Letters to the Editor
LeCastor
Published Letters: 1916 Editor's Choice: 86
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Cayetana, you're saying exactly the kind of rhetoric that makes it impossible to rationally reform these crazy laws
[Read the article: No punishment too severe?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, a person in the registry for urinating in public:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061023123652AAxP9iY
Second, while i am certainly not for public urination, there's a question of proportionality here, don't you think? There probably should be laws against it, but i don't know if it should be punished any more than a parking ticket. Or perhaps parking in a handicapped space ($300 fine, more or less).
Next, there are lots of people that each one of us would like to be humiliated in a public registry. But we as a society must choose carefully who we're going to do this to. Why not burglars? Why not murderers? Why not all felons? The guy i mentioned yesterday in connecticut, the "public indecency" guy, his offense is a class B misdemeanor. So, he has to go into this registry and be publicly humiliated for a misdemeanor, but we have no felon registry. Drug dealers, defrauders, murderers, spouse-beaters, etc., none of them have to be in a registry.
Also, please keep in mind that people should be punished for crimes they committed, not crimes we think without proof they may have committed, or crimes they may commit in the future. It is one of the basic principles of our justice system.
"Most of us would rather live next door to a petty theif than a man who masturbates on his front porch while your daughter plays in the front yard. "
Speak for yourself. I don't have any children. I'd be much more concerned about a convicted burglar living right next to me than a convicted indecent exposer. I don't want my property stolen. Alos, what if he walks around naked inside his house, and unfortunately, you can sometimes see him from your windows in his house? should that be a crime too? Waht if it's a woman who walks around naked in her house and your 8-year-old son or daughter can see her sometimes? Another crime?
"By the way, masturbating onto a couch in front of a woman who has said no to sex? There is something very disturbing about that. "
Agreed, but is it worthy of being a crime? Worthy of lifetime registration in a sex offender registry?
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"She then has a baby which (Gasp! Shock! How did this happen?!) takes up a lot of time and requires her...emphasis HER, not the rest of the world...to rearrange her life. "
[Read the article: Is the backlash here yet?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yes, this is exactly the problem. "HER" and not both parents. Assuming this woman has a partner, why isn't her partner expected to rearrange his or her life as well?
This is the whole problem that is so evident to many of us every day, and which Hirshman focused on in her article last year. That women, and not their male spouses (i don't know how to it works in lesbian couples or 2-male couples who adopt), are expected to take care of the baby, while the man's life sails on as if nothing happened.
Don't men want to spend time with their children (we're assuming here that these men wanted these children, see male contraceptives article letters)? If men stood up to their employers like women are, this wouldn't be a women's issue, but a parents' issue, and employers would have to adjust because if they don't, they'll lose the talent that happens to be a new parent. And employers invest a lot of time and money into finding, hiring and training talent. To lose it over something like parenthood and lack of flexibility is simply not cost-efficient.
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Most People Posting Here Have Not Seen "Da Ali G Show"
[Read the article: "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People, please. You all need to surf over to:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ali+g&search=Search
and watch some Ali G. Yes, he does pretend to be a Jamaican half-ganster from Stains "massif", UK.
He has interviewed Boutros Boutros "Boutros Boutros Boutros" Galli, Buzz Aldrin, James Baker ("What if they don't like carrots?"), etc.
If you watched him when he was on the BBC or later on HBO, you'd see the brilliance.
Borat, as much as i absolutely love him, is a very easy character who has a specific function (making other people look bigoted or stupid).
Ali G is the classic brilliant Sasha Baron Cohen creation.
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Why is everyone so anti-porn?
[Read the article: Three cheers for Internet porn]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I personally don't find a lot of porn arousing, but I support its existence to the extreme.
(1) I don't believe banning it will be good for anyone involved in it (like drugs and alcohol have shown, banning something people want doesn't work very well).
(2) I support it from a moral point of view because i believe that adults are entitled to adult entertainment i.e. not everything has to be appropriate for children. Its existence keeps alive that idea, against all the efforts of the Christian right.
(3) I support it because i refuse to patronize the women involved, to say that they've been manipulated and are being exploited; no one ever says that about the men involved, because people generally believe that men can fend for themselves and probably won't be tricked into exploitation, but those poor stupid defenseless women...