Letters to the Editor
Pareto
Published Letters: 45 Editor's Choice: 7
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Shamefully bad advice
[Read the article: Daddy's becoming a woman!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree with the writers who say to get this girl professional help. I would say this even if she weren’t ripping her hair out at the roots and piercing herself with sharp objects; she’s been through a lot lately and I think she needs an unbiased outsider to bounce things off of and help her make sense of it all.
Cary’s advice (celebrate good times . . . come on!) is bizarre and Orwellian. Hey little kid, so your life is turned upside down? Par-tay! Clamp a smile on your face, eat some cake and wave that rainbow flag! Clearly this advice is based on Cary’s political views rather than on the girl’s actual feelings (which we don’t really know but can form some reasonable opinions about). Think of it from her point of view: The person she thought was her father is gone, just like her grandmother is gone. This is more akin to a death than anything else. You could say it’s also like a birth (that of the woman who is now her father) that she should celebrate, but you can’t expect her to do that before she has properly mourned what she has lost.
I don’t see this as “reframing.” This is constructing a Potemkin village and requiring a confused, frightened little girl to take up permanent residence.
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KEF, Keflavik International Airport, Reykjavik, Iceland
[Read the article: Ask the Pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The opposite of what you described in Dakar. Clean, beautiful, serene, otherworldly. I got off the plane feeling drained and cross, and within moments the surrounding space worked its magic and I felt refreshed and content. Good design can do that.
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Regarding hatred of Hillary
[Read the article: Hillary Studies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"The right" hates her because she’s on the other side. Each side hates the other side, equally from what I observe. That’s politics, folks – hating the other side. Useful for political purposes, and like many things we should be ashamed of, quite fun.
Everybody on the other side (and a large portion of your own side) is hatable if you emphasize certain aspects of his or her personality. The right focuses on Hillary-the-feminazi, Hillary-the-socialist, Hillary-the-bossy-scold, and Hillary-the-scheming-opportunist. Sometimes all of these at once, sometimes one or the other. Sometimes Hillary does something that seems to confirm one of these archetypes but disprove another; then the one that doesn’t fit is simply ignored. Just about everything she does fits at least one like a glove, and her enemies are off and running with the correct condemnation. The criticism sticks because there is a grain or more of truth, and because these character traits are inherently intensely annoying.
There’s a well-established lexicon of Hillary-hating, and it’s easy to pick and choose the applicable terminology. This is true of every prominent political figure and most famous people in general. John Edwards, for instance, is, among other things, the "Breck girl." Every hair-related thing that he does will be fodder for those on the other side, which you think he would have figured out by now. If he gets ridiculed for $400 haircuts, it’s not a sign that his enemies are pathological. It’s just the way Edwards-hating works. Obviously the Bush and Cheney-hating lexicons are particularly rich, they having been at the apex of power so long. Hate has so many fascinating variants and manifestations: there are very different and specific forms of hatred directed at, off the top of my head, Oprah Winfrey, Ann Coulter, Tom Cruise, Paris Hilton and Clarence Thomas.
The ritualistic phrases employed by each side to demonize the other do involve thought, but the thinking happened long ago, by other people. This letters page exhibits a related phenomenon – Hillary-hating-hating (the right hates her because they’re irrational or because she’s a winner). Perhaps Hillary is following a subtle strategy: By triggering hatred in the right, she’s signaling her worth to the right-haters. Enemy of my enemy and all that.
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This could happen to any of us
[Read the article: My mother's sister is a psychopath!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW has done us all an enormous favor by describing her situation so clearly and forcefully. I imagine we all have at least one ticking time bomb of a psychopathic or evil or just plain screwed up relative whose dysfunction threatens to explode and take out the nearest lonely gullible do-gooder in the family. It behooves everyone to think through the likely scenarios and head them off before the crisis comes to a head. Perhaps talking with your mother about all this before her sister got her clutches into her (because face it, it’s the sort of thing you can see coming from years away) would have strengthened her ability to resist. Or perhaps not, but at least steps could have been taken to mitigate the damage.
Another possibility for disasters that spill over onto everyone else is the second marriage. Whether it’s Anna Nicole preying on your widowed father or your delusional sister whose fiancé has children with two other women, no job prospects, and a gambling habit, you will find that talking sense to a person in love is the definition of frustrating. When either party has been married before or has children from a prior relationship, then the happy couple’s closest relatives should speak up and make a strong case for a prenup, backed up with the promise not to help out in times of need unless there is evidence that sound advice will be heeded.. These aren’t fun conversations, but I think they are essential.
Oh, and LW should stop loaning money to Mom and should suggest that Mom give up her apartment and move into her home. If Mom refuses, then now is the time to ask her for any family heirlooms that she intends to pass on to her own children. Say this is for safeguarding purposes, which it is. Otherwise, don't expect the family silver to still be there when Mom dies. Or the family photographs, either, if Goneril or Lenny has a vindictive streak.