Letters to the Editor
anonny
Published Letters: 124 Editor's Choice: 13
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What are the limits?
[Read the article: Have you ever left your toddler in a car?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a parent of 4 I certainly understand the dilemma. I can see police wanting to protect children. At the same time that mother did nothing wrong. Perhaps there was a risk in leaving her child in the car, but there also would have been a risk carrying her child across the parking lot. Given the icy conditions, the mother may have slipped and fell, injuring the toddler or in the worst-case scenario the two may have been hit by a car. All of these risks were very low likelihood, and the choice to leave the child in a car was likely the safest in the circumstance.
As a society we're not very good at assessing relative risks. Consider this quote from the source article:
Children sitting in cars have choked on things they stuck in their mouths.
Yes I'm sure that's happened, but children have also choked to death in their homes -- in fact, they are probably much more likely to die of choking at home, because they have access to so many more objects than they do when they are in a car seat. At home the solution is not to force the parent to always be within arms length of the child (how would the parent ever go to the toilet?) but instead to keep dangerous objects out of the child's reach. The same has to be true in the car. Let's face it, if your infant is in a rear-facing car seat and starts choking, you're not likely to notice it above the highway noise.
So, it makes sense not to leave your kid in a lot of situations. But at other times it probably is the wiser choice.
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Thank you
[Read the article: Why they stunted their daughter's growth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You write:
I was ready saddle up my high horse, but judging from a distance is so dang easy.
Great point, always worth remembering.
Until you have been a parent to a disabled child you cannot know what day-to-day life is like, what options the parents have tried, or what the relevant research says.
One thing a parent of a disabled child can expect is to receive lots of well-meaning advice and criticism from those who don't know, but think their experience with their "normal" child gives them the knowledge they need to dispense advice.
We don't know what those parents have gone through. It certainly appears they have their daughter's best interests at heart. Beyond that, we should not offer judgment.
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Don't forget the "smoke screen" concept
[Read the article: How photos support your own "reality"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When looking at conspiracy theories don't forget that there is a concept in spy (i.e. "intelligence") circles of the "smoke screen".
The idea is that when you launch a secret operation you should expect that people will be curious, and you should prepare several storylines ("smoke screens") in advance for the curious to pursue. The curious will get busy investigating the false leads you planted. Even if they do later stumble on part of the truth, it won't be distinguishable from the "smoke screens".
The beauty of the "smoke screen" concept is that you might not even have to create the false leads yourself -- the more paranoid observers will often do it for you.
Consider that old classic, the JFK assassination. For generations everyone heard about the grassy knoll, the magic bullet and the extra shot. Who knows how much time has been wasted on these issues. And while everyone focused on whether Oswald was the only shooter, they mostly ignored the core question: who hired him? Whether or not Oswald was the lone shooter, there is no evidence that he would have undertaken an assassination on his own. There is plenty of evidence of groups who wanted to see Kennedy replaced with Johnson.
You see? A smoke screen. The important question was ignored while everyone focused on distractions.
Similarly, on 9/11 the key question is not whether there were explosives in the towers or whether the Pentagon was hit by a plane or a missle. It's "who knew enough in advance to make the massive short sells of American and United Airlines". Answer that and you are on the trail to answering the rest.
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Of course it was successful
[Read the article: Cheney calls Iraq invasion a "successful endeavor"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The goal for the invasion was permanent occupation of Iraq as America's "police station" in the middle east. By that standard the 14 permanent bases are doing just fine, thanks. (Reference: Project for the New American Century)
Of course, the US public wasn't told that was the goal. They were fed nonsense about "WMDs" and 9-11 and Al Qaeda and "freeing oppressed Iraqis who will welcome us as liberators". No wonder the US public doesn't agree with Cheney's assessment. They never understood the real purpose of the war.
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Life of Brian
[Read the article: Daily Kos writers' "strike" gets ugly]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One the one side we have the radical Clinton supporters (the Judean People's Front). On the other side we have the radical Obama supporters (the People's Front of Judea). Just like the Monty Python movie parodied, the two natural allies are fighting each other so intently that they forget about the common enemy.
To paraphrase Carville's slogan from 1992: "It's the Romans, stupid".
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Tired of them pretending to care about Iraqis
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It doesn't seem that Hillary or Obama care if we withdraw and a Rwanda-level-genocide immediately follows.
Yeah, right. You know, back in 2002 and early 2003 we heard a lot of pro-war people, including pretty much the whole staff of the AEI, chastise us anti-war people because we didn't care enough about the poor Iraqis. Then came the war -- proving that Americans were not, as predicted, welcomed as "liberators". Then came the next several years, when probably over a million have died and many million more misplaced, raped, maimed, tortured etc. During this time the same pro-war people suddenly forgot how much they cared about "the poor Iraqi people". We heard the same folks propose massive bombardments and worse -- we heard them justify random arrest and torture.
Now those same people are telling us that the US can't pull out because of "the poor Iraqi people".
You have no credibility left. Any of you.