Letters to the Editor
amspeck
Published Letters: 357 Editor's Choice: 50
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Hoarder genes
[Read the article: My mom's a hoarder]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I grew up in a family that read, created, and invented. All of these provide a fine justification for hoarding. My mom, in trying to fight her inner pack rat, has bought nearly every organizing book on the market and some of those work for me. But I recently heard Cheryl Richardson (http://www.cherylrichardson.com/) and she really turned on the light bulb for me. Instead of getting rid of my stuff because of or to avoid all kinds of negative things, Cheryl teaches that letting go of things we are done with releases grace in our lives. That's a positive emotion, but it's also connected to having a gracious home.
I'm not cured, but working through her materials, I find it's a lot easier for me to recognize things I'm actually done with and send them on to others who may benefit from them.
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The numbers gap
[Read the article: An iPhone surprise: Opening-day sales were slow]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is still possible for Apple to have sold 400,000 units while AT&T only got 140,000 new service contracts... folks like our intrepid author who already had Cingular were surely a large percentage of the shoppers.
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"Freep"?
[Read the article: So much for the alcohol-sensing anklet]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I've only seen "Freep" used in association with the Free Republic, and therefore "Freepers" as folks who are sympathetic to the neo-conservative point of view. Using "Freep" as shorthand for the Detroit Free Press is confusing.
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Reality
[Read the article: WayLay]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think Lay is commenting on the differences between fantasy and reality... a re-occurring theme. Inside the conference, people, including the young woman next to her, live in a fantasy land. Outside the conference, regardless of their looks, people are people.
She doesn't mention this, but there's an interesting meta to this... the winner of the Eisner for a reality-based graphic novel was Alison Bechdel, who's spent a couple decades sitting in Lay's seat at various conferences.
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Yes
[Read the article: My roommate bounces my cats the wrong way]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cats can get their brains rattled like humans. My cat missed a jump he was trying to make and was cranky and had reduced balance for a day or so afterward. But I don't think bouncing would result in that.
However, if this woman were to come up to my baby and start bouncing her and playing patty-cake, I would feel my space had been invaded. I would feel in the right to ask her to stop, since she had not sought my permission in advance. If she told me I was crazy, I would happily construct a sentance that included the words "stranger, permission," and "inappropriate touching".
It is up to me to protect my babies and my cats from presumptuous adults.
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Oh!
[Read the article: Mayor, Inc.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jed Bartlett for President!
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Thanks
[Read the article: Pit bulls are innocent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thanks for helping me re-think a dog I've only heard bad things about, and helping me realize the two horse-sized sweeties my friend owns would count under the poorly written laws being enacted.
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Still searching?
[Read the article: Fantasy island]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If Karl Rove is still searching for a literary doppleganger, I'd like to suggest Oedipus. But, of course, the trade-off for getting to call Pelosi, Hillary, and the rest of the Democrats "harpies" is having to own that it is the very gods who are after him for crimes he thought were hidden.
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Expectations
[Read the article: Police: Woman raped, witnesses do nothing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think it is easier to call the cops in a disturbance when you can expect the cops to come do something. I know nothing about where this happened, but I have had the experience of calling the cops from high rent parts of my city and getting an instant and courteous response (including one officer who helped me change a tire after midnight in a snowstorm) and having been held up in a parking lot in a low rent part of town and being told by an officer it was my fault because I didn't have a man with me. So now I know that the cops have written off that part of town, don't patrol it, and I don't go there.
If, as some of these letters suggest, this is an immigrant-heavy building or even neighborhood, folks who saw and turned away may have had previous experiences with the police that have taught them it's worse to call than not to.
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Ha!
[Read the article: Does Blockbuster edit its movies?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a person who writes about technology and tech companies, surely you realized that even when you started using Netflix's service that the ratings you posted there belonged to them and not to you? You do know that while they don't currently do it, they *can* sell your data to Google, so that Google can better pitch ads to you, right? If you like your ratings so much, and your to-watch list, why did you load them on an open third party website instead of on something you actually own?
Furthermore, in the middle of your pros and cons about rental services, I'm here to say that some of us still frequent independent video stores. Sure they're hamstrung by not having sweet deals with studios and the servers to allow downloading, but heck, I love being able to go in on a Friday night with nothing but a sense that I want to be surprised, delighted, educated, titillated and getting a personal recommendation from a movie lover and not a robot.
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Menopause
[Read the article: Older women leave young'uns in the dust]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's interesting that the article hints at possible physical connections but doesn't cast the net very far in checking out what those physiological reasons might be. My experience is that I am more likely to sprain my ankles and knees at certain times of my period, and I am looking forward to being a post-menopausal athlete for exactly that reason.
A source to check out is the work of Dr. Christiane Northrup.
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I liked it
[Read the article: The last word on Jewish baseball players]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I liked the piece though I am not a baseball fan. I thought it was interesting and I enjoyed learning more about Jewish culture. But I didn't think to post a comment. Perhaps there's a way Salon can assess positive but didn't feel like commenting responses...
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The Problem
[Read the article: Bush on Iraq: "We're kicking ass"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Problem with kicking ass is that sometimes the wimps you're kicking around band together to take on the bully.