Letters to the Editor
smallfox
Published Letters: 111 Editor's Choice: 8
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It's not all location
[Read the article: Life expectancy drops for some American women]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I live in a low income minority neighborhood, and have access to better, cheaper produce than I did when I lived in a large, affluent city on the west coast. Whatever's in season produce-wise is *always* cheap because markets have it coming out their ears. Corn is 30 cents an ear right now and delicious; broccoli is under $2/lb year round. It's not a lack of availability or cost issue.
And men have lower life expectancies because they die in higher numbers in their teens and young adulthood. Women, the government, and doctors have nothing to do with the sizable minority of young men who are driven to indulge in risk-taking behavior. And some of them die in cars, motorcycles, jumping off of things, etc. Men who live get *better* care than elderly women after heart attacks and strokes. Men also have higher rates of heart disease, etc. There's nothing that can be done to raise the life expectancy of men that has anything to do with gender discrimination. (Don't drag race and get your 45-mins of cardio a day. Basic stuff.)
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The obvious explanation?
[Read the article: Skip breakfast, skip having a son?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]More male fetuses miscarry when the mother does not eat an adequate number of calories? A large percentage of pregnancies end in very early miscarriage; it's not such a leap to think that when a mother's situation is not ideal in the first few weeks after fertilization there is a higher likelihood of miscarriage, and this may disproportionately effect males. We already know that male fetuses miscarry at a higher rate than female due to the hormone differences between mother and fetus and the occasional mistake of the mother's body identifying the fetus as a foreign invader, and that odds of homosexuality increase with every subsequent son. Being gestated by a female as a male is still an evolutionarily imperfect art, and more can go "wrong" both because all fetuses start off female, and because males are fragile and require different hormones for growth than their sisters.
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exercise was an intolerable use of my time, as well
[Read the article: Sweatin' to the arcade oldies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]until I no longer had a TV at home and the treadmills and elipticals at the gym did. Now I do 45 mins a day and get the distraction and brain rotting enjoyment of bad early-evening TV and I feel better, even if the weight isn't really moving. Sometimes some distraction is all it takes for people who don't like team sports or other "fun" exercise. I was turned off for years by forced runs in PE (chronic old lady ankles) and team sports (god awful.)
DDR *would* be great, but in order to get any workout out of it at all you have to be good at it. I'm not, so my skill level of DDR doesn't allow any more exercise than standing and... moving my feet slowly. If they could attach a video game like system to an exercise bike or other equipment, I'd be all for that.
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BS, that's related how?
[Read the article: Aunt Flo saves the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Semen has only been shown to be addictive/mood-elevating effects in heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Clearly there are psychological and evolutionary issue at work there that, while interesting, are wholly and ENTIRELY unrelated to any sort of beneficial cells found in menstrual blood. Why is everything binary with you? Nobody can mention an interesting bit of upcoming possible medical innovation without you getting your panties in a bunch over your own precious secretions?
Besides, the semen compound issue has been studied and discussed. Not every article about menstruation needs to footnote it.
But anyway, I donated cervical cells a few times for research (I got $25 for a sample and a vial of blood). People are generally altruistic enough to tolerate some minor discomfort in exchange for minor compensation. I imagine that if this worked, a number of women would be willing to donate a few times a year. I would, if donation were made sufficiently convenient. (And would definitely do it if they used a uterine vacuum and sucked everything out at once.)
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what a terrible policy.
[Read the article: Indian P.M. calls sex selection a "national shame" ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Do people really not think through proposals? Why institute a policy that is likely, if actually enforced, if actually even *enforceable*, to end in infanticide and child abuse of unwanted girls? This is exactly the sort of wrongheaded thinking that's yielded a western anti-choice movement that cares about a fetus above all, but can't be bothered once the child is born and abused, neglected, and/or poverty stricken.
If India wants more girls, it needs to make girls an asset, not a government obligation. A payout for the birth of every live girl up to two or three per family may incentivize keeping girls. The carrot nearly always works better than the stick.
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If nothing else,
[Read the article: This little piggy was hideously mangled]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]this makes me feel better about my dislike of shoes. I have wide, flat feet with no arch whatsoever, and plodding around barefoot or minimally-shod (thin flip flops, etc) is SO much more comfortable than 99% of shoes. I always worried that this might just exacerbate my pancaked duck feet, but now I just won't worry so much about getting "supportive" shoes if the low tech ones are more comfortable.
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Nurses are not deities
[Read the article: Hospital, USA]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They are very valuable professionals with four-year degrees who NEED the expertise of highly-skilled doctors and surgeons who go through the grueling work of med school, residency, and specialties, who in turn are valuable professionals who need the skills of nurses to execute large portions of the actual hands-on care.
Part of the problem is this notion that nurses do all the work and get no respect, when in fact nurses and doctors are an effective division of labor, with one half specializing in diagnostics and depth of knowledge in a specific area, and the other half specializing in treatment and carrying out medical instructions. Recognizing the respective strengths on both sides of the fence would go a long way to getting rid of a lot of the acrimony. All we'd have without doctors and surgeons is palliative care, and without nurses we couldn't have a functional medical system.