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1. �Kelli Stapleton Can’t Forgive Herself for Trying to Kill Her Violent, Autistic Daughter,� reads the headline to Hanna Rosin’s cover story (�By Noon They’d Both Be in Heaven,� October 20�November 2). �Can you?� Some commenters, especially those with children suffering neurodevelopmental disorders, found that they could. �I am the mother of a 21-year-old autistic boy who has hit me,� wrote cpagliamd. �When he is angry and balls up his fists, I spread my arms and tell him to go ahead. He starts to cry and tells me he loves me. I would not trade him for anything. I cannot judge anyone in this story. Autism is so hard to deal with. We just love our children and do the best we can.� �If Kelli tried to kill Issy because Issy was just too hard to care for, then Kelli deserves to be in jail, for years,� wrote one commenter. �But if Kelli tried to take both their lives because she suffered from PTSD, which robs its victims of the ability to respond rationally to crises, then Kelli deserves treatment, not jail.� Malady, a parent of a special-needs child and a developmentally normal one, wrote: �I would not have hurt my child, but I can understand why Kelli would feel desperate. Look at the picture of Issy sitting on the kitchen floor with a bowl and flour all around her. Life is not neat, comfortable, easy, or controlled with a difficult, aggressive child.� �I guess you need a mother’s love to understand why you would live with so much violence for so long,� wrote CTJS, who thought others should bear some of the blame. �The school system ignoring its responsibility to educate a disabled child is something people should turn their outrage to.� But many readers felt less than sympathetic toward Stapleton. �Plenty of people can see Kelli for what she really is,� wrote JennyMac. �A monster, who tried to kill her daughter � She manipulated people with her blog and social media. Odd how much time she had for blogging, videos, photo shoots, radio interviews, etc., if she really had to watch Issy constantly. All that time that she could have been caring for her family, instead of dreaming up ways to kill her daughter.� Lilady agreed. �Kelli Stapleton became fixated on �fixing’ her autistic daughter,� she wrote, �and when she was unable to accomplish that task, she plunged into a downward spiral of self-doubt and martyrdom � Kelly is exactly where she belongs, behind bars for at least ten years for the willful premeditated plan to brutally murder her child. I only hope that ten years’ incarceration is enough time to heal Issy, her two siblings, and their father, so that they can put this horrendous crime behind them.�
2. �For the women of Playboy who decided to step back in front of a photographer’s lens for New York, that sense of control, however illusory, was a large part of the appeal of posing�both then and now,� wrote Noreen Malone in the text accompanying her photo-essay on Playmates from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s (�The View From a Centerfold,� October 20�November 2). Sports Illustrated’s Rebecca Shore called the piece �a fascinating new feature � there’s a lot more to the story than just the effects of aging.� Some commenters didn’t agree. �The idea that women in a male-�dominated society have any control over anything,� wrote ExiledStar, �much less their own exploitation, is deluded. It’s not empowering that older women are posed and photographed like pinup models; it’s degrading. You’ll never see men depicted like this, except in satire, because they get to be full human beings.� Hannah�.Hethmon� agreed: �You had me until �She can be both object and objectifier. She has complete control.’ Really? � Those are still only object-oriented roles as choices. Maneuvering within a small space is not freedom. The option to either objectify or be an object is not control.� Candace Jordan, one of the playmates featured in the shoot, wrote about her experience getting behind the lens again: �We might be �vintage,’ but we’re certainly modern women in every way. I’m glad the Playboy mystique is still alive and well. And just like Hef, we all keep hop, hop, hopping along.� New York commenter Blackfashionista kept it simple. �YES!!!� she wrote. �Still sexy!�