Letters to the Editor
molly picon
Published Letters: 60 Editor's Choice: 3
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oh, dear me
[Read the article: Bad news dad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yet again I've spent more than five minutes of my life in that addictive activity of perusing the strange, strange reader responses to a light, frivolous Salon piece. It was a somewhat thin attempt at a corrective to cutesy, warm-hearted Father's Day pieces. A satire, if you will. Why do people assume he is even representing the truth? Do you really think the author, who has written bunches of interesting-sounding books and has a good position at a university, regularly sneers at his children and forgets their doctors appointments because he suggested so in a publication? Do you think everything you read should be taken at face value, and that the only way to read this piece is that it represents a personal truth or confession without meaning anything larger? Did you at least glance at his website, which indicates in the title of his most recent book that he went with his four sons to Europe and wrote a book about it?
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an old woman's experience
[Read the article: How "Guitar Hero" saved guitar music]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]On a trip back home to the US the other day I played Guitar Hero at a friend's house (I'm, er, 36 and my friends are older). I enjoyed it, but it has very little to do with playing the guitar, as much as I'd like to feel like I'm actually playing Rock-n-Roll Hoochie Coo! Rather, it brought me back to the days when I stared at falling asteroids on the TV and tried to "shoot" at them with my "gun". Guitar Hero, like classic video games, requires good hand-eye coordination to execute. The guitar, on the other hand, can be played by a blind person. It does give a very basic feeling of the guitar, as the fingers need to stretch to do the harder levels, and the right hand is doing something slightly different than the left (assuming you're right-handed). Interesting that kids aren't learning guitar- I didn't know that!
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shuls and babes
[Read the article: I've had three miscarriages and my husband won't wear a yarmulke]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Interesting problem, and the letters have covered the gamut. I imagine the poor letter writer is still confused, because the answers seem so obvious. She knows she is making a mountain out of, well, not a molehill, but a mound. The real problems lie so far down and yet so far out in the open that she's swimming through them somewhere in the middle, and she knows it.
What a problem! This woman badly wants to conceive a child with this man, whose sperm is not doing what it is supposed to do. Clearly they love one another a lot, and have made a lot of accommodations. The yarmulke thing is just funny- the bad part, the boring part, is just sitting through the service! I've dragged my atheist Christian Communist of a husband to a few synagogue services, and putting on the yarmulke was by far the least of his annoyances. It's boring! It's a bunch of Jews talking about how great they are! LW, that your husband wanted to go to the services with you and your family is really, really sweet. The funny thing is, he doesn't have to go. Isn't there a TV in the family home, or a nice fridge to raid? He's trying to show his committment to and solidarity with your family by sitting through some boring, long services. I'm Jewish, and I don't know what the high holidays could hold for anyone who isn't Jewish. Is your family insistent on going to the services at their shul, which I presume is not Reform if they are uncomfortable with an outsider who will not put on the skull-cap? The solution to this, as EHJ said, is breathtakingly simple: he can stay at home. If he wants to show his commitment to you and your family and your religion, going to synagogue without wearing a yarmulke is a little strange. It's fine, and it shouldn't bother anyone, but it's like a fist raised in the wrong direction. Everyone is reading a subtext into this. Maybe he is almost glad for the opportunity to sit in a house of god and raise his fist at He who has not Chosen him. Oy!
As far as the real problem, I don't know. It seems like the time is here to really evaluate things. It's funny. You would thing you'd get some answers as you sit through these long services, showing obedience to a god you are probably quite ambivalent about. Of course it's all about hanging out with your family, but still. Is G-d supposed to tell you what to do? Let go of the idea of having a child biologically related to you in order to stay with your husband? Judaism is supportive of adoption, less so of "marrying out". I, too, struggle with these interfaith issues and feelings of guilt, but I'm not yearning to have children so it's a little different. Best of luck to you both.
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my family
[Read the article: My son is almost 30 and won't leave home]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not much to comment here, but this makes me think of various members of my family, like my accountant cousin who lived with his (rich) parents until he married at 30, when he had saved enough money to buy a house (still with their help). Or another cousin, 36 years old, also, what else, an accountant, who bought a condo in his hometown but continues to sleep at home and get the benefits of home life, whatever those are. Or my uncle who died at 77 after never having moved out of the house, though he'd spent his life working at the track. In my family there's a pattern of parents throwing gifts and bribes (cars, apartments) at their children to make them stick close to home. I often questioned the wisdom of this method of child-rearing, and was told that since my great-grandfather did it this way, we all had to. I guess we have a strong immigrant mentality! As for me, I've never been good at making money, but I've at least managed to live exclusively outside the family compound since 1988. But I'm a girl, and that makes all the difference.