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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
prima volta
Published Letters: 56 Editor's Choice: 2
You excoriate the author of the NY Times piece for publishing the name and the picture of the girl featured in the article. You question her motives and call her hypocritical. Presumably this is because you are are so committed to the ethical principle that the privacy and anonymity of minors must be protected. But no, that can't be it, because you post a link to the offending article, thus increasing the amount of unethical exposure this little girl will be subjected to. If the NYT author is hypocritical, aren't you doubly so?
Some people might like this type of thinking, but not me. Like my liquor, I prefer my friendships unadulterated. The law should protect us, but it should remain unwelcome in some parts of our lives. When I am old, if my husband has died and I am still childless, I would like the law to mandate that the state provide for my needs. If the law cares about me, that would be a nice way to show it. A shitty way for the law to demonstrate its love for me is to abandon me in my hour of need under the pretext that my friends are the ones who should be buying my medications and changing my Depends. Ideally, there will be friendships kindled in the abuse-free state-run nursing home that will be mutually sustaining until we die. But the law never has and never will have anything to say about this, because it cannot speak to what it cannot objectify.
It seems like I've read a lot of articles lately about this hot hot new fad of pretending like it's 1955, but I've never met one person who lives this way. A while back there were a lot of girls running around with Betty Page haircuts, but they were all tatooed up and they seem to have morphed into something else now anyway. What is it, like some kind of rich NY thing to sit around knitting baby socks and baking luscious cupcakes? It seems fun, but a little random. I mean, why not parasols and possum pie? Or spinning wheels and honey mead? I wish someone would explain this a little better because it's interesting.
Having to choose between paying $500 for inadequate anesthesia and $400 for the medieval barbershop treatment is not much of a choice. I had an abortion in England 1997. I'm pretty sure National Health covers abortions in most cases, but this was a private thing. Someone else paid for it, but I think it was about $500. (I'm American; I was on a year-abroad program in France but France doesn't give abortions to foreigners, hence I went to England). But it was really nice. There were no protesters. All the staff were very kind to me and I was given a light dose of general anesthesia. The nurse seemed shocked when I told her that in America the patient stays awake for the procedure. They made me spend a few hours at the place recover afterward, but it was alright because I was in a room with other women who had just been through the same thing, so we talked about our abortions but also many other things. There were complimentary tea and cookies which I remember vividly because it was the first time I'd had in appetite in a few weeks. When I left, I was almost a little sad to go.
I totally disagree with your Buddhist friend.
Did I read you right? Is your solution to the health care crisis that everyone pony up? This is a very ignorant proposal, but the biggest thing you seem to miss is that NOT EVERYBODY CAN PAY $110 per month. The second biggest thing is that most health insurance worth having costs more than $110 per month. If you've ever been seriously ill before, it costs exponentially more. I cannot be the first person to point this out to you. You are probably like all the other Republicans I know; willfully ignorant and destructive. I just wish I understood why.
Have you sent money to the Obama campaign and encouraged others to do so, LW? I wish you would. I don't think you can possibly have any idea what this election means to us. We're scared just like you, only we live here, which means we're also distraught because in many cases, the people we have to defeat are our own parents and the people we grew up with. The stakes of this election are so high that in context,your letter sounds a little like some rich person complaining about having to drive through the ghetto to get to his/her $5m. mansion. You think watching this shit on television is bad? Try living with it every day. If you are so upset about our catastrophic state of affairs, maybe you should take it as a signal that it's time to join the fight.
You have been with him for one year. If you stay with him for one more year, you will get tired of his weakness. You will have completely outgrown it. Soon, you will look back and wonder how you ever put up with that overgrown baby for so long. Also, if it's not too late to change plans, I'd like to suggest that maybe you'd have a better time on your overseas trip if you went with one of your real friends. Overseas trips do not happen all that often in most people's lives. I used to travel quite a lot when I was younger. Now those days are over, and one thing I kind of regret is spending so much of my energy while traveling focusing on some boyfriend who wasn't worth it.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
