Letters to the Editor
smallfox
Published Letters: 111 Editor's Choice: 8
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@ pacobird
[Read the article: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Grail's immortality requires staying in the temple. Indy and his father both drink from the Grail, but they both leave, too.
Anyway, Indy is from the midwest and teaches in Chicago. If they've moved him to New England this seems unnecessary and pretty silly -- his no-nonsense rugged midwesternism is a big part of his appeal. That character doesn't work on the stodgier East Coast.
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Please stop!
[Read the article: Shocker: Sex-ed class mentions pleasure]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If I want videos, I'll go to YouTube or watch PBS. I can read much faster than I can sit through a clip, and I have no interest in listening to non-professional reporters read a story out loud. For the love of all that is holy, STOP posting these things!
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@ melthought
[Read the article: "Ugh" of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To be the stickler to your stickler -- a 12-year-old IS a victim of pedophilia. Pederastry doesn't kick in until the child looks like a young adult, so around 14, and most 12 year olds look more child-like than sexually mature. This guy is operating on the upper end of pedophilia (as far as I know he didn't rape them until they were over 11 or so?) but it's pedophilia nonetheless.
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probably an oversimplification, but
[Read the article: The education gender gap]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think the women are good at X and men are good at Y statements are not so much binary but expressions of bell curves that don't totally align between genders. The average male may have better spatial skills than the average women, but only in aggregate. On an individual level these distinctions break down, and that's the real problem with "women are good at X and men are good at Y." When it doesn't apply to you, personally, it only serves to reinforce a stereotype, and in cases where we know it's patently *not* true in aggregate (i.e. math, science) it can have a hugely detrimental effect.
Nothing suggests that men aren't as good at reading comprehension as women. Does the disparity hold between male/female siblings who encouraged to read at the same rates and read to at the same rates? Do young boys have equal access (or are encouraged to access) books about things they personally find interesting? There's been a stereotype that boys have inferior reading comprehension skills for so long that it seems like nothing more than the male version of girls aren't good at math. That is, not biologically true, but culturally reinforced.
Also were these statistics tracked over numerous age groups? We all ready know that males and females develop different skills at different rates; my own personal observation would suggest that the sexes become equivalent/finish development in the teens, with emotional development becoming equal a few years after that. If 7-year-old boys are not as well-honed readers as 7-year-old girls this seems relatively unimportant if the differences even out in childhood when brains are nearing the end of growth.
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misandrist ads exist
[Read the article: Turns out, advertising stereotypes men too]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but they're not the ones listed. By far the most sexist ads are those selling products to *men* (beer, trucks, and whatever else a man's man should buy). These ads are made *for* men, presumably focus grouped *with* men, and they wind up being the most patronizing, insulting, stereotypical ads out there. Makes you wonder.
Most of these are pretty benign, not to mention the author clearly lacks any comprehension of subtlety, sarcasm, or gender-neutral expressions of human stupidity. (i.e. the AT&T ad is clearly not about a man too stupid to realize "chips" are money. It's not funny the way AT&T wants it to be, but that doesn't change the fact that the author is missing the supposed point.)
Also, I would be more inclined to take this outrage seriously if it were not run concurrently with an entire sidebar of links to women-in-bikini galleries. Oh you poor, stereotyped men folk.
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It's unlikely
[Read the article: Roundup on gay marriage]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]that any newly minted gay marriage participants will find married life difficult or unexpected. When you've been married for a decade or more, getting legal recognition doesn't exactly massively change your day-to-day life.
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Nuvaring
[Read the article: Is the Pill "outdated"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I thought it was great, too, until I started using it and discovered that, for me at least, it had the annoying habit of falling out at totally inopportune moments. I guess it depends on your personal anatomy. I wish it would stay in place for more than a day or two for me, but it doesn't.
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Ah yes, the child-haters come out of the woodwork
[Read the article: Throwing out the bonus with the bath water]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hope y'all are planning not to have healthcare or social security when you get old, because that's where you're hoping the nation will go. Educated women (white, privileged, or otherwise) produce the next generation that pays for old people and becomes the working adult class that offers services to the elderly and keeps society going. By your logic, we shouldn't accommodate the aged in any way because they're not producing profit.
You had or have a mother -- do you think she was a horrible person for reproducing? Was she a horrible person for getting maternity leave or was your family so privileged that two incomes weren't necessary? Have a little humanity, people. And the specious argument that poor women have it even worse is even more ludicrous. Logically we shouldn't worry about any injustice, then, since there will always been some group of people somewhere in the world who are suffering that much more.
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Why's it always "outrage"?
[Read the article: The offensiveness of Bernie Mac]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Can't we find something tasteless and offensive without being "outraged"? I save the outrage for things that are actually outrageous -- criminal wars, systematic rape, genocide, etc. This was by no measure of the term “outrageous,” but it was in poor taste. The campaign should have known better than to invite a humorless comedian known for covering his inherent unfunniness with crude, juvenile jokes. Can we leave it at that?