Letters to the Editor
ER
Published Letters: 24 Editor's Choice: 4
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Diabetes shortens lives & kills. Who's fighting for US!?
[Read the article: The diet that's too good to be true]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I appreciate the seriousness of the responses, especially here at the end of the thread. Whether to use the pump or not -- that's a second stage question. The top issue on the table is how to fix the problem of diabetes. My contention is that because of the fabulous money associated with our disease ($5 billion per year in blood testing materials alone), the pharma companies are inclined to squash research for a cure. The ADA and JDRF are ineffectual, while being funded by BG strip and pump makers (see the ads throughout their publications?). And I loved Country Girl's shutdown of "Race for a cure". The "cure" has been dangled out there like Charlie Brown & Lucy & the football for as long as I've had the disease. After 35 years, I feel like an idiot for believing it year after year.
Folks, I know what I'm talking about -- I've dedicated my engineering work life to diabetes, and you would not believe the talk behind the doors of large pharma companies. One company I worked for (you'd all know the name) acknowledge privately that their blood meter is crap, and go so far as to make decisions about their implanted devices (continuous BG monitors and pumps) to "go where the money is", which is Type 2 rather than Type 1 diabetics.
With the involvement of some of the interesting people I've read on this thread, we can raise awareness; far better than the ADA by coming out more vocally. Personally, I make a BIG DEAL out of testing my blood in public, and injecting myself on the street, in restaurants, at my kids school. I WANT to make people uncomfortable. Our disease is being publically subdued to keep a pipeline of comfortable money to certain companies.
How do WE get a better voice for ourselves than blogs on Salon?
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The era of some of our 90's political heros is going, going, ...
[Read the article: Queen Hillary's disruptive court]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This article meanders; starting with a discussion about female political candidates and landing on lesbians, tv shows and Ellen DeGeneres' dog. I'm not sure where the original plot lies - maybe this is two articles glued together.
For my part, I think Hillary is a great candidate. I think Nancy Pelosi is through; her 'warmth' as mentioned in the article is old like 5-day open beer; sickly, ineffectual, a now-weak remnant of better times. Unfortunately, as intense and intelligent a candidate Clinton is, HER constant switching to the populist side (which Bill did very well whether you liked him or not) is not playing well in America. My own mother and mother-in-law detest her - feminist college-educated democrats both. How can that be?!? Everyone I talk to who's met Hillary seems blown away by her personally, but there's a growing sense that she's looking away from US, and more towards THE OFFICE.
I don't advocate socialism, revolution or Ralph Nader. But I swear - my support is *NOT* going to someone who'll march lock-step to the current country fight song. Pelosi, Clinton, Feinstein, Boxer, Eshoo, Lofgren, etc: all the "great" women who were going to do things differently have simply and continuously voted for the crap that I hate: Torture. War. Domestic spying.
These people HAVE to be voted out. There are great women and men ready to listen to and represent the population -- not just their over-wealthy donor/owners.
ER
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Lazy writing Gary
[Read the article: Dead party walking]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Hey Gary,
I've loved a bunch of your stuff. This article smacks of "I wrote page 1 before dinner, but page 2, my deadline was coming up, so I bent over".
Like the crappy math, from this last, one of your weaker articles:
"Moreover, even many GOP voters have turned against the war -- bad news for McCain or any other Republican candidate. Only 63 percent of New Hampshire Republicans supported the war; 35 percent disapproved of it. In Michigan, a remarkable 39 percent of GOP voters said they wanted U.S. troops pulled out within six months. These figures are higher than national ones, but they still spell bad news for any pro-war candidate."
UHHH - GARY: So - 2/3 of a liberal state *support* the war. A *remarkable* 4 out of 10 folks in Michigan want the US out of the war.
Gary, come on, that's pathetic - it's like you're arguing FOR the war. 2/3 of (let's say) America want to keep fighting?!? DUH!!! Let's fight! That's enough of a vote to impeach a bad president. 4 out of 10 against the war? DUH!!! Essentially out of your left and right neighbors, and their neighbors across the street - you only have ONE in agreement with you. Where are you coming from using these numbers as an argument for your point?
I hate to be the "Salon Reaper". But -- this very whiny online scratch (Salon.com) essentially guaranteed Kerry's victory 4 years ago. You folks cluck, promise & bluster, wave your weak self-indulgent wishful wings to the air, and then go AAAAHHH as the elections stick you with reality -- the common folks win, like they always do, your posturing and clucks lose, like they always do, and finally, you come back from the defeated wreckage of the common hope and whine and whine some more.
The PEOPLE have no hope with you (Salon.com), and more pathetically, have written you off way before you know.
Repubs will win. I don't want that (or Pelosi, or Eshoo, or Clinton - sellouts, yet each of their dinners last night could have paid someones rent), but hey: Salon is always wrong about these things.
ER