Letters to the Editor
amspeck
Published Letters: 269 Editor's Choice: 44
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Me too!
[Read the article: My daily bread]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I am also a believer, surrounded by yoga-practicing Buddhists or agnostics in an intellectual spiritual urban center. It can be lonely at times. I've worked at churches, known the accusers and the accusees in abuse accusations. I've been discriminated against for being a woman, for not being feminine enough, for being single, and for being gay.
And yet, I still go. I still make space in my life for church. And I agree, it's not about the church. Church is a political institution because it involves people. And yet church is also a place where people aspire to be a bit more humane. It is a community more than an obligation or one more place to be evaluated.
I think one can practice faith for the community, but I think there comes a time when the faith has to go much deeper than the community. It has to become a deeper part of us than what our minds or our emotions understand. And going through that, we then come back to community not for answers any more, but for companionship.
I wouldn't, and can't really, pick a church out of the phone book any more and just show up on a Sunday, but I have a church family that I can sit beside as I experience my awe at the great mysteries of life.
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Sad
[Read the article: Women kept out of the kitchen?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The sad thing about this post is that it perpetuates the very idea it is attempting to repudiate. Women who choose to get into high tech industries often find the environment more accepting, not less. That men "dominate" high tech is a matter of numbers, not expectations. So I would argue that "dominate" is the wrong word. Perhaps you meant the more statistic-overtoned "predominately"?
As for kitchens... long hours, low pay, the threat to relationships, the gender-based expectations (I was "mean" when I said the same things to my workers that my male counterpart said to them); I'd say the lack of women in the field isn't because of technology, it's because the kitchen is a brutal place to stay in long enough to pay your dues.
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And then there are the animals
[Read the article: Extended daylight saving time: Bah, humbug]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My dog and cat have been waking me up at 5 for a week or so, so the end of daylight savings got us back on schedule... for another week or so. ;-)
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I'm quite happy, thank you
[Read the article: Setting Democrats up for failure]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like a beleaguered aunt who sighs in relief when Nanny 911 rides in to corral mis-behaving nieces and nephews, I'm delighted at the investigations and reins that are suddenly part of the Washington landscape. The Bush administration promised accountability and then did everything to make a joke of that promise. It's nice to see that accountability in Washington can look like it does at home.
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Good Job, Cary
[Read the article: A fellow law student broke my nose and joked about it on Facebook]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Not so long ago, I was held up at gunpoint and my car stolen. The reaction I got from the people I trusted to protect me was universally disappointing.
The detective blamed me for the crime because I was a woman and because I'd walked about 10 yards without male companionship to my car. The cops drove me down to skid row and used me as an excuse to harass the black men hoping for a bed outside a shelter. They also completely ignored my advice to radio to other cars two identifying pieces of information about my car... one it was only half cleared of snow, and two it had a distinctive gay-rights organization sticker clearly visible next to the license plate.
When I went back to the club I'd been at to see if my friends were there, the doorman nearly prevented me from going in because I was carrying a snow-brush... but there were never any offers of an escort to my car when I was leaving.
So, I whole-heartedly agree. Take the people who failed you to court and take the experience into your career. It will make the world a better place.
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Also...
[Read the article: Cleaning up "the Great Stink"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Consider also that--at least for the US--we have cleaned up the effects of our industrial manufacture by sending industry offshore. For example, the pollution from milling paper and textiles. We did not have a revolution that resulted in radically different production techniques or radically lower consumption... instead we've hired the Chinese to make our familiar products over there.
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It's not exactly misogyny
[Read the article: Men who hate women on the Web]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What Kathy Sierra encountered wasn't just a misogynist, but a sociopath. And the problem with both misogynists and sociopaths is that we have to think like them to understand them.
The route normal people take to understanding one another is a process of communication that involves each party attempting to talk about their own experience of the world in the most disarmed, vulnerable way we can, while the other listens and asks questions.
But sociopaths aren't about making an attempt to communicate or connect. We have no information to predict what rule they will apply to the world next and who will be found wanting.
I think what's saddest for the Kathy Sierra incident is that her online neighbors... the people she worked with and who benefited from the synergy of her writing plus theirs, have failed to be neighbors. They have failed to watch out for her.
She, of course, is the visible protagonist in this story. But who are the invisible protagonists? For every Kathy Sierra who has the platform to say, "I am getting death threats because of my gender and presence on the web", how many of the neighbors in that community have more happen to them with less recognition?