Letters to the Editor
slk23
Published Letters: 17 Editor's Choice: 7
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Shoddy Reporting
[Read the article: Coming clean about "cruelty free"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm empathic to the scores of busy people who squeeze their shopping into the 30 minutes between racing home from work and picking up the kids at daycare or whatever. It's tough to know what to believe about product claims, and many consumers just don't have the time to do the exhaustive research needed to sort out the valid from the bogus. So, this comment isn't directed at any regular folks who've shelled out for cruelty-free, discovered the flaws associated with that claim, and now are wondering whether it's worth it and thinking that maybe they should just go back to using whatever is on sale at the grocery store.
This comment IS directed at the author of this piece. If I read this article correctly, Rebecca Clarren, a woman who makes her living by conducting research and writing is too overwhelmed to investigate further about the validity of product claims even though she's writing an article about that very topic. This is just absurd. There are consumer reporters for many major publications who would tackle this issue as follows: they'd do the research, provide a full explanation of the limits of the claim 'cruelty-free.' Then, if they were competent and really interested in providing something useful to their readers, they'd provide a list of brands that had reliable track records with regard to treatment of animals. If they were really good, they'd target that list to their demographic (supermarket brands for the time/cash-strapped, luxury brands for those seeking indulgence, whatever).
The present article, however, does none of that. The author makes a facile discovery (product claims are untruthful or exaggerated), pokes listlessly around among the many resources that exist on the topic, then decides to just take the word of a corporate spokesman when he reassures her that it's really not worth thinking about.
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Pregnancy Does Not Always Imply Irresponsibility
[Read the article: Miss USA keeps her crown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Reason, I hear what you're saying and to a point, I agree. Promoting sexual responsibility is a fine endeavor. I disagree, however, with the idea that pregnancy is an appropriate measure of responsibility. The young woman who faithfully used a reliable form of birth control but fell into that (admittedly small) window of failure rates that accompany all forms of birth control (save for abstinence) should be disqualified? The woman who became pregnant because she was raped should not be eligible? The woman who was impregnated through incest should be excluded?
I recognize that these cases likely represent a small portion of the whole, but it's just so wrong to use pregnancy as the single measure of irresponsibility. The Miss USA standards are not promoting responsibility. They're rewarding young women who have been fortunate. Fortunate enough never to have experienced birth control failure. Fortunate enough not to have their decision-making powers wrested from them (as in the case of rape). Or fortunate enough to have managed to escape the consequences of a life of complete irresponsibility, because remember Miss USA is not asking for chastity, just the absence of pregnancy.
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To Reason
[Read the article: Miss USA keeps her crown]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think we can agree on the importance of acting responsibly. (I think I'll respectfully disagree with your assessment of my character as 'bleak.') My point was and is that pregnancy is a pretty crude tool with which to measure one's responsibility or lack thereof. In households where young women are educated about such issues and in environments where reliable birth control is accessible, I'll agree that unintended pregnancy is more likely the result of irresponsibility. But there are many, many households in which young women are not well educated about such things. There are many, many girls and young women who are introduced to sexual activity (albeit consensually) well before they are mentally or emotionally equipped to be 'responsible.' If a situation such as this results in pregnancy, I'm simply not comfortable, say, 10 years down the line saying, "Gee, it's great you've learned from your mistakes and now have a track record of having acted responsibly for a decade, but since you screwed up so royally when you were 13 you're out of luck."
Using pregnancy in this way strips away any possibility for redemption or improvement. To me, this sends a much bleaker :) message. It transmits that once you've stumbled over certain obstacles, there's just not point in working toward improvement because you'll always be tainted by that misstep.
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What She Overlooks
[Read the article: Military rape a result of "feminist pressures"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Kathleen Parker's Op-Ed ponders how to remedy the problem of sexual assault perpetrated against U.S. soldiers by U.S. soldiers by concluding that the only solution is to separate the sexes. In settling on that ill-conceived and discriminatory response, she overlooks a fair and apparently effective solution that already exists.
According the the various articles I've read, the kinds of abuse described in Salon and the NYT is much, much less likely to occur when military commanders from the top down make it clear that it won't be tolerated. When officers and sergeants communicate that their troops (men and women) are, in fact, comrades, it seems that a culture of respect--one largely free of sexual assault--is the result.
Another aspect of this problem that Parker doesn't bother to consider is that military recruits apparently include a proportionately large number of people (again, men and women) who were abused in their youth. According to the NYT, these abused men often exhibit excessive aggression while the abused women often have an impaired ability to protect themselves from would-be aggressors. So, mix these two groups together and place them in a dangerous, chaotic situation and you have an environment uniquely suited to abuse. Again, though, the focus should be on helping both groups, ideally before ANY abuse is allowed to occur. Parker's solution, however, would just abandon both groups to suffer from their psychic wounds.
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For Allie_
[Read the article: Plastic bags are killing us]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You might try www.reusablebags.com. They have just about every type of reusable shopping bag imaginable.