Letters to the Editor
amspeck
Published Letters: 309 Editor's Choice: 48
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The dilemma of domestication
[Read the article: Diary of a turkey killer]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I encountered the dilemma of domestication the first time I caught a fish. Eat the fish and there's one less life in the world. Don't eat the fish... and if everyone stops eating the fish... well then, there are a whole lot less lives in the world. The deal we create with our domesticated animals is that we provide them a relatively painless life in exchange for their service of some kind.
These days, we are wealthy enough that a lot of us demand only companionship from the animals in our lives. It is hard for us to imagine people who ask more from their animals... and then we sit down to steak or chicken or pork or salmon or ostrich. Or deer, or antelope, or quail, or rabbit.
Humans bodies are designed to digest a number of foods. Just because we can digest meat doesn't mean we're optimized for that, as colon cancer and recent breast cancer studies argue. Neither are we optimized to eat vegetable matter alone. The day humans can turn grass into energy directly without a cow or goat will be the day that I agree we're physiologically ready to be total vegetarian.
I am a "primarily vegetarian". I believe it is a moral good to stay in contact with the real costs of my food. I eat organic and local as much as possible. I also believe it is a moral good to eat no more animal-based protein than I need for health reasons every day. The USDA tells us that's about 4oz per person. If everyone lived this way, food would take up a larger part of our spending again, but I also think we'd be healthier and there would be fewer factory-produced animals and less animal suffering.
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Shoplifting
[Read the article: A local pastor is on the sex offender registry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In Colorado, shoplifting from an adult store can land you on the sex offender registry. So I agree with Cary that you really have to know the story so that you can avoid making it a bigger issue than it is. It is likely that when the pastor interviewed at the church he disclosed the details of the conviction. Perhaps it would be prudent to talk to the board about finding a way to make the information publicly available.
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Complex and thoughtful
[Read the article: The softer side of S/M]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]A complex and thoughtful review of a thoughtful and honest account of why masochistic sex is meaningful to the author in a way that conveys the thoughtfulness, complexity, and honesty of the account is, in itself, an achievement. Thank you, Salon, for running this.
I do disagree with the suggestion in the account that it is an abusive childhood that makes one want to be a top or a bottom... I was molested as a child, tied to a hospital bed, sent to a dentist who -- on occasion -- deliberately hurt me... and I am not attracted to S/M or repulsed by my friends who find a place for it in their lives. In fact, of the five friends I've talked with about it, only one has a history of abuse.
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It should be noted
[Read the article: It's a soy!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It should be noted that Jim Rutz is not a doctor. I worked for him for a summer in college. He makes money writing ad copy for retirement resorts and then spends that money publishing books about what Christianity would look like if we really did it right.
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From a clerk
[Read the article: I did good work for a nonprofit -- but it trashed me in its minutes!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I currently clerk for the Board of Directors for a non-profit organization. We are undertaking a large project and have dealt with a number of people and firms in the process of making the decisions we have to make.
I think the suggestion to request a letter of recommendation from the board is an excellent one.
Minutes represent where the board's thinking was at a moment in time. I think it is fair that the board the LW encountered experienced all five stages of grief plus fear in listening to your ultimately worthwhile plan of change.
That those feelings are evident in a series of documents available on the web with your name attached is unfortunate, but maybe indicative of another proactive step you can take. Perhaps one of the documents you need on your own website is a discussion of what the process of change looks like. Reference psychologists. Oh, and find a way to make sure that if people are looking for your name, they find your site first, and not these minutes.
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One gap and one "What's wrong with that?"
[Read the article: "Overcritical women and their excessive expectations"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Without reviewing the full article cited, or the other work of the authors, I do want to say perhaps women are a little more critical than they have been in the past. Perhaps rather than stay with the hard-drinking, carousing good ol' boy of a previous generation simply because he had a decent paycheck, women are setting their sights a little higher and bringing in their own paychecks. I think that's the part where a 51% unmarried women rate is an improvement for women.
Another thing either not commented on in the article or not quoted in the post is the number of women who are cohabitating or otherwise enjoying an intimate relationship with a man or woman they consider their partner but who they are not married to. In just my work group of 10, that's half of the relationships.