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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
flipside
Published Letters: 99 Editor's Choice: 11
Re: "I would suggest one more idea"
Hmmm, you know, if you reverse the genders, this "one more idea" becomes pretty loathsome, doesn't it?
"You know honey, I like you, but I like my women skinnier. Why don't I help you lose weight? Then I'll be attracted to you! Won't that make you happy?"
Isn't this exactly what WOMEN have been fighting to escape for the past forty years? The idea that SELF-fulfillment comes from being attractive to OTHERS?
Your guy is fat. He might want to lose weight or he might be happy being fat. Either way, he is who he is.
What if he loses the weight and gains it all back in five years when you have a mortgage and some kids? Will you find yourself...
TRAPPED WITH A FAT MAN?!?
And what if YOU put on a few extra pounds or lose an eye in a barfight and HE decides he wants to be with someone younger? Prettier? Skinnier?
The real "botched joke" here is our war plan.
...I've just got one question: why do you hate freedom?
See? No hazy poetry about the special needs of adult male babies or abstract musings about the nature of interpersonal commitment and how if you sit in a meadow and ponder a ladybug for a while you might transcend to some higher plane where being tied to an alcoholic for life isn't so bad.
Thing is, as adults we can afford to take two or three steps down a bad staircase if it's just about us. Then maybe hazy abstract musings can be helpful...they help us decide how to try to look at things.
But with kids involved, there's only one priority: protect them. The cannot protect themselves and we have no right to indulge in risky choices when we're responsible for and to them.
That's why I don't have kids. I like doing things that are not healthy for kids to be around. Probably not healthy for me to be around, but that's my choice: I'm here for a good time, not a long time.
In this case, the fundamental fallacy of thought is that you can help an alcoholic by using the relationship (and the threatened dissolution thereof) a carrot or a stick.
The marriage may or may not survive this time, but you have to leave NOW without any promises of coming back or anything. These are his children, he will always be part of their lives and therefore yours. The healthiest thing for his children, and he MUST acknowledge this, is to be apart from him right now.
No problem with alcohol? As a childless adult if you want to get drunk more than is healthy, well, that might not be a problem. But it's a problem for your young children to EVER see you out of control on a drug, let alone on a regular basis, let even more alone on the holidays.
Focus on the children. Leave him to his path. If he finds his way out, great. If not, you'll be glad you left.
...maybe you'll fail.
More brave talk. When you've actually stood up for what you believe in and DONE something, call me.
Carbon neutrality is about offsetting atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane with equal masses of sequestered carbon compounds.
Since carbon dioxide and methane are such a large part of the global warming problem, the processing of carbon compounds into carbon dioxide (and vice versa) is what "carbon neutrality" is about.
So, "carbon" here refers to carbon as an atomic element of each of these different compounds, not to molecular carbon.
of poker, tournament and ring, I must beg to differ.
First, in the age we live in, it is refreshing to see a large number of people embrace the rationality and systematic thought that poker demands.
Would that we had considered our national policies so carefully.
Secondly, having played a number of clubs as well as online, let me just say that poker clubs...with all due respect...suck. Are we cloistered online? Perhaps. But we can also cook a healthy meal, change our clothes, hop out of the game for half an hour or so to engage with our spouses, children, pets, etc.
When you play poker in a club, that's ALL you do.
So, poker isn't the game it was when unsavory, life-destroying fuckups like Stu Ungar (who died, penniless, at a young age having blown all his winnings at the track and on coke) dominated the scene. So what?
Now it's all clean, smart, professional people. How horrible. Oh, please bring back the cokeheads and degenerate, mobbed up gamblers of old!
Feh. Poker is a great game, it always will be. Evolution is good for the soul.
"What makes the Republican Party -- and the conservative movement more generally -- so attractive to closeted homosexual men?"
The word you're looking for is Idahomosexuality.
Idahomosexuality n. Sexual desire stimulated equally by members of the same sex and by loud, pious denunciations of open homosexuality.
...just imagine if the Democrats and Republicans were not separate and distinct, but rather two franchises within a single ruling party, like opposing teams in a sports league.
Imagine, just imagine, if they were just playing roles designed to convince the voting population to continue supporting them.
Imagine, just imagine, that they'd colluded on a policy and agreed among themselves that one franchise would loudly, boldly, boisterously support the policy while the other would timidly "oppose" it and then capitulate time and time again.
Imagine if we have all been suckered into believing that they represent us, when they truly represent themselves and each other.
How would their behavior be different?
I can think of LOTS of ways it would be different if either party was, in fact, interested in representing the people.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
