Letters to the Editor
ololon
Published Letters: 80 Editor's Choice: 14
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Apgar scores
[Read the article: To tipple or not to tipple?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Having an Apgar score of 10 is not particularly rare. Nor is it a measure of anything more or less than a child's need for medical intervention immediately after birth. The Apgar score has no relation to development and/or future health. Highly unlikely, but a crack addict's child could have an Apgar score of 10.
Also, makes sense to me that an overdue infant would perform better on a post-natal physical assessment -- so long as there are no extenuating circumstances, such a baby has more time to develop in the womb and should come out that much more fit for the outdoors!
The utter fear instilled in child-bearing women is fantastic. From the moment we know we're having one, rather than hear the positive -- second trimester sex is the best you'll ever have! -- you get, "Don't eat cold cuts, cheese, fish, chocolate, or change your cat litter, or breathe near alcohol, or smoke cigarettes, or else you may IRREPARABLY DAMAGE YOUR CHILD!" We are rarely told why, and often meet with much resistance when trying to find out. Better to abstain... just in case.
From this culture of fear comes an attitude like Ms. Lloyd's -- irrationally proud of her first child's Apgar score and irrationally worried about her second child's development. Too much is unknown about the effects of ingesting ANYTHING to inflict this kind of stress on mothers-to-be or expect their children to measure up to this kind of scrutinizing expectation. Yet the medical establishment does, out of malpractice fears and an inability to admit a lack of knowledge.
The sanest thing I heard when I was carrying my daughter, and this was only after much research, was... since extreme behaviour is almost always accompanied by other forms of extreme behaviour, it is impossible to tell what causes what. Simply, if you drink a lot, you probably don't eat well, sleep well, may smoke, etc. Scientifically speaking, you cannot separate all of the behaviours to the degree that allows for finger-pointing. You just cannot.
Safer, sure, to put that glass of wine down. Just in case, right? But, really, isn't it better to just not have the child... just in case? And they never do tell you about a friend of mine, the vegetarian teetotaler whose child was anemic. Direct result of her uber-healthy lifestyle.
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Burglary is rape
[Read the article: My laptop was stolen -- I feel like my life is gone!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]This is not a hard-drive crash. This is not an accidental loss.
Burglary is a criminal act, a violation, a violent and destructive invasion of that which is an extension of the self -- the home. Burglary is a form of rape and should be treated as such.
And before anyone jumps down my throat about comparing burglary to rape, look up the word "rape" in a dictionary, OK?
The LW should seek counseling, where she can be taught the tools for dealing with victimization. Time will not necessarily heal this, not properly, not successfully. LW needs help from a mental health care professional; I'll bet your school offers counseling services and can refer you to a victims group, if it doesn't offer such specialized services itself.
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Why not sky-writing???
[Read the article: Earth to PETA]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A Hummer? I did read that correctly, didn't I? PETA people put their banner on a Hummer first, and then a truck, right? And they drove them... in traffic?
I'm sure I'll read the rest of the article right after I stop laughing hysterically.
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hey there, Fairybear
[Read the article: Earth to PETA]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]actually, it was me who noted the Hummer.
And the truck -- they traded the Hummer in for a truck!
Still laughing. Will read article soon. Must stop laughing.
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Why an alcoholic?
[Read the article: My husband is groping my sister]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've reread this letter, and I just don't agree that the LW's husband, or sister, is necessarily an alcoholic. The LW says her sister told her of two incidents in three months where she was groped while both were drinking, right? Isn't it possible that the sister invoked alcohol to minimize the level of her own participation? Just because they'd been drinking doesn't make them drunk, does it? I realize Cary has history here, but one or two drinks at dinner does not an alcoholic make. And there is no alcohol mentioned in connection to any other incident, just that the sister mentioned it as being a factor in the latest two indiscretions. The husband doesn't seem to have used it when relating four older gropefests with the sister, and it isn't mention in relation to whatever happened five years ago.
I'm not discounting the husband's lack of memory, but... lots of politicians use, "I don't remember" with surprising success, and not all of them have a supporting witness claiming mai tai exposure. It seems the LW tries to justifies these betrayals, invoking blackout on her own, as it would certainly be easier to think her sister and husband unconscious than groping with full awareness.
On that note, the insistence that there was no intercourse is another mantra of denial. You can do a whole hell of a lot without intercourse and it's still damn hot sex, any way you slice it! But without penetration, the LW can pretend the incidents are somehow less profound.
I think the husband and sister have been having a full-on affair and something has gone horribly wrong, hence the sister's painful revelation and the husband's horribly infantile one-upmanship -- "Oh yeah? Well maybe I did finger her twice, but I don't remember, and she jacked me off four times over a year ago, so there!" Sorry, so crude, but doesn't this whole thing reek of teenage petulance?!? And the LW is trying, desperately trying, to convince herself the deception is a superficial one, rather than the expressly hurtful betrayal it is, with her chosen mantras: not sober, no intercourse.