Letters to the Editor
AirFlow
Published Letters: 67 Editor's Choice: 5
-
Reference to Federal employees' healthcare
[Read the article: "Sicko"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a former [and now disabled/retired] fed, I can confidently state that:
1. We pay as much or more than other [like state & municipal] government employees,
both in monthly costs AND in amounts due after the insurance has paid their
pittance.
2. The only difference that I can see is the collective bargaining part of it--supposedly
feds are getting a "better rate" due to the numbers of insured. This is FALSE.
3. I've seen the cost of a routine office visit skyrocket--way beyond the $20 copay--as
greedy docs figure out how to get around the fees they've agreed to accept. This
primarily is due to insurance covering less and less of [especially] lab costs, and
docs raising their charges in that area. Docs communicate with each other, and
learn right quick how to "pad up" the bill, with NO CARE for the consequences
to the patient. "Doctors, are you getting accurate reimbursements? Are you
coding for every last thing when you submit to the insurance companies?" This
was actually the subject of several essays on MD sites.
4. Quit thinking that docs are altruistic. They contributed mightily to the rise of
HMOs [and all that cash]---and look where that has led us.
5. My final point---my monthly insurance cost is over 1/5 of my pittance
disability retirement. Maybe if I'd been a male fed I've have gotten more $.
6. I think that my alignments, of which I was so proud, are getting totally messed
up here. Apologies if this looks like a mess!
-
Give and take
[Read the article: Midlife crisis: I could have been a singer!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The arts always give with one hand and take with the other.
If you're willing to undergo the personal sacrifices that living a life in music entails,
then go reinvent yourself as a singer [or get back to what you once were]. IF you really are serious, that is. And I don't think you are. You're probably thinking, OH how glamorous that looks. [I can play a musician on TV!!] But the reality is, it is a tough life, lots of hard work, impossible hours, low pay at first, and dreadful people to have to endure. I think you're feeling the edge of mid-life desperation. All of a sudden your man is a couch potato? And wasn't before? Or you just noticed?!?! And you're feeling trapped. Many are called, but few are chosen by music. If you were serious about music, you would have been doing it all along. 'Nuff said, sorry to sound harsh. Wannabes irritate me.
-
FSN sports
[Read the article: How did baseball botch its tribute to Willie Mays?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Here in the Twin Cities, we're fortunate to have Marney Gellner do color for baseball. She's knowledgable, genuine, and the MLB players like her a lot. She also does the play-by-play for the University of Minnesota women's basketball. And more.
You go, girl. You're my fave.
-
Repellant
[Read the article: My Southern grandmother is dying, and I don't want to go back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]LW seems to think that doing the humane, civilized action of [gasp] going to a close relative's funeral, after coming to terms with the death, is hypocritical. The only hypocrisy here is within the writer. What a nasty, selfish person. Most of us rebel, to some extent, against our family of origin. Of COURSE we know more than the collective wisdom of a multi-decade life! Of course the family wants you to be what they want you to be. Talk about hostility. LW states that she left at 16, but later on makes a comment --"Throughout my teens and early 20s, my naive childhood love for my grandmother was replaced with hatred for trying to make me into someone I was definitely not."--that indicates that she must have gone back, if the family's evil influence was still in place in her early 20s. I think the LW has a psychological age of about 12, IMO only, lf course]. Her use of the words "naive" and, more tellingly, "hatred" show me how escapist she really is. Cary's advice, while short, was correct. Someone should knock this whinging whiner upside the head. IMHO
-
Kid behavior
[Read the article: Flying the child-unfriendly skies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is not the kids' behavior that most adults find objectionable, it is the lazy parents who've not taught the kids how to behave, or don't have the moxie to stop them when it begins. I know, I know, a 19-month old is hardly "trainable", But hey, young parents. Think ahead! No kid behaves perfectly all the time, no reasonable adult traveler would expect it, either. I submit that trapped on an airplane is not the time to treat the other passengers to parental permissiveness. I'm just sayin'. Ditto the same behaviour in restaurants and stores.
Personally, I recommend traveling 1st class if the kids and drunks aboard are too tiresome. And they ALWAYS are.
-
Friends?!?!?
[Read the article: I let my friends stay with me and now they're evicting me!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I hope you're not so gullible in the future. Some people will do anything to retain a friendship, including rolling over and playing dead, like you've done. I'd not call these persons "friends". Try the word "leeches" on for size. Ah yes, that one fits.
-
Native American?!?
[Read the article: Attention, all you memoir fabulists!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Is no one else riled about this white person's assumption of a native american persona? [EVERYONE knows that Native Americans are supposed to be invisible.] How dare this person claim to be native?
Am I the only person, in the midst of all these black-asian-white-female-male-homo-hetero-whomever/whatever victimization p*ssing contests, to notice that native americans are virtually INVISIBLE? The people that has the most legitimate right to such claims is silent. Why? Because they've been silenced. "Be NOT seen and not heard".
Wake up! This person, claiming native descent, is appalling. And so are we, for ignoring the real people. I demand to see native faces. I demand to see their art, read their books, experience their movies, see native americans AS americans, see them in ads. But no, alas. We're not to get that experience easily. Shameful. I cringe at my country's grotesqueries, all the time. Get out of the "Custer" mentality. There. End of rant. Blast me if you will.