VOTE EDWARDS

ERICA C. BARNETT: I love your article titled "Hillary Clinton Has a Vagina and So Do I" [Nov 1] and everything you wrote about is what I've been trying to say (in a less eloquent way) to my friends the past few months. I was a women's studies major and hate to not fully support her because I know she will do much for women, and how fucking cool would it be to have a woman in charge for once. But I find myself always loving what John Edwards has to say, especially now that I live in New Orleans and Edwards seems to be the only candidate who cared at the beginning after Katrina and still cares. So anyways, thanks. I forwarded it to a few friends.

Jenna

W IN A SKIRT

ERICA C. BARNETT: Your piece on voting for Hillary because she's a girl is appalling. This is textbook to what Venus would say: "Vote for somebody who looks like you."

I'm sorry, I didn't think being a feminist meant being stupid. Look at her record? That's right, you have looked at her record, and her calculated responses to the questions that matter, and it sucks.

I'm feminist enough to tell you that Clinton is W in a skirt.

Wen G.

REAL FEMINISTS DON'T SAY CHICK

ERICA C. BARNETT: If you were really a feminist, you would not refer to yourself as a chick. Nor would you work for a publication that basically sees women as nothing more than sexual objects and that advertises the selling of sexuality, that has turned human sexuality into a commodity devoid of love.

No, I will not vote for Hillary. She is a warmonger. And she was too stupid to know that Bush and Company were lying about WMDs. And her self-esteem is low enough to stay with a serial cheater. Edwards is the best candidate on all scores.

I am really sorry that you refer to yourself and women as poultry. I guess this is why our foremothers struggled for equality.

C. Wild

THANKS FOR THE ILLOGICAL BULLSHIT

LINDY WEST: Thank you for your honest article "Suicide Food" [Nov 1], printed, appropriately, on the Day of the Dead. I forgive the fact that you wrote more about yourself than about your subject, because I will guess that many readers related to your perspective. I want to briefly explain why your perspective is illogical bullshit designed to make you feel okay about something that you know, deep down, to be wrong.

First, you state, admirably, that for you: "Environmental sustainability is a more precise goal than vegetarianism." I would argue that vegetarian environmental sustainability is a more precise goal than the standard omnivorous version. This is especially true when that omnivorous version includes eating at establishments like the ones you visited (Ezell's, Floyd's, Willy's) that use factory-farmed meat, an environmental and ethical nightmare. This somehow escaped mention in your article.

Also, meat consumption is far more demanding on resources than vegetable consumption, as herbivorous animals like cows and pigs first have to be fed on land that could far more efficiently be used to produce vegetables for direct human consumption. In this way, I get really pissed when people scream about biodiesel turning food into fuel. Let's start by not turning so much food inefficiently into meat that we raise cruelly, and then we can see what's left for fuel, shall we?

Your final paragraph is telling. You felt nauseated by the thought of what you had experienced from your suicide food tour that day, and you ended up tossing much of the food in the can. "What a waste," you conclude. It seems you are insinuating that it would truly be "less cruel to imagine these animals as happy, content" before they died. Then you wouldn't waste food? Well how about this: Maybe you finally realized that you shouldn't be buying your food there in the first place.

Finally, you perpetuate the "either/or" bogus aspect to the vegetarian/omnivore discussion. Reduction in meat consumption and caring about how the meat you eat was treated would be worthwhile goals for omnivores like you who are truly concerned with environmental sustainability. You truly are, aren't you?

Jason Hodin

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS: In last week's issue, the review of the video game Conan was attributed to Sam Machkovech. This was an error. The real writer was Andrew Wright.