Opinion: In today’s pages: Bhutto, budgeting and bulimia
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Asif Ali Zardari, husband of slain Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, calls for free elections and a U.N. investigation into his wife’s murder, and Veronique de Rugy tears down President Bush’s budget, billion by billion. Tim Rutten touts the generation gap as an antidote to identity politics, and cartoonist Signe Wilkinson watches America crawl by, dragging its military budget along. Meanwhile, journalist Kate Spicer chronicles her harrowing investigation into ‘the world of women who live on the fringes of an eating disorder’:
The psychopathology of my immersion was intense and real; the more weight I lost, the more I wanted to lose. Progressing toward a physical ideal was empowering. London girls like myself -- but you can insert Paris, New York, L.A. or anywhere fashion and media have a fierce grip -- are especially prey to dieting culture. For ambitious perfectionists, being thin is the literal embodiment of success.
The editorial board celebrates the newfound civic enthusiasm in the 2008 presidential campaign:
The cynicism may be nearing an end ... huge turnout in many primary races, including the Super Tuesday contests in California and 23 other states, shows that the nation may finally have gotten over Watergate. As candidates from both parties relentlessly drive home the message that each will be an agent of change in Washington, voters have a glimmer of hope that they’re telling the truth.
The board also warns the city not to close its doors as it makes plans to raise downtown density, and applauds Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo as a chance to shake up the market.
Readers hail the city’s law to require spaying and neutering of pets, though Peter Auerbach takes another view:
Although I agree with the need to control the animal population, I find this measure to be extreme. If all cats and dogs are spayed or neutered by the age of 4 months, where are the kittens and puppies of the future supposed to come from? Will out-of-area breeders be our only source? There are enough problems with puppy mills already. Let us try to reach a reasonable solution, not one so draconian.