Letters to the Editor
melthough
Published Letters: 1264 Editor's Choice: 102
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I would have been insulted by the tone of this book.
[Read the article: Math doesn't suck, it buys you Gucci]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But I was not normal. OK, I was a total f word nerd, OK? But arguably, it's the girls who have bought (pun intended) into the girly stereotype who need a book like this most. So I wouldn't have read it. Who cares? I already loved math. It's for girls who think they don't, or who think that being a girl means you shouldn't use your brain. Not for cranky old crones or cranky young nerds. (Yes, I am raising my hand.)
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Three kids in a Prius
[Read the article: Million-dollar babies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Those same couples with three kids each inevitably drive SUVs. Global warming has definitely not entered their consciousness. I honestly wonder sometimes if we live on the same planet!"
There IS a difference between three kids and four; three fit into a normal car. We have three kids and drive a Prius - once or twice a week, and a couple times a year for vacations. When we lived in the city, we didn't even have a car. We also conserve water and electricity, heat our home with wood pellets and cool it with fans, grow some of our own food, walk to the farmers' market for local produce, buy few processed foods, recycle most of the packaging we do purchase, use canvas bags for our groceries, wash and re-use our plastic bags, get almost all our clothes second-hand, and teach our children that the world has limited resources that a person shouldn't go about hogging just because she can.
There is not an automatic link between the number of people in a family and the resources used.
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More litigation
[Read the article: All about Hillary]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]would be nice. Against the administration, that is.
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I want health care for all independent contractors and small business owners
[Read the article: The blogger "labor union" that isn't]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]including bloggers. But the idea that they will be soliciting money from politicians to pay for their insurance is deeply, deeply creepy. Hello? The great, unique thing about independent bloggers is their independence. Please, please, please, form a group insurance fund. But get the cash from your readers, put a cap on the donation amount, and exclude people in certain industries - namely politics! - from giving you money. If you want to work for them, ask them to employ you as part of their campaign. But if you want to remain independent (read: free to criticize anyone who makes poor choices), you DON'T TAKE THEIR MONEY!
Also, it would be in your interest to help elect someone who has a good single-payer health care system. John Edwards comes to mind. But don't take any donations from the man! Help get him elected!
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What are you bitching about?
[Read the article: A move that's likely to fail]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Symbolic gestures are hilarious. Here is one of my favorites:
Loretta: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.
Reg: But... you can't have babies.
Loretta: Don't you oppress me!
Reg: I'm not oppressing you, Stan, you haven't got a womb! Where's the fetus gonna gestate? You gonna keep it in a box?
[Stan/Loretta starts to cry.]
Judith: Here! I-I've got an idea. Suppose that you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb — which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans' — but that he can have the right to have babies.
Francis: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister, sorry.
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Vagina???
[Read the article: Roundup: Secret wardrobes and caffeinated memories]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Vagina? A.k.a. the birth canal? Not analagous to a car, IMHO. Didn't they mean uterus? The distraction really took away from the joke for me.
And then there's the further problem that I don't want to think about Mrs. Duggar's vagina even for a minute.
And then there's the further problem that I thought we wanted women to have reproductive choices. This family looks pretty darn happy to me. Personally, I think it's morally wrong to have 17 children. But she probably thinks it's morally wrong to have an abortion - and I wouldn't want someone like her to reference my naughty bits on a poster of my happy family just because of that. Even if you think what these people are doing is grotesque and wrong, this stunt is pretty nasty. It doesn't really make 'our' side look very good either. So, maker of this poster, could you pick another side, please?
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@had_enough
[Read the article: Roundup: Secret wardrobes and caffeinated memories]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]These folks are a really extreme case. I don't take them as exemplary of the rest of humanity anymore than I take mass murderers and/or terrorists as such.
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Are 1/3 of Americans
[Read the article: They like me, they're like me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]white male evangelical Christians? That sounds a little out of whack. So how many of the 33% actually fit that profile, and what on earth are the others thinking?
Actually, I think people are not entirely honest with pollsters; the pollster asks whether you support Bush, but your answer reflects whether you support the Republican agenda. If a pollster called and asked me whether I supported Nancy Pelosi, I might be inclined to say yes, because I WANT to support her, and I want other people to as well. And that's really what the polls are for - not to describe public opinion but to prescribe it. There may have been an innocent time when polls like this could tell us what people were really thinking, but I think that time has passed.