Letters to the Editor
amspeck
Published Letters: 269 Editor's Choice: 44
-
The new "Welfare Queen"
[Read the article: No more food stamps. You've eaten enough]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I look back at the "Contract with America" and the utter meanness with which the straw woman of the "Welfare Queen"... the poor woman who had more kids simply because the government would give her money for every one of them and then who sat around doing nothing... was rolled out for every argument. It was a lie. There may have been a very tiny number of people who did something like that, but they were a very tiny percentage of those on the welfare roles, certainly a fragment of a percent.
The sad thing about the letters discussion is that rather than dismissing this new lie off-hand, we've just demonstrated that it has the traction to ignite a debate which assumes the argument is somewhat true. It isn't. America has an obesity problem. America is more disconnected from it's farms and from growing food than she's ever been before. Those two facts cover all sectors of society.
In addition to that, food stamps are currently underfunded. Last spring a number of governors and mayors spent a week eating only what they could buy on a food stamp allotment to attract attention to this. That was $21 in food for the week for the Representatives in this article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051501957.html).
It is true that fresh, locally grown veggies and carefully prepared food is currently a luxury of the wealthy or the rural. So much so that the originator of the Slow Food movement chided US foodies during his visit last year for creating a system that had not expanded access to fresh food.
Another point of the article that has been ignored in the comments is that money in food stamps would acheive the goal of getting money to the poorest Americans quickly with low overhead. Since that is the goal, can't we just butt out of how *exactly* people are going to spend that money?
-
Not a hotbed of creative thinking
[Read the article: The long-term stupidity of global Hollywood]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Hollywood" isn't really a hotbed of creative thinking. Once a story gets into the system, it has the stuffing pounded out of it in order to produce something known and familiar so that big bucks can be plunked down on it. But I think the real "blockbusters" -- Lord of the Rings, Titanic, Jerry MacGuire, Finding Nemo, ET, etc. -- had an element of surprise in them. These were movies that got big budgets almost in spite of themselves, touched a chord, and took off. Ya simply can't manufacture that by doing the same thing over and over. Even if the same thing is translating and simplifying French films.
-
"Explosion" or admission
[Read the article: Don't be happy, worry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As I have approched 40, much more than my body's ability to bounce back after a hike or to burn a scoop of ice cream has changed. I was just lamenting last week that I no longer have the feelings I used to have. There are classes I once went to faithfully because of a giddy infatuation with the instructor, those times are probably behind me.
To a degree, I'm willing to handle that. But when I realized I was avoiding going out at night because the dark felt heavy and threatening to me (in spite of a life-long love of stars), that I knew I was dealing with more than just facing my own mortality.
When my mother and when her mother hit 40, their lives changed in really painful ways. My mom started obsessing about reading books, getting high scores on pinball machines, winning the top prize in the skee-ball arcade even though she knew she could buy it for less than she was spending on playing.
Her mother stopped socializing, quit her work and volunteer activities, and started spending days on the couch nursing a six-pack of beer.
I'm not sure either of my fore-mothers had a culture, had the information to understand they were dealing with chemical depression. I have that support, and I still wrestle with taking pills to "make me happy." In fact, they don't make me happy, they make me more resilient. I am physically warmer, more settled in myself, able to take events as they happen rather than wondering what universal animosity they might be omens of.
I've come to understand that as much as I look like my mom and grandmother, I share other things in common with them. And because I want to be sober and engaged, curious and delighted for the next 40-60 years of my life, I'll take the drugs.
-
Funny quote
[Read the article: McCain wins, and conservative heads explode]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Last week I heard someone say something like, "I can't think of a single person who's done more to harm the Republican Party than John McCain." The first thing that went through my mind was, "What about Tom Delay?" After all it's the rampant cronyism, the insertion of conservative mores into the public sector, the politics of mean, and the deafness to the international community that have pushed me from being a Republican-leaning independent to being an enthusiastic, money-giving Democrat.
Turns out the person who said that was Tom Delay.
-
Oh My!
[Read the article: Betrayed by John McCain]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's so fun to see the Republicans wrestling with the "John Kerry" problem.... It's the least bad candidate who's in the lead. Which means when it comes to race time, people with passion -- passion for Ron Paul, passion for Mike Huckabee, passion for Rudy Guiliani -- won't be inclined to re-engage. If he wins, he'll be my president and I'll hope he does a good job. But it's nice to have the shoe on the other foot for a change.