Letters to the Editor
Agniescka
Published Letters: 9 Editor's Choice: 1
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"Wanna keep drinking?"
[Read the article: The art of the pickup]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have the ideal host for this show. A friend of mine has a 100% success rate with picking up women, with very little effort. He purchases a six pack and waits outside of bars at closing time (2 AM, where we live). He asks exiting women, "Wanna keep drinking?" and someone always says yes. This is all that is required. I'm not kidding. I was initially mildly surprised at its effectiveness, but no longer.
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Why did this take three years?
[Read the article: Dick Cheney's top aide: "We're one bomb away" from our goal]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If Jack Goldsmith observed such gross abuses of power, and was fired in nine months, why did we have to wait for three years and a book to hear about this? Why wasn't he calling attorneys and newspapers three years ago? There could have been, or there could have at least been the possibility for, congressional hearings, impeachment, what have you. Instead we have a book. Great.
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Women are partially to blame, too.
[Read the article: Fearful fathers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I believe some men's fear of children is also due to *some* women implying that men are less qualified to care for children. I've seen this dozens and dozens of times: Just as women complain they get no help around the house, they tell dad he's doing something wrong and "just let me do it instead". It might be feeding, changing, playing with, dressing, or bathing children in "the wrong" way which, in my experience, is not dangerous but just different from the way mom does it. It's no surprise to me that, after enough of this, some men might very well end up fearing children. I think some women are very uncomfortable with the idea of NOT being "naturally" better parents and at the idea that men can do just as good or better a job with children (I know some of them).
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You've convinced me!
[Read the article: Honey, I shrunk my breasts!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Before I read this article, I *never* would have considered having any kind of elective breast surgery. But, if this is what really happens to the majority of women, sign me up. Ugh.
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Stuck in the middle
[Read the article: The case against homeownership]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I understand the attraction of renting and buying, and the need (and sometimes it is a need) to move.
I was born and raised in Detroit. After graduating from college (and working fulltime during it), I had almost no job prospects in Michigan, a state that has had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, off and on, for about three decades. I have watched my family and friends in Detroit go through round after round of lay-offs, stay unemployed for years, lose their homes to foreclosure (and not because of crazy mortgage terms, but because of a lack of income).
And still, they refuse to move. Other U.S. cities might be hiring in any and every field in which my friends cannot find work in Michigan, but they will not move. This is one case in which I agree with my dear Polish grandparents, who would LOVE to have more family nearby but say, "You go to where the jobs are. You have to work." Period.
So I moved to Chicago and bought a condo. And I didn't feel it was all it was cracked up to be. There I sat, in my condo with my mortgage, and that was that. Being solely responsible for a mortgage is stressful in a way I don't particularly enjoy. There's absolutely no net; if something happens to me, if I'm unemployed for more than a few months, I lose the house. To be honest, though, I don't truly own my house. Most of us don't. The bank does.
I had owned my condo for six months when my dream job found me - and happened to be in San Francisco. I was amazed at how many times I heard, "Well, you obviously can't take the job; you just bought a condo." I don't want to be a person tied to her house. I'm human, I can move - the house can't. I rented it quickly and moved, and am now simultaneously a landlord and renter. And money is a tad tight, but it's fine.
Now I'm in a city that is so expensive that there is no dream of homeownership. It is, in reality and not only in a theoretical conversation, something only the rich can afford. I have yet to meet anyone in San Francisco who believes that property ownership is a RIGHT, not just a PRIVILEGE. So, I hesitate to make too great a case against homeownership, lest more cities end up like this one, where the only way you're getting a solid downpayment together is the slim-to-none chance of a good IPO.
All this is a short way of saying: Sometimes it's necessary to move, and we should. Sometimes it's not necessary to move, and we just want to, and we should, homeownership or not.
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Whites have voted for him... in Illinois.
[Read the article: Will whites vote for Barack Obama? ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He got 70% of the vote in Illinois when he was elected senator. He won from Chicago clear down to southern Illinois. So what's the question?
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The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend.
[Read the article: Election results: Who's ahead in the delegate race?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am so profoundly worried, sick to my stomach, about the superdelegates, more of which are currently pledged to Clinton, who is losing. We should be doing everything we can to encourage superdelegates (identify them, contact them, PUSH them) to vote the way the people have so clearly voted, for Obama, and threaten to vote for McCain if they don't.
I know what the netroots say. I know Republicans have been so successful because they stick together and vote down the line. But I absolutely vow to vote for McCain if the Democratic Party leadership votes for Clinton, if she does not have more delegates than Obama going into the convention. The Democrats deserve to lose if they ignore the will of Democratic voters, absolutely.
Superdelegates are no way to elect the nation's leader, and I'm shocked that it was the Democrats who said more power needed to be in the hands of the party, in the form of superdelegates, in 1968. The enemy of the enemy is not always my friend.