too posh" category. She is a working woman with an M.A. and a lawyer husband. Nothing could be farther from the truth. She went in desiring a vaginal birth. Heck, she carried our son an extra ten days in an effort to allow labor to start spontaneously, and every mom will tell you that the last days of pregnancy are the most uncomfortable.
I also don't think it is fair to say that a C-Section is somehow the more comfortable option. We have friends who have given birth vaginally, and they were up and about relatively quickly, while my wife was laid up for quite a while recovering from surgery.
We now have a planned C-Section for our second son. In a perfect world, I would love if she were to have a VBAC. In this world, we have to consider all the things that happened with the first pregnancy and the real world consequences for her OB/GYN. The costs of insurance and litigation are real factors for OBs. Many communities are starting to do without OBs now as tons of them have quit the field and few new Medical School graduates want to become OBs because of the financial realities. My wife likes her OB and would just as soon not be part of the forces pushing her out of business. Not to mention that my current son and I would just as soon not risk losing our wife, mother, and new son and brother.