Letters to the Editor
borinquena
Published Letters: 228 Editor's Choice: 26
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"when there is no indication that he found her unattractive!"
[Read the article: I'm so mad at my ex I could explode!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The not-fucking her would seem to be a clue.
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Give the guy a break
[Read the article: I suspect my wife's "miscarriage" was not spontaneous]
[Read more letters about this article: Here] -
The only sane letters on the thread
[Read the article: I suspect my wife's "miscarriage" was not spontaneous]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sharon and Cosmic Mojo, thank you.
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Today's letters are nuts
[Read the article: I suspect my wife's "miscarriage" was not spontaneous]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This thread reads like a right-wing parody of liberals and feminists. The level of vitriol being directed at the husband is insane. And I'm saying this as someone who regularly donates to Planned Parenthood and worked a phone bank to rally support against the South Dakota abortion law.
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Needs vs. needs
[Read the article: I suspect my wife's "miscarriage" was not spontaneous]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"her fears, her desires, her needs, and her wants...in order to prioritize yours"
That's what makes this such a terrible situation. Whose needs were more important? Ideally, in a marriage both partners have their needs met. But in this instance there was no compromise--either have the baby or don't. Someone was coming out a huge loser either way. It's tragic.
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What about a visit to the doctor?
[Read the article: I suspect my wife's "miscarriage" was not spontaneous]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The LW and his wife could schedule an appointment with her doctor to discuss the miscarriage. The doctor would be able to explain what happened, and also clarify some of the other points raised in this thread such as the effects of Paxil, depression, etc. on pregnancy. That would not only eliminate the husband's doubts, it would also clarify the health issues (if there are any) that could be a barrier to a future pregnancy.
Of course, that's assuming the wife actually miscarried. But it seems to me that this would be the way to settle the matter one way or the other.
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Rates of divorce
[Read the article: I know in my heart I'm going to leave my husband ... but when and how?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Just for the record, divorce rates are declining, not increasing. From Wikipedia:
In the United States, [2] in 2003 there were 7.5 new marriages per 1000 people and 3.8 divorces per 1000, a ratio which has existed for many individual years since the 1960s. As many statisticians have pointed out, it is very hard to count the divorce rate, since it is hard to determine if a couple who divorce and got back together in that same year should be considered a divorce, so there is in fact no predictive relationship between the two annual totals. Nonetheless the claim that "half of all marriages end in divorce" became widely accepted in the US in the 1970s, on the basis of this statistic, and has remained conventional wisdom. Pollster Lewis Harris in his 1987 book "Inside America" wrote that "the idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetuated in modern times."
To establish an actual divorce rate requires tracking and analyzing significant samples of actual marriages through decades, not an easy task. Recent US scholarship based on such longterm tracking, reported for example in the New York Times on April 19, 2005, has found that about 60 percent of all marriages that result in divorce do so in the first decade, and more than 80 percent do so within the first 20 years; that the percentage of all marriages that eventually end in divorce peaked in the United States at about 41 percent around 1980 and has been slowly declining ever since, standing by 2002 at around 31 percent; and that while in the 1960s and 1970s there was little difference among socioeconomic groups in divorce rates, diverging trends appeared starting around 1980 (e.g. the rate of divorce among college graduates had by 2002 dropped to near 20 percent, roughly half that of non-college graduates).
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Letters confirm Traister's thesis
[Read the article: Sympathy for the she-devil]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People really are scared of powerful women.
I had the good fortune to start my career reporting to two women who were widely viewed as bitches. But as one of them once told me, "I'd rather be called a bitch than weak or incompetent."
They both had exacting standards and I was yelled at on more than one occasion for not meeting them. But guess what? They both gave me outstanding references when I moved on to my next job. And the next job felt laughably easy even though it was a promotion because of the skills I aquired working for them.
To paraphrase my former boss, I'd rather work for a smart bitch than someone who's weak or incompetent.
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Smart enough to win on Jeopardy...
[Read the article: Some contestants also receive...]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But too dumb to sell this stuff on eBay? Sheesh.
P.S. The donation idea is great too.
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Types of letters
[Read the article: My middle-aged friend sucks his thumb!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm guessing that people who are so poor that they have trouble feeding their kids don't have the money for a computer or internet connection, not to mention a Salon subscription. Those costs are going to affect what kind of letters Cary gets.
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Hi Class
[Read the article: My middle-aged friend sucks his thumb!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There may be people reading Salon on old computers with dial up but they aren't the majority of people on this site. The average income is $82K, according to Salon:
http://www.salon.com/adsales/index2.html
I'm guessing that Cary's picking letters representative of his readers.