Letters to the Editor
smallfox
Published Letters: 111 Editor's Choice: 8
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I'm not missing the point
[Read the article: Stop rape, punish victims?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This post is just conflating two things that deserve their own separate discussion. Rape victims in Britain are paid more than $22,000 for their victimhood. That deserves a conversation all its own. Secondly, the rant that followed immediately afterward in this column sort of misses the point.
There's an old legal concept of "contributory negligence" in torts. I hate to say it, but it applies to some cases of victimization. If the State decides to pay out a large sum of money -- far more than the cost of medical care for rape victim who is not beaten (and they have socialized medicine, anyway), far more than a few years of therapy, far more than the cost of new locks -- then the State has a right to determine who deserves what payment. They are basically functioning as a jury in a civil claim, and juries take into account the plaintiff's behavior and blameworthiness when awarding damages. This is completely different than private actions as a poster analogized them to because, obviously, these are tax dollars, not funds from the guilty party.
Frankly I'd be more than a little irritated if $25,000 of our collective tax dollars went to victims of crime who didn't take the most basic precautions (drink with a buddy? drink in a friend's home if you plan to get passed-out drunk? Never leave your drink unattended? Maybe, you know, stop before you're shitfaced?) to prevent being a victim of violent crime. Obviously the details of any rape differ from any other rape, but I don't have a problem saying that in *some* circumstances, the victim was a victim because of some poor choices. ...Or do you believe that people never make stupid decisions that result in victimization? Say I'm a flabby, unassuming dweeb flashing a giant wad of cash in a poverty-stricken urban neighborhood at night, and I get mugged. Was that maybe a stupid decision that resulted in being a target for robbery? Or is the victim always, always, always free from *any* scrutiny?
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...
[Read the article: Ruining relationships one Pill at a time?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why are y'all still doing these clips? Please, please, please -- you are not professional newscasters and if I wanted to watch someone talk at me I'd watch the news. I don't watch the news because I generally never want people talking at me when I could just read the info.
Anyway, the smell of my last partner always bothered me. It wasn't *the* deal braker, but intimacy was a major factor, and good intimacy is hard to have when someone always smells a little funny to you, no matter how clean they are. New partner *should* be much more offensive if I'm just fastidious about smells (he's... um... a sweaty guy. No nice way to say that) but he's not. He smells great to me and I'm really attracted to him. I'm on bc now, but wasn't when we started dating. I haven't noticed a change. I don't doubt that smell plays a role in mate selection, but this really needs more to explain why and how researchers think that the pill interferes with a brain's ability to distinguish pleasing male smells. I'd also be interested to know how it would apply to same-sex partners.
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Wet nursing =/= breast feeding
[Read the article: Bottle feeding baby = breast-feeding bovine?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]there's a visceral reaction to wet nursing nowadays because we've been trying to emphasize the intimacy of breast feeding for several decades. Way back when, there was no formula, and wet nursing was therefore necessary (as well as elective). Now, with a reasonable, healthy alternative in formula, it is vaguely upsetting to some to think about a woman sharing what is such a strong, animalistic bonding ritual with a child that is not their own. That's not right or wrong, but it is certainly an understandable sentiment.
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We're bad at birth
[Read the article: "Natural" C-section? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]as a species. We're a poorly designed compromise between developing a big brain for a fetus and not killing the mother. We're poorly designed to push a baby through our now-upright pelvises. We're not quite there yet, perfection-wise, as a species, and lots of things that are "natural" are very far from completely desirable. The idea that totally natural childbirth is always the right way to go absent medical complications is absurd. My mother delivered vaginally twice without drugs and it worked out fine for her, but I, personally, am not a big fan of pain and would get an epidural. The technology is there to either take advantage of or not, and while lots of things may have a benefit (immediate skin-on-skin contact, for instance, or a drug-free delivery for the baby) the lack of them causes no real detriment to the baby at all. So why can't we just respect the fact that it's frankly none of our business whatsoever how a woman and her doctor decide to birth her baby?
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were we watching the same speech?
[Read the article: The Palin scorecard]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Palin's delivery is stilted and petty-sounding. For a woman who was once a sports newscaster, her delivery skills are appallingly bad. She was completely unable to make herself personable, warm, or friendly, or speak in a natural or authoritative tone. She sounds nasally, speaks awkwardly. Her speech was a bore, and full of outright lies. I hate the woman and her policies, I expected to hate the content of the speech, but I was surprised that she couldn't even deliver it competently.
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@ kufir
[Read the article: Did you just call me a zygote?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You completely do not get it. The fetus is alive. It's alive before it's fertilized, it's alive as zygote, it's alive when it becomes a baby. Bacterium are alive, too. "Alive" means absolutely nothing besides that the thing in question in composed of one or more cells, currently functioning. A 2-week old fetus is alive, and nothing even remotely close to a person. The line many draw is viability. Fetuses less than 22-weeks old do not survive, and those in that age frame have numerous problems, and a low probability of long-term success. This fits pretty squarely with the two-trimester elective abortion time frame allowed by law -- 24 weeks. A person is not a person when it is fully reliant on another human being's body for every single one of its needs.