Letters to the Editor
Renegade Iconoclast
Published Letters: 660 Editor's Choice: 11
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Your bf is male, and a little dumb
[Read the article: My boyfriend is checking out chicks while I'm standing right there!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Men checking out women is what men are wired to do. It is impolite to stare at anyone you don't know. Those two things are in conflict.
Some men handle it better than others, but we all look, and we all feel at least a little excitement when a beautiful women is around.
To use feminist speak and call it men objectifying women is ridiculous. Is the lion objectifying the gazelle? We are animals and we can't help it. Women can't help but be cranky sometimes on a periodic basis. It's their nature. Do we have to pretend it isn't? What good does that serve?
In this case, it sounds like the bf is just being plain rude. If he was on the prowl, it would probably be the best way for him to meet a certain percentage of women.
No man is so stupid as to think they can get away without being seen, if they really make a big deal out of looking. If he's doing that, he's trying to prove something to himself, or you, or both. Cary's advice was spot on, but only if acted on in a sly way, and not in a shrill, accusatory way.
If he's not making a big deal about it, and he just catches a glance of a pretty lady every now and then when he thinks you aren't looking, well, get over it.
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Let's not kid ourselves
[Read the article: Bush's non-exit exit strategy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's no diplomacy that's going to save this situation. It doesn't matter what our tastes or aptitudes are. MLK, RFK, JFK, Clinton, and Carter combined couldn't pull it off. It's a blood feud, and it's going to run its course, possibly into genocide. We're not ruthless or devious enough to stop genocide, we're just an iron club.
Secret police, public executions, and a whole lot of undemocratic tactics that have worked since the beginning of time could subdue the populace. That's what Saddam did.
But to make a democracy in a unified Iraq? Any fool could have told you that it would take decades, if it was even possible. The only hope we have of preventing Iraq from becoming an ocean of blood is partitioning. And that's sort of like saying that the only hope you have that your jello will solidify is if you pee in it, and then pick out all the fruit chunks by hand. Great job Shrub!
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Negotiation could work
[Read the article: Bush's non-exit exit strategy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]@Johnathan Versen
Negotiation might work to get us out with more of our own boys blood still in their warm bodies. But to stop them from killing each other? Oh, they had that idea long before we showed up. They're gonna get right to doing that as soon as we leave.
Airstrikes do seem fairly unlikely to work against an insurgence. I don't know enough about the situation to agree that they mostly kill civilians, but it sounds fairly probable. To tell you the truth, I wasn't aware we were doing very many. I had the impression most of the operation was ground work.
It's kind of a strange philosophy that says 30 of our innocents dying on a bridge is a terrible national tragedy that we need to fix, but can't spend money on, while blowing up 30 Iraqis by accident is.... umm.... an "oops," I guess?
So I guess I'm saying that you're very well spoken, and argue well, but you're just naive if you think we can stop their fighting each other with our words. All we did to start that was to kill Saddam. They got to killing each other right away, as any number of scholars said they would. We in the U.S. didn't acknowledge it as anything other than sporadic violence until the explosions could be seen from outer space, but they were just waiting for someone to come along and kill Saddam so they could go back to killing each other.
Arming the Sunni and the Shia against each other is not such a fantastic idea either, but that ship has SAILED.
It's purely arrogant to think you can solve this problem with diplomacy. Watch the episode of Frontline from America at the crossroads, where a massively armed convoy of a dozen trucks rolls up to a checkpoint, the occupants obviously all Iraqis wearing U.S. issued uniforms.... and masks. The American officer asks them why they're wearing masks. They say they have a secret mission. The American says it's against the regulation to wear masks. The masked man says those are his orders.
He calls it in, but what can he do about it? Stop 60 people with automatic weapons?
You're telling me that's all our fault, and that we can fix it with pretty speechifying? No way in hell, man. No way.