Letters to the Editor
JennyLynnF
Published Letters: 48 Editor's Choice: 2
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It's a Hoax
[Read the article: What do you say about a pregnant man?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh come on Salon. Please fact check these stories before you print them. Otherwise you are no better than a tabloid. Check out this link from Snopes if you don't believe that stories like these are hoaxes: http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/malepreg.asp
The other possibility is that Ms. Hepola is playing some kind of early April Fool's joke on us all. Please let this be the case.
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Not a hoax but not an exceptionally shocking story
[Read the article: What do you say about a pregnant man?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I too hastily called the story a hoax without reading carefully. I see - a man who was born a woman is now having a baby. Big deal. He was once a she - no surprise there that since this person has a womb that this person can become pregnant. The story would be much more interesting if the person was biologically male. Who cares. This is not a story about pushing the boundaries of biology but about people who have rejected their biology and the gender roles associated with it suddenly embracing one aspect of their original gender. I guess it might be shocking to someone who believed that this person was originally a man, but to me it is just another story about a person playing with gender roles. Now that everybody does it, it just isn't that interesting anymore.
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Ignorance continues its crusade
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Clearly a miscarriage of justice. The bank receipt alone, showing that Waters was 60 miles away from Seattle just 45 minutes before the explosion ought to have convinced a reasonable jury of her innocence. It doesn't sound like Waters was convicted by a jury of her peers, but rather by a jury of poorly educated Americans unfamiliar with reason and logic. A democracy requires an educated populace and a trial by a jury of one's peers is necessary for the principle of "equal rights for all" to manifest itself in society. I am sorry for Ms. Waters and for her family, but I fear that until a solid education is as valued in this country as fancy clothes and a big house, prejudice and emotion will guide the decisions of its citizens.
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Simple
[Read the article: The parent trap]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cardboard boxes, library books, empty plastic bottles, yarn, trees and parks, running errands with parents, helping with chores - those are the things that kids need to stimulate their young minds. Oh yeah, and decent food and a warm place to sleep and parents that don't abandon them or fight too much or drink too much or yell too much. And when they're older, somebody needs to teach them about the big bad wolf advertisers who prey on their weaknesses and try to sell them stuff they don't need. That's it. The rest of it is just stuff for parents to reassure themselves that they are middle class and good and not like those other people out there. But simple can be hard.
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Porn is but a tool and as such is neither feminist nor misogynist
[Read the article: Who put this feminism in my porno?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Try "The Virgin Machine" if you can find it still in print. It is a feminist porn film from the late eighties/early nineties.
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Misogyny, Road Rage and Obama - and an epiphany
[Read the article: Hey, Obama boys: Back off already!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A few weeks before my state's primary, I was merging onto the freeway and a car full of young guys drove up beside me. It was a busy time of day, but the lane to the left of theirs was empty. They refused to move over and tried to speed up when I attempted to merge in front of them. Because there were cars behind me, I could not slow down, but I managed to pull in front of them and barely missed driving onto the shoulder. I was irritated, but was chalking it up to the bad driving techniques of the young and testosterone filled when their car zoomed around me and the guy yelled, "Fuck you Bitch!" out of the window. As they sped recklessly into the traffic beyond I noticed an "Obama 2008!" bumper sticker on the back of their car. Up to this point, I had been truly torn between voting for Obama and Clinton because their political platforms are similar and both are to the right of my own views. Call me a weak-minded woman if you are so possessed, but I decided after this incident that Clinton would get my vote in the primary. Even if I end up voting for Obama in the general election, I could not be more disgusted with the character of some of the young white men voting for Obama.
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I can't afford to be hip
[Read the article: You are not your bookcase]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's too bad people don't have the guts to be who they really are. And then we criticize our politicians for projecting false images and spinning the truth. Seems like there should be a grassroots movement to simultaneously be yourself and give the finger to the intellectual left-wing establishment. I gave up the hipness facade a while ago, when I was really poor and could no longer even feign bohemian artsy poverty. Then I was too worried about not being assaulted by my neighbors and how I was going to feed myself to keep up on my reading and my knowledge of underground bands. Of course then I was no longer welcomed into the "organic vegan marxist breastfeeding with Nabokov" coffee circles anymore. Truth is, I prefer the company of the rubes anyway.