Say What? What They’re Saying On Other Editorial Pages

Advertiser decides anorexia won’t sell at Christmas time

This year’s female Christmas image suddenly got a more Junoesque form. A woman who looked like a woman, classically curved in both the belly and the hips, unexpectedly gazed at us from billboards.

It is hoped that she wasn’t just a fad. (Clothing retailer) Henns and Mauritz quickly changed its model when it became known that Crown Princess Victoria had been taken prisoner by our time’s pitfall for women: body-fixation and self-hatred.

The skinny Georgina Grenville was replaced by the plump Sophie Dahl and the Christmas message’s implications changed from eating disorder to pleasure in food. … The plump Sophie maybe isn’t the sign of recovery that man could hope for, but is at least a glimmer of a newly awakened insight into the sickness - and better to have a little Christmas gospel than none at all.

From an editorial in Expressen, Stockholm

Brutal workplaces lead to bloodshed

“Going postal” is a dark parody of an already dark phrase, “going ballistic,” and it has happened again, this time during a season infamous in post offices for high stress, short tempers and behemoth workloads.

Anthony Deculit, 37, “went postal” Friday. He killed one fellow worker and wounded two others. Before putting his pistol in his mouth, he gave his phone number to a frightened co-worker and asked that his wife be called. Then he pulled the trigger.

The Postal Service has been working since at least 1986 to identify workers who might crack and seek deadly vengeance. Programs have been initiated to help supervisors improve relations with and among employees.

The Postal Service and many other businesses are pressure-driven and rely on thousands upon thousands of workers routinely to meet deadlineenhanced demands that can push more fragile people beyond their limit.

There is never an excuse for taking a weapon to a job and killing people. But just the fact that it occurs, and recurs, is reason for authorities to better understand the origins of such tragedies.

From an editorial in the The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch

xxxx