Letters to the Editor
melthough
Published Letters: 1343 Editor's Choice: 103
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"f we say there is some emergent property people take on at birth, which is endowed with rights and liberty, then we're talking about something like a "soul"."
[Read the article: Pro-life doesn't mean unsexy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Something like, yes. But not a soul. Not a little pixie-spark of sacred miraculousness magically implanted the second the sperm hits the egg.
Listen. I am a mother and would be reluctant to have an abortion. I am also a vegetarian. I even have trouble 'thinning' (read 'murdering') seedlings after I've planted my tomatoes. But I am an atheist. And I am pro-choice. And we have a nation of laws - not people, not souls, not pixie dust. Human embryos do not have human rights. Even young children are not granted most of the legal rights that adults enjoy. You don't get rights without responsibility. How can you have a categorical "right to life" if you don't even have functional organs to breathe or eat yet? Do fetuses have freedom of speech too?
So no, despite my emotional attachments to and respect for nascent living things, humanists like me have no stake in the "sanctity" of human life. Legal rights are not about souls. They are about having a functional society that is also fair.
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And prehistoric metalworkers were effete, lisping snobs, probably gay to boot
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]based on this tidbit:
""He said the early metal workers very likely experimented with colorful minerals that caught their eye...."
Seriously, it is annoying how these headlines are written, but the article itself wasn't too bad after the lede. Still, I just don't read this stuff. Could we get more links to Science Weekly and Scientific American perhaps? They do discuss gender quite a bit, but I don't read them regularly.
Also, I am picking a nit, but if Broadsheet is going to balk at other people's attention-seeking-but-not-quite accurate headlines, I hope you will be more careful with your own headlines in the future. No news organization is totally immune to this phenomenon.
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"The purpose is joy."
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a frumpy, disheveled, middle-aged, dirty fucking hippy who has simply NEVER "gotten it" when it comes to fashion, I am glad to get an occasional glimpse of why other people enjoy self-adornment so much. Thanks, AKA! That was beautifully said.
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@AKA Smith
[Read the article: Quote of the day]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, if having a wardrobe consisting entirely of whatever thrift-store-rack jeans and sweaters happened to fit counts as "changing fashion from the bottom up," I accept your gratitude! :)
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As a former member of this "exciting demographic"
[Read the article: Tips on how better to exploit the working poor]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]called the working poor, I find the site too true to be laugh-out-loud funny. It gives me a stomachache, in fact. But I hope it is enlightening - and humorous, even - for those who have never been treated like as subhuman because they're living paycheck to paycheck. Or aren't quite. But I didn't get past the home page.
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@SB
[Read the article: Pro-life doesn't mean unsexy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Given that fetuses cannot live without being on full "life support," and given that that "life support" is a human being with recognized human rights, you simply cannot LEGALLY guarantee a fetus's right to live without taking away the rights of another human being, regardless of what you feel or believe in.
Also, you can't compare a fetus to an adult in a coma. But frankly, I think the families of people in vegetative states should not be forced to keep THEM alive either. More to the point, there is a huge difference between being kept alive by a machine and being kept alive by another human being's body. If I were in a coma - even if I were fully conscious! - and could only stay alive by virtue of a constant, life-altering sharing of fluids from my husband's body, I would say he ought to have the right to let me die. Of course, MOST husbands wouldn't, would they. Just like MOST pregnant women don't have abortions.
People use different standards to recognize humanity and human rights. That's fine with me! But that's not what governance is about. Legally you have to be born in order to have rights. That's just the way it is, and nothing else makes sense.
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@Pyrian
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton: Better as a flight attendant?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Are you joking about an HRC presidency being bad for the Clinton marriage? I mean, were you around for that whole long detailed courtroom drama involving the husband in question and a certain underling? I *think* they're over the hump. So to speak.
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WTF is speed dating?
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton: Better as a flight attendant?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is hard to imagine it is something people take seriously. Especially seriously enough to base a psychological experiment about partnerships on it. I think if people are zipping through dates with several people in some kind of spree, stereotypical reactions to other people are FAR more likely than they are when you are actually in, or trying to be in, a long-term partnership. Making conclusions about marital preferences based on speed dating (however exactly that is defined) sounds irresponsible - like judging people's critical thinking skills by asking them for the first thing that comes to mind when they hear a series of words, or judging their nutritional knowledge by what they grab off the supermarket shelf when they're hungry and in a hurry. Such an exercise might reveal something about people, but isn't the question it asks mutually exclusive from the question we are pretending to answer?
Not that it matters. Life is really just like that one sit-com? Where the girl gets more dates by pretending to be a porn star than she does by revealing that she's actually an investment banker? I don't know why I can't get it through my pretty little unwashed head that television tells us everything we need to know about life.
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@cordelia
[Read the article: Hillary Clinton: Better as a flight attendant?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not criticizing speed dating (as I said, I don't even know what it is). I don't care how other people date each other. Personally, I got engaged to my husband a month after our first date - so I'm not really in a position to criticize other people for their speed! Whatever works for you is fine with me. I'm criticizing using an analysis of speed dating as a legitimate way to study what people look for in a long-term partner. Maybe I'm just not understanding what speed dating really is, but it sounds like people would be going with impulsive reactions more than usual. If that's not the case, please enlighten me.