Letters to the Editor
Janalu
Published Letters: 18
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RELOCATE, as soon as you can. Make a new life elsewhere
[Read the article: The past won't let me go]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Get your thoughts together, transfer or find new jobs and move out of state or at least so far away that drop-in visits are no longer an option. Long distance eliminates problems that all the therapy in the world cannot.
Give up trying to change your parents or requiring apologies or whatever it is you want. It's not coming. Your responsibility is to your children. Once you've moved, you can establish a long-distance relationship with cards, letters, photos and gifts that may have the mirage effect of an actual extended family. Before you sneer too much and suppose that the 'problem' must be solved between the grandparents and LW with therapy--it isn't going to happen.
The grandparents are who they are , we can't force others to change, but we surely can make a new home for our own family.
And, Cary, what the heck was all that can't deal with it stuff? By the time this family gets enough therapy to find out they need to just stay clear of each other, they'll have ruined those poor children for life.
LW, RELOCATE, as soon as you can. Make a new life elsewhere even if it means making less money. You can't change them, but you surely can change yourselves.
And, stop looking for apologies. Just forgive and move on.
Janalu
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Iraq History Demands Public Execution
[Read the article: Saddam: The death of a dictator]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Public excution (or visible proof thereof) is necessary in Iraq in order to prove beyond any possible doubt that the dictator no long exists. Otherwise, groups rise up claiming he does exist and is leading a new and glorious return to power. Such is history in Iraq.
It is not up to us or any foreigner to decree otherwise. We Americans are so cozy in our own perceived moral and intellectual omnipotence that we relate every culture to our own. It doesn't work that way. Never has, never will. We seem to have become a mob of know-it-all vocal opinions with no true first-hand knowledge or understanding of the culture we opine about.
I wonder how many of us actually have Iraqi (not Iraqi-American) friends who do not have to temper what they say to be politically correct for the US press. (I wonder, in fact, whether the author has ever lived there for any period or has Arab friends in Iraq-not here) They are wonderful people with no illusions about what it means to see a power change in Iraq.
Some countries are subject to tsunamis, others to social upheaval. Nothing but separation and 'flood walls' will ever change that. Including us.
It's a sad business all around. But it is still Iraq whether we're there or not.
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Garbage In, Garbage Out
[Read the article: Child rape in the movies]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Underage kids. Who are we kidding. Pedofiles rejoice. Nowadays you can get your kicks in a mainstream theatre and call yourself an intellectual.
These acts wouldn't be in film if people weren't standing in line to watch. Pretty Baby was in some measure based on historical fact. But even that was just a shocking (at the time) baby step toward where we have now evolved. The film makers may be putting the garbage in, but only we carry it out.
Stop paying to see it and they'll stop spending to make it. At least for mainstream release. If it's porno, call it porno and face the fact that that's what you're enjoying.
And, fyi, I'm not a censorship advocate. But some things have been in the shadows over the years because that was the most they could aspire to. It takes us high intellectual types to bring our 17-year olds to the film table and learn what it is to be an adult in this society.
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Wake Up Call to "grad student" who wonders about insurance making a difference
[Read the article: Maria's hope]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Would insurance have made a difference?
Maybe yes, maybe no - without knowing the details of her condition it's hard to say. I've certainly had many people in my life who did have regular insurance, and did get regular checkups still end up very sick (or even dead) over treatable conditions."
Of course health insurance is not a guarantee of immortality, but the lack of it is a surefire ticket to a risky or no-health-care and debt-laden future.
What kind of intellectualizing nit-picking bubble do you live in? God knows how many people are suffering and dying daily for lack of simple medical care. Would you be willing to give up your own health insurance and/or that of your family so that others might have it?
I doubt it.
"Universal health care" as you seem to have extrapolated this woman's lack of insurance, is a financial, intellectual concept to argue about at a distance as some young grad students are inclined to do. Suffering and dying in the U.S. because you and your children have no access to medical care is no grandstanding hypothesis. It's the real deal in the real world.
What if they had turned your wife's relative out in the middle of treatment because her insurance had run out? Hmmmm. Different story, isn't it?
Broaden your horizons. You never know when you'll be the one without the insurance that somebody other than you (read employer) is paying for. Then let's see what you think about the issue.