Letters to the Editor
Serai1
Published Letters: 502 Editor's Choice: 32
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Since when??
[Read the article: The groom will be changing his name]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]California is a "use-name" state. That means if you want to change your name, you don't have to go to court. All you have to do is go to Social Security and get a change-of-name form, fill it out and get it notarized, then take it back in. When you get your paperwork and new SS card, go to the DMV and change the name on your ID or driver's license. Done. I did it in 1993, and have had my name ever since. It's been perfectly legal on all documents, including bank accounts, etc.
No one in California has to give a reason for changing his name - you can do it for any reason, or no reason at all. Seems to me this guy went through a whole of bother for nothing.
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Go for the bump
[Read the article: Obama Veepstakes]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's only one man with the BALLS for the job:
STEPHEN COLBERT
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Speak for yourself, Andrew
[Read the article: The Iraq movie we've been waiting for]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe they did it in YOUR name. Certainly not in mine. I never bought any of the bullshit slung in the name of "democracy" by this fucking administration. As far as I'm concerned, it's been an insane disaster from the very first second. So don't be speaking for the rest of us, okay?
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Disposable?
[Read the article: Are laptop PCs the environmentally correct choice?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not me. I had my last computer for 8 years before I finally got a new one, and that was because the components had started to fail domino-style, one after the other in a short time. It got to the point where only the motherboard was still functioning, so I just sprang for a new machine. I expect to keep this one for quite some years as well, as there is a very good computer shop near my house that does service for very reasonable prices, quickly and courteously, so there's no need to be tossing it in the trash.
I would no more treat my computer as disposable than I would any other appliance that can be fixed. Throwing things away is a rotten habit, one only spoiled people indulge in. The toss-it mentality is half the reason we're in the environmental mess we're in. If it can be fixed, FIX IT.
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You know what they say about a little knowledge...
[Read the article: It's not a brain tumor, it's a hangover]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Or you could just, you know, go to a doctor.
But I guess that's way too revolutionary a thought for an information junkie like you, eh Kate?
*eyeroll*
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How times have changed
[Read the article: Roundup: Wikipedia debates child porn]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I remember seeing that Scorpions cover plastered on walls here in L.A. when it came out in the 70's. Public walls. In the street. It was kind of tacky, but nobody called it "child porn". As other posters have noted, nudity was more accepted back then, the human body was seen as somewhat more natural then than it is today, and people were not quite as quick to point fingers and yell "PERVERT" as they are in this much more prudish time.
Hell, I remember David Hamilton's books of gauzy-lit pre-pubescent nudes being sold in mass-market bookstores like B. Dalton's and Brentano's. And they were considered art! These days the publishers might be hauled off to jail.
Times change. What was sort of tacky but perfectly legit then is viewed as "creepy" now (that's a word that's WAY overused, in my opinion). Give it another thirty or fourty years, and I can guarantee you that today's hysterical tenor regarding this stuff will be viewed as overreactive if not downright paranoid and indicative of societal illness. Nothing stays the same in society, and this wave of kiddie-porn-nervousness crops up at regular intervals in American society (last time was in the 40's), and always eventually fades off.
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So if they shouldn't take DNA...
[Read the article: Has our reverence for DNA gone too far?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...are you of the opinion that they shouldn't take fingerprints either? Ought we to outlaw the taking of fingerprints on arrest? Because it's basically the same thing, only an earlier level of technology, that was started for the exact same reason. I don't hear anybody lobbying to abolish that police practice. Why not?
In my opinion, the taking of DNA samples would PREVENT innocent people from being jailed. How many men are on death row that shouldn't be, because there was no DNA-identification technology when they were arrested? Quite a lot, from what's been coming out lately (especially in Texas, I hear). Every year prisoners are being FREED because the courts finally listened to their appeals and did DNA testing. If we're going to talk about wrongful arrests and conviction, seems to me we ought to be insisting that DNA be taken. There's no better physical marker than DNA - it would free up enormous jail space and be a much better guarantor of liberty to innocent people than fingerprinting, which is still universally relied on in criminal procedures.