Letters to the Editor
smallfox
Published Letters: 111 Editor's Choice: 8
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Few people talk to that demographic
[Read the article: Hell, yeah, I like Suze Orman]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Her advice may not be useful for the majority of responsible 35+ year olds, but trying to find good financial advice when one makes a pittance is damn hard. A year or two out of college, with or without college loans, the average person is making - what? - $35,000? And at that point priorities are long term planning on a limited budget and paying off the immediacies of student and consumer debt. A lot of financial advice is targeted at the middle aged, the middle aged in bad financial shape (and dealing with debt at 45 is different than dealing with it at 25), or those who make quite a bit more than $35K.
Her baseline advice is sensible and useful for young people who need basic starter information on planning and investing what little they have. Is it original or highly inventive? Hardly. But not many other people are actually saying it.
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...25?
[Read the article: In the club ... with Botox?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Surely this must be a misprint for "45"? Exactly how much of a weathered hag do you have to be to need plastic surgery to look younger than your age at 25?! I'm 25 and the waitress at an Italian restaurant a few weeks ago refused to believe I was over 18. Most normal people don't "show their age" until the wrinkles or 10 years of cocaine set in. Even Amy Winehouse isn't a shriveled old crone *yet*.
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Correct me if I'm wrong -
[Read the article: Postpartum PTSD?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But the 18% stat is referring to *difficult* pregnancies/labor, not *all* pregnancies? Given how many women are lucky enough to have uncomplicated labors, I don’t buy an 18% PTSD rate (hormonally induced post-partum depression is another issue entirely, but 18% is far too high for a diagnosis that requires some actual trauma.) If it only applies to difficult pregnancies, 18% may well be accurate. I imagine (though have no psychological or medical evidence to back this up) that a pregnant woman fearing for her and her soon-to-be baby’s life may more susceptible to PTSD than someone who’s in a horrible car crash, etc. There’s an extreme element of emotional trauma involved in being powerless and fearing that your child will die.
As far as the poster equating consensual, competent surgery to rape… That’s really grossly offensive.
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Huh?
[Read the article: Getting nudged into the chapel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cass ended his first marriage by having an affair with another professor, then stayed with that woman for several years in a committed relationship, then he had *another* affair with Power and quit his job, married her, and transferred to Harvard very shortly after it came to light. Though very intelligent, Power is many years Sunstein's junior and, I believe, previously unmarried. The far more obvious conclusion is that when he didn't "have" to marry his girlfriend, he didn't, and when the new younger woman *did* want to get married, he acquiesced (to make her happy or for whatever other unknown reason).
I'm really not sure what this article is going for -- a scattered, middle-aged man who thinks that the government has no place in marriage (which I fully agree with) nevertheless is still willing to get married on his/his girlfriend's own terms? These aren't exactly contradictory notions, nor do they reveal anything deep and meaningful about the human psyche.
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Usually creepy
[Read the article: The creepiest video you will see all day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]but sad when it's a grieving mother of a dead child. Perhaps it could be therapeutic for some, but it seems like something that shouldn't be used as a coping mechanism without direct oversight from a qualified psychiatrist or therapist.
Other possible non-creepy uses: to calm, engage, or otherwise stimulate an elderly mother with dementia or a mentally retarded adult who yearns for a child of her own but is obviously incapable of becoming a real mother. ...Admittedly the "legitimate" uses are a bit limited. For collectors who just collect them for their aesthetic value -- I suppose I understand that (as opposed to treating them like replacement, lifeless children) but not a taste I'd ever share.
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Biologically speaking
[Read the article: Why don't we have a male pill yet?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A male form of hormonal birth control is extremely unlikely. Hormonal birth control has side effects in some women (i.e. drastically lowered sex drive) that don't technically make sex impossible, but would make intercourse impossible if a man suffered the same side effects. Also the sheer logistics of preventing even a *single* sperm from either developing or becoming mixed with seminal fluid is a much more daunting task than preventing 1-2 eggs from ovulating or implanting. Moreover all research up until this point has had extremely undesirable effects on the men, as one would assume might happen when you fuss with hormones, especially testosterone. All of this is further complicated by the fact that men, generally speaking, climax with ejaculation. Women do not climax with ovulation. Men produce sex cells continually, and a man in his fathering years can produce semen at least once a day. Women are fertile on a hormonally-driven cycle which makes it easier to regulate. Etc, etc, etc. There are about a thousand reasons why hormonal birth control for men is currently not possible.
And if men are willing to get implants, why not just get a vasdectomy? It's surgery either way, and we know vasdectomies are by and large effective.