Letters to the Editor
Serai1
Published Letters: 551 Editor's Choice: 33
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KcM
[Read the article: What you missed while watching "Ask a Ninja"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I second your comments. It's shameful that Senator Clinton feels the need to hijack the term "progressive", as if anything she does is remotely covered by that term. She backed the war in Iraq (and continues to dodge whenever anyone tries to pin her with it), repeatedly engages in red-herring causes like videogame violence when there are serious issues to deal with, and now she wants to call herself a progressive?
If there were a truly progressive candidate with a chance in hell of getting elected, I would cast my vote there in a hot second. (Kucinich was clearly the only candidate on that stage who can honestly call himself a "progressive".)Unfortunately, the situation in this country has gotten so grave and dangerous that I cannot in good conscience cast my vote with any candidate who doesn't have the numbers. I wish it weren't that way. I wish America were not being bludgeoned and bullied into submission by the creatures who hold office today, but that's the reality of things. Until we're no longer in danger of being destroyed as a nation by the cadre of traitors that are gutting everything this country once stood for, I will be, very sadly, voting against rather than for.
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Corporations gouging the public? NAAAAW
[Read the article: Google and eBay fight the phone companies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My goodness. Whatever next?
There's a simple solution if you dislike being reamed up the pipehole for cellphone usage: don't use it. Really. I've managed to live a perfectly functional life for nearly half a century without owning, and very rarely using, one of those execrable little things. Never have I understood why anyone would chain themselves to a device that makes it possible to be bothered at all hours, no matter where you are, annoys practically everyone around you as you prove to the world that you're a self-centered jerk every time you start yammering on it in some completely improper public setting, and eats up horrendous amounts of money every month. ($100 for a phone? Are they fucking NUTS?) All this just to worship at the altar of the Great God Convenience.
Meanwhile, public pay phones are falling apart (where they even exist anymore), making it impossible for those who can't AFFORD those horrid little things to make a simple call. Public life is fast becoming hell as good manners become more and more rare. (Carrying on a cellphone conversation in public is simply RUDE, period).
How did things come to this? What is it about those gizmos that makes the majority of people think they can't live without them? Other than the possibility of having to phone in an emergency, I can't imagine what the attraction could be. I'm put in mind of secretaries who can't imagine how they lived without Post-It notes, as if these things somehow matter in the larger scheme of things.
But hey, knock yourselves out. If you love the "convenience" of being able to check what your SO wants to watch tonight while you're at the vid store, to the tune of paying insane amounts of money every month, go right ahead. But seeing as how none of this is actually necessary for survival, perhaps the wailing and gnashing of teeth over pricing is a bit misplaced. AT&T, Verizon, et.al. are just doing what corporations do - being as rapacious as possible in pursuit of the big bucks. If you don't like it, just throw the damn thing away. Problem solved.
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ARGH
[Read the article: Boys just being ... sex offenders?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Christ, I'm glad I'm not a teenager now. The world seems hell-bent on making adolescence the most nauseatingly confusing, repressive, dangerous time imaginable.
Putting kids in jail for slapping someone's butt? That's insane. I agree with the above poster - encouraging girls to develop the poise and confidence necessary to put such nimrods in their place is a far better solution. But hey, America loves a victim, so we'll just convince kids that any little touch is HEINOUS RAPE OMG!!!11!!!
And yeah, if this was being done by both boys and girls, why were only the boys busted? Certainly seems unfair to me.
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@healthysceptic
[Read the article: "40 Reasons Not to Have Children"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It wouldn't be legal now. If a country were to get to the point where it might "become extinct" (a silly idea, but that's the premise of the argument), you can sure bet they'd make it legal. It's not as if laws never change, after all.
Personally, I wish childlessness were more encouraged as a choice. The whole world is choking on pollution, the climate is being trashed, and life is getting more wretched, all because there are too damn many of us. A cut of about half the population over the next fifty years or so would be what's needed to give this poor planet some breathing room, and help solve all these problems.
But will it happen? Of course not. That would be logical, and we can't have any of that when it comes to population. After all, Big Daddy In The Sky has ORDERED us to keep it up, so we have no choice, right?
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Double standard much?
[Read the article: Too young to tie your tubes?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Gee, hasn't Broadsheet published numerous posts decrying those pharmacists who refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions because of their "right" to decide what's good for the customer, and ER doctors who refuse to provide Plan B because of their "right" to decide what's moral and ethical? But now it's a doctor's "right" to decide that tubal ligation (and vasectomy, according to an earlier commenter here), another form of contraception, is not suitable for younger women? How exactly to you base your decision that this form of contraception is subject to a doctor's "right" to make life decisions for his patient, but other forms are not?
That there is what you call a "double standard", folks.
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Wow
[Read the article: Couric goes to bat for Lohan]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So now Salon is deleting letters that are critical of their coverage? How very interesting. I'll have to remember that.
This does nothing for your image of integrity, you know. You people have just blown every bit of credibility you had with me.