Letters to the Editor
Rowyna
Published Letters: 105 Editor's Choice: 36
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Just tell her no...
[Read the article: I'm a condo parking-spot hoarder!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seriously. Don't make something up. Don't invent fictional people or even plants to use the spot. Just tell your neighbor that unfortunately the spot isn't for rent, and that in the future if she wishes to use it she must ask you in advance first, or not at all.
Explain to her that you often have people who visit, and you often don't know well in advance that they are coming. As such, it is important for the space to always be free. Remind her that it is YOUR space. Say that perhaps so-and-so down the other end of Condo-Land might want to rent her the spot.
Be nice about it, but say No for crying out loud.
You're resentful because up until now you've been a doormat. Doormats get walked all over, and end up resentful.
If you say 'no' to her, maybe she'll be resentful... but hey, better her than YOU being resentful.
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How Not to Look Frumpy
[Read the article: Do not go gentle into that Eileen Fisher]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What if they had just called the book 'how not to look frumpy' or 'how to dress nicely out-of-college. Because the clothes you wear and the hair you sport at 30 is probably about the same as what you should be doing at 40.
Sure you'll probably be marginally wrinklier, and perhaps carry a bit more weight (baby pounds don't just disapear afterall). Who knows your hair might even be gray (sorry, but I can't feel bad for anyone with gray hair. Mine turned gray at age 18, no lies, and I've been dying it since, so as not to appear about 20 years older than I am...)
Wear what you want, but yeah, if you look like a frump who wears shapeless unflattering styles, you're going to look like a frump in those clothes no matter what your age.
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Interwebz! O noes!
[Read the article: What's the matter with kids today?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I love articles like this because they basically reaffirm my world view -- internet = good, old fuddy-duddies = bad.
And I do agree with the basic premise that oftentimes the 'older' generation is guilty of quite a bit of hand wringing about the declining values of the younger generations (be they academic, moral, or social), when really there is nothing wrong with the new generation.
So as a card-carrying member of the Next Generation, I really wanted to agree that old people just don’t GET young people, and that we really are just as smart if not SMARTER than our parents.
But... 1 in 4 people didn't know who Adolf Hitler was? That is just. so. weak.
The problem isn't the internet. The problem is that since ye olde baby boomers, the education system has gone through quite a revolution. Instead of teaching kids to memorize facts or learn about events of historical significance, we went all postmodern and started teaching kids how to research, and got them looking at a single event in great detail.
Its good to teach kids how to research. This is why we're all so damn websavvy. Why bother memorizing something when you can just google it, or find it on wikipedia? Except, what my generation lost (to its detriment) was an understanding of what sort of things were important to look up in the first place. If you've never heard of Hitler, you're not going to be doing a wiki search about him, are you? Its a whole world of information you aren't exposed to.
Arguably for many teens, Hitler and the Holocaust are less immediately relevant than the contents of last night's episode of Lost. In the Long Term, WWII is clearly more important, but in the short term, Lost is. Kids are living in the short term. We haven't taught them why or how to live in the long term. Thats our failing, not theirs. And I hate to say it, but the internet doesn't help teach kids how to think long term. If anything, it makes 'flash in the pan' news and events even more powerful.
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She doesn't have to apologize, but she IS wrong
[Read the article: Geraldine Ferraro still needs to apologize]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From what I can see of his background, Obama gotten where he has on his own steam, and I really don't think he's gotten a "break" politically by being part African. If ANYTHING it would have been a lot harder initially to even get into politics, and taken seriously by that establishment. That he's done so well is not because people have given him breaks based on his race. I'd argue the opposite. I think he's done very well in SPITE of his race, and people's negative attitudes towards people who aren't white.
Clinton on the other hand emerged into politics, after relative obscurity, in a Senate run immediately following her husband's rise to President. So, if anyone has gotten to ride the coat-tails of someone else, it is HER. I do not think she's gotten where she is on her own steam -- I think she has gotten quite a big break by being part of Brand Clinton, and so her staffers should think long and hard about the allegations they are making about others.