Dear Mr Dorren,
I know you have received a number of messages by disgruntled Esperantists about chapter 51 of your book, ‘Lingo’, and probably the last thing you want now is another one. However, while I am a (sometimes) speaker of Esperanto, and while I do have issues with that chapter, I hope that you will find my points reasonable and worth considering.
You list a series of reasons why Esperanto is much more complex than it needs to be, particularly for Anglophones, and therefore, why it has failed to catch on as the universal language.
1. Cases.
There are only two cases in Esperanto (German has four). English and French do have cases, with pronouns (e.g. “I love her.” “She loves me.”). Esperanto just applies them consistently.
Having these two cases allows Esperanto to...
Lifestyle
Dear Netflix,
I love your service. I love Netflix. I really do. I’ve been paying for the service now for about three or four years and I use it pretty regularly. And while some people have a lot of complaints about it mine have been relatively few and far between. Besides that one time they took down Adam-12 for a good year or so right after I moved back to the States from Ireland and their failure to renew a few contracts, I can’t really remember a time that I was actually upset with Netflix about anything. And even then I’ve never considered cancelling my subscription.
To be fair, I’m not considering cancelling my subscription now either.
But I am a little upset.
As someone who is half deaf I sometimes rely on subtitles when watching shows and movies. The television in my...
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Dear Governor Brewer,
We write regarding legislative and policy initiatives in the State of Arizona that concern us as teachers and scholars of language and literature. You have recently signed legislation (SB 1070) that may place nonnative speakers of English and speakers of other languages in legal jeopardy. In addition, we understand that the Arizona Department of Education has decided to bar teachers from teaching English if they speak English with an accent. Furthermore, you have signed legislation (HB 2281) critical of ethnic studies curricula.
These actions raise several concerns regarding education and language, topics at the heart of the mission of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). We urge you to keep the following in mind as the State of Arizona pursues its...
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Dear Governor Brewer,
We write regarding legislative and policy initiatives in the State of Arizona that concern us as teachers and scholars of language and literature. You have recently signed legislation (SB 1070) that may place nonnative speakers of English and speakers of other languages in legal jeopardy. In addition, we understand that the Arizona Department of Education has decided to bar teachers from teaching English if they speak English with an accent. Furthermore, you have signed legislation (HB 2281) critical of ethnic studies curricula.
These actions raise several concerns regarding education and language, topics at the heart of the mission of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). We urge you to keep the following in mind as the State of Arizona pursues its...
2,256
Dear family doctors,
As the only clinic currently empowered by the Ministry of Health to make candidate recommendations for sex reassignment surgeries, we are managing increasing demands with very limited staff resources. At this time, our wait list is a year long to be seen.
We are encouraging you as family doctors to conduct your own assessments for hormone therapy (HT), working in partnership with other professionals and organizations as necessary. There are a number of excellent resources that might help you.
The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) publishes the Standards of Care which walks one through the diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder, as well as the other considerations for eligibility and readiness. These guidelines are...
2,463
Dear Dr. Weir:
I would like to thank the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) for its continued interest in, and attention to antibiotic use and resistance. Your position paper, When Antibiotics Stop Working, is an important reminder of the need for prudent antibiotic use in both humans and in animals.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food works closely with many partners in both the human health and agricultural sectors to address antibiotic use in agriculture. For example:
We work with the Canadian Integrated Program for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (CIPARS), which tracks trends in antibiotic use and resistance in Canadian agriculture.
We work with livestock and poultry producer organizations and private veterinarians to promote prudent use of livestock medicines and...
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Dear Ed,
I have written to you privately and now I am doing so publically, about how we govern ourselves.
You are the only man who can promise and bring about the change our democracy needs and you are risking this opportunity for greatness by being far too calculating and prudent. You need to stand up and say, “Let’s face it – we are all sick of this mess. This is not about a lot of small issues that can be fixed independently of each other. We have one big problem concerning our constitution. The word constitution can mean many things: a body of principles and practices for the governance of a state, for example; or a person’s physical state, vitality and health. This is about our health as a country. Lords Reform, the place of Scotland, English Votes for the English, membership...
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Dear People,
Yesterday I was informed of an interesting phenomenon: a peace-supporting Jewish organization called Tikkun published an ad in favor of us, the Israeli reservist refuseniks, and was immediately bombarded with hate mails and phones from other American Jews. What's more interesting is that even other Jews considering themselves supporters of peace have denounced the Tikkun ad, to the extent that some of the Tikkun Advisory Board members are resigning in order to minimize the personal damage to themselves. This has so saddened, alarmed and angered me, that I find myself setting aside a half-day at the eve of Passover, and writing this open letter to you all. As is my habit, it is quite long, so please bear with me.
Most of the 'civilized' attacks, so I understand, were...
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Where to begin? It will sound trite if I say I understand how you feel, but you must believe me when I say I do. You are at a very vulnerable time of your life – it’s an awesome time of life, but open to so many pressures, in particular to look a certain way. Which, in our society often means being thin. This is nothing new. However much we try to fight it, there will continue to be images in the media of thinness and a mindset that thinner is better. What doesn’t need to continue is our willingness to believe it and, in the process lose our self-esteem and acceptance of ourselves as perfectly imperfect beings. I succumbed to the pressure at a young age, believed I had to be thin, believed I had to be ‘perfect’ to have any chance of being loved and believed, overall, that food was the...
3,449
Can we live without harming others? If so then why don’t we?
Animals have been suffering from the beginning till now unnecessarily in the name of human needs.
It is enough now, No more animal sufferings can be tolerated.
Do animals take birth just to be killed after few hours of their birth or to spend their whole lives caged suffocated tortured full of misery and ultimately being killed? Do they have to give their natural beauty or to give their lives for us? Do animals have become mere things for our entertainment? Do we need them to satisfy our taste buds and fashion? Do they really have to be a part of our transportation and agriculture to do our work?
Do animals exploitation is what we call to be civilized? The answer to this is No. True civilization is when we won’t...
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