NOTEWORTHY

Crazy women bikers

The finale of the 2010 Grand Gala at the National Stadium offered pictures worth a thousand words. As my watching husband, disbelieving, quietly pointed out: Every single male rider of the 'Crazy Bikers' was helmeted. In not one single image, as broadcast on local television, was any woman pillion rider wearing a helmet. Every single one was bare-headed.

Safety for the easily replaceable sex object mounted as window dressing? That is the regard for women in our society. And the women themselves, held in mental slavery, went along with it.

Pamela Grant

bgh@cwjamaica.com

What, no black models?

I am always confused and disturbed, that the photographs accompanying articles pertaining to relationships, questions/answer columns, etc., are often of white, westernised men and women.

Why are your models not indicative of Jamaica's peoples? With the plethora of beautiful people in the island, there is no reason to have purely white models in your newspaper.

It's time to recognise the many cultures and nationalities that are in Jamaica!

Kellie Jhagroo

jhagroo@aol.comLos Angeles, California

Subverting democracy

Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's decision to overturn the voter-approved Proposition 8, that defines marriage as between one man and one woman in California, slices at the jugular of true democracy. His 138-page ruling is nothing more than an exercise in rationalising without thinking rationally. He bases his conclusion primarily on his ability to divine the 'discriminatory intent' of California voters when casting their votes for Prop 8 - leaving out the possibility of his own pre-conceived bias as a gay man.

Walker's ruling illustrates that he does not understand the essential public purpose of marriage, which is to attach mothers and fathers to their children and to one another. He replaces this public purpose with private purposes of adults' feelings and desires.

It's time to put a stop to judges who redefine our most fundamental social institutions and use liberal courts to obtain political goals they cannot obtain at the ballot box.

Kevin Tait

Constant Spring, St Andrew