Just a little bit pissed off right now

Disclaimer:  I've had three boozy rootbeers tonight . . . which seems to be enhancing my reactions.  I know, drunks always say booze makes them faster, stronger, better looking, great dancers . . . but for monkeys it is actually true.

Anyway, I was watching my facebook feed fill up with stories about the attacks in Paris with heart break.  Humans have such horrible ways of throwing tantrums.  I keep thinking y'all have hit the worst you could come up with and then you top it.

But, then I saw some of the tweets "conservatives" are putting out there.  Too many folks are trying to create some link between the black college students demanding to be safe in their homes with terrorist attacks half a world away.  

Funny.  Too often when white people say "I don't feel safe" they follow it with "So, goddamnit, I should be able to carry a gun with me any where I please and say any nasty horrible thing I can think up and by god it's my right."  But should a person of color or a woman say "I don't feel safe in my home or at my school or coming and going in my community" these same gun-toters say "shut the fuck up!" 

Some times I wish I believed in hell so I could be comforted in knowing that the sick bastards who would immediately twist the pain and agony of other people into some sick agenda only they understand were hell bound and I didn't need to worry my pretty little monkey head over them.

The down side.

One of the down sides of social media is being exposed to the stupidity that is floating around in the world.  If not for social media, I could acknowledge that such existed, but not actually have to see it.

The shooting in Charleston has brought out some truly stupid crap in my facebook feed. One person had been dropped a couple of years ago because he decided he need to pick a fight with me over guns.  Tonight, he popped up on my company's facebook just to be a jerk.  I know him well enough to know that he just wanted to incite a fight.  He'd posted several "pro gun" bits/responses to the Charleston shooting, and then turned his sights on our page.  His desire to pick a fight just resulted in his irrelevant comment being deleted.  Sadly, our policies prevent us from blocking him from our feed . . . yet.

Then, on my personal page, someone's totally ignorant screed about the confederate flag got her unfriended.  If EVEN Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney have realized that there are no points to be scored by continuing to cling to the "stars and bars" . . . then shouldn't the morons of the planet follow?

Sheesh.

Not Surprised.

I had this conversation last night with a friend.  The unrest and anger in Missouri were inevitable.  In the past few years. . . starting with 9/11 and continuing with Obama's election, open racism seems to be the norm.  Horrifyingly scary, threatening, and racist stuff gets posted from total nobodies and we all see it, hear it and react.  All too often, the racists find more than enough support from the imaginary peer group.  And, heaven help anyone who tries to point out that perhaps more polite discourse is called for? For calling out the racism, people are often treated to screams about 1st amendment rights and accusations of bullying.

Then, you have the talking heads on tv and radio who spew racist, vicious, classist, and threatening crap morning, noon, and night.  They just fuel the fire.  And, they give the nobodies a platform to both spew more hate and claim victimhood.

And, there are the 2nd amendment nuts.  The open carry wackos.  They are egged on by the talking heads and the powerful gun lobby.  They aren't victims because we don't want to look over in the baby section of mega-mart to see someone toting a weapon capable of killing everyone in the store.

Lastly, there are the elected officials who seem to chase the 24-hour news cycle with stupid statement followed by misinformed statement only to be compounded by hatefulness.

So, I'm not surprised that people have finally had enough.  I'm not surprised that people are standing up and demanding their rights be honored just as the wing nuts have been doing.

I am horrified that a whole section of our society seems to think that "public safety" waging warfare on American citizens is okay . . . so long as they are of color or poor.

I am surprised we haven't seen more uprisings.  The next civil war will be one over race and class.  And, I'm afraid there will be many more innocents lost to the nonsense the talking heads, wackos, elected officials/authorities, and gun nuts

Yumminess

My favorite season has finally arrived . . . farmer's market season.  Tonight's dinner was my faux ratatouille.  Phenom isn't a fan of eggplant, so I use potatoes instead.  Tonight, I had some andouille sausage I sliced up and sauteed before throwing the veggies (peppers, potatoes, onion/garlic/ and squash) in the pan.  I added in some veggie broth and cooked until the squash was crisp/tender.  A new item on the table tonight was purple cauliflower.  Yes.  PURPLE.  See:

There are no filters on this picture.  After cooking, the blues in the purple came out and the steaming water was as purple as kool-aid.  It tasted exactly like white cauliflower, only better because it was locally grown and picked just yesterday.  I wish the Old Woman could have seen it.  She use to marvel at the beautiful color of purple onions.  She would have loved this.

However, my food snob has been tweaked.  One of the farmers was selling fresh blueberries at the market yesterday.  It is too early for the blueberries to have been local.  WHY WOULD YOU SELL NON LOCAL FOOD AT THE FARMER'S MARKET FOR CRISSAKES?  We are another month from local blueberries being available.  And, then one of my friends told me that at her big, urban farmer's market (same state), she bought fresh peaches.  Again, it's another two months from peaches.  WHY!!!!????  Just go to the grocery store and get some shit that got trucked in from South America.

Sorry.  That got a bit more passionate than I expected.  But, still . . . you defeat the whole "local and fresh" thing when you buy out of season, even at the farmer's market.

A is for . . .

The world (I guess) is waiting for major league baseball to smack down A-Rod today.  There has been much speculation over just how severe it will be . . . this long awaited punishment for cheating.

Here's the thing . . . why is the player's union defending this guy?  How is it possible that he could ever play again?  How come Pete Rose has a lifetime ban from baseball and all he did was gamble (and never against his own team)?

A-Rod, and the other guys getting caught up in the most recent rounding up of the usual suspects, not only cheated . . . they cheated THE GAME.  And, they cheated other players.  Their "enhanced" performances meant that they got a bigger share of the salary cap, undeservedly.  Their selfishness has tarnished the game.  They created an atmosphere in which younger players felt like they HAD to cheat too.

Ban them all from the sport.  Really ban them.  Oh, and bring back Pete Rose.

The next move is ours

I admit, and there were witnesses so denying it won't do me much good, I got a tad teary when SCOTUS released the DOMA and Prop 8 rulings.  In my mind, their decisions were just the logical and right thing to do.  If the government is going to grant benefits to people who are married, then they have to grant those benefits to EVERYONE who is married.  Or, they need to start issuing their own certificates of marriage or domestic partnership or what have you.

But, as with everyone else in the country, there was an emotional part to my response.

I firmly believe that those of us who have state sanctioned marriages have the responsibility to speak up and support those the states still discriminate against.  But, there is more . . . I know too many people who either can't get married or their marriages are treated like a novelty because they are gay.  And, I have a young friend, still a high schooler, who is gay . . . and I want to know that when she's ready (if) to get married, all she needs to worry about is what she's going to wear and what the vows are going to be and if there is enough champagne to go around.

But, this ruling didn't change much for the vast majority of the American population.  It's up to us, now, to get marriage equality passed everywhere.  Now, GO!

Into the Fray

So, um, Paula Deen.  Yeah.

I read this article.  And then I read an article about the on-stage interview she gave in the fall of 2012 in which she claimed that slaves were "like" family and then called out one of her employees to demonstrate to the audience that he was so dark skinned he would be invisible against the black backdrop of the stage. 

Now, I will admit, I didn't like Ms Deen anyway.  She represents a stereotype of southern woman hood that I just can't stomach.  She's loud, and uncouth, and seems to revel in being ignorant.  (Remember that just terrible country-bumpkin-gone-to-town special of her and her husband gaping their way through London?) 

When I read the NPR article, I thought that the most generous interpretation was that she really is dumb and clueless.  Sadly, I think that it probably more a matter of she's dumb and simply doesn't much care about the "little people." 

I think much attention has been given to the tangible evidence of her racism . . . the 40 plus year old admitting to using the "n word."  But, if you read more, you see that racism is deeply ingrained in her belief system.  And, that she doesn't much care to address this in herself.  That offense is someone else's problem.

But more problematic than the overt or more subtle racism is the sexual harassment side of the law suit.  Sexual harassment is based on the interpretation of the victim, not the intent of the perpetrator.

Addressing that side of the law suit, Paula seems to have totally bought into the idea that men are incapable of controlling their animal instincts and that women must simply learn to accommodate this weakness in the men they work for/with/around.

Here's the thing . . . Paula Deen is a functioning, competent adult.  As such, she has the very basic, human responsibility to be aware of how her actions are interpreted by the people around her.  She has the responsibility, as a person, to not cause harm intentionally or accidentally.  And, when harm is discovered, apologize and offend no more.  Because she's human . . . not because she's going to lose her job hawking Smithfield hams.

Knuckle Draggers

I listened to a good portion of the oral arguments to the Supreme Court today over the Prop. 8 issue.  Frankly, I am flabbergasted that the primary argument to keep homosexual people from enjoying the many, many benefits of legal marriage is heterosexual reproduction.   Really?  So, a marriage that cannot naturally produce children is invalid?  And, the response to Justice Kagan's query about denying marriage licenses when both partners are over the age of 55, was to argue that "one of the partners would remain fertile" ? WTF!!!?  If you are so concerned that children be born of heterosexual, monogamous marriages . . . aren't you killing your argument to point out that children could still be conceived outside this particular marriage?

But, there is a much broader issue brought up by this argument.  Nearly half of all babies born now are born outside a heterosexual, legal marriage.  And, many legally married, heterosexual couples cannot produce children without outside intervention or assistance.  If "protecting" legal marriage were only about insuring that children are conceived naturally and born into stable, two parent households, then making sure the thousands of children already living with same-sex parents have the legal safety-net that marriage affords to their parents would be an easy and natural decision.  And, if it is the state's primary concern to regulate the production of children, then they should require a fertility test of all persons seeking to legally marry . . . and extract a pledge that they will, in fact, choose to reproduce.

Recent media reports are that one of the factors driving conservatives to accept (if not actually embrace) same-sex marriage is personally knowing a gay person.  If personal experience is what is truly changing people's minds . . . then gay marriage isn't about morals or religion or "how it's always been done" . . . and that makes those folks who viciously oppose it even more ridiculous.

Eye Twitch

The other day, I finally managed to make it to the hair appointment that I missed in December.  As I was sitting there, feeling all comfortable with the non-mutual grooming (mutual grooming at the hair dressers, I've learned, is a no-no) when the asshat sitting in the chair next to me decided to read aloud a meme he'd gotten through the emails.  It compared the various ways people die in this country . . . how many by assault rifle, how many by claw hammers, how many from medical malpractice.  The point of the email was to point out that you are "600 times more likely to die from medical malpractice than an assault rifle."  And, he went on the observe that you are more likely to die from "Obamacare" than assault rifles (making assault rifles safe, right?). 

So, now the Obama administration is responsible for all medical practice in the country?  Sigh.  Such a failure of the American educational system that such a STUPID leap of non-logic could be made. 

Reforming our medical system is not a new issue.  Remember, the Clintons tried to initiate some healthcare reform only to find that actually addressing the issues that break our health care system is a politically untouchable issue?  

Americans still say that our health care system isn't adequate.  Generally, that means that we think the system in place now isn't priced at a reasonable level, there isn't adequate accountability for doctors beyond long, drawn out law suits in which the lawyers benefit most, and generally, to get the services we need, it's a hassle.  Health insurance and big pharma make money hand over fist while holding the fates of peoples' lives in their greedy little hands.  It was this way before Obama, and trust me . . . no matter what the current government does . . . it will continue to be this way, until people are more trustworthy and less douche-y.

However, perhaps if we actually invested in education (not the systems that run/ruin education) we might be able to have thoughtful, meaningful, and productive discussions about healthcare, equality, and lowering the douche factor around the country.

Politics

Once upon a time, way back when I was interviewing ESK, I was politically inappropriate.  It was well over a year before the nominees had been decided, in fact, before most of the primaries had even been held.  I was making chit-chat before getting into the heart of the interview, when I declared that in the previous election I'd carefully read the various candidates' statements, weighed the issues I felt were most important, and decided with deliberation the candidate I would support.  Only to have that candidate not survive primary season.  So, this election, I was just going to vote for the candidate whose name it was the most fun to say . . . Barack Obama . . . O-bam-AH!

I guess I should also say that I don't think I've ever voted for a republican candidate in any race . . . not even girl republicans.  One wouldn't have to work very hard to guess my political leanings.  I'm not one of those humans who outwardly supports the "politically correct" candidate and then votes for the other guy.

So, it should come as no surprise that the only parts of the RNC convention I absorbed were through decidedly left leaning media outlets.  And, I watched both Joe Biden and Obama give their speeches.  I actually had not planned on watching any of the DNC, but I was bored.  (Speeches at this point in the game won't change my mind . . . they merely will give me ammo or a new level of smugness.)

Keeping in mind that my exposure to the RNC came solely from the media, and my experience with the DNC was brief; I was struck by the wide diversity of the attendees of the DNC.  I saw people in native dress from various peoples . . . from the Asian man in traditional chinese clothing to women in headscarves.  But, what I was most struck by was how proud everyone was to represent their peeps.  And, it seemed to me that even if in their usual lives they face marginalization or discrimination . . . in this place, at that time, they were accepted and valued for their diversity.  Too bad those opportunities only come along every 4 years.

Hell-bound

The most interesting reading of this week was the independent report regarding the Penn State horrors.  I was pleased to see that the report's authors didn't mince words.  They were brutally honest in their assessment of the failures at the highest levels of the university.

I'm annoyed that Joe Paterno's family seems to think that anything that doesn't cast JoePa in angelic light is somehow flawed or untrue.  The report specifically points out that the top administrators had decided to properly report one of the witnessed assaults but then changed course as a direct result of a conversation with Paterno.  That is BAD BAD BAD.

But, what I am most curious to see is how the Education Department will react.  The report cited PSU for being out of compliance with a law that is 21 years old and all federal monies to colleges and universities are tied to compliance.  They pointed out that at the time of Sandusky's arrest, the university only had a draft policy.  21 years is long enough to move from draft to implementation.  I'd like to see the Education Department demand partial, if not full, repayment of federal monies from the last 21 years.  It won't happen, because it would shut down the school.

Here's the rub.  This could have happened at any university.  All too often, decisions are made to protect individuals or the school . . . not to do what is legal, ethical, moral, or right.

Your moment of "ew"

I don't make this stuff up, people.  But, when I'm forced to face it, I feel everyone else should too.

One of the people on my "friends" list on facebook is a guy I know from high school.  We also attended the same college, but rarely crossed paths.  He now is married, has several children, and does something with computers for a large business.

When the facebook obsession first came along, I started getting messages from women on my "friends" list wanting to know who this guy was (they asked me because I was the only mutual friend between the women on my list and this guy) and why was he friend requesting them?  Honestly, I couldn't figure out why he was friend requesting women he didn't know, and would never have the occassion to ever know.

I contacted him and asked him to stop.  It was giving women the willies.  And, frankly, I assumed he was just padding his friends numbers and being a nerd about it.

But, then he didn't stop.  I continued to hear from women, often times fairly young women, that he was friend requesting them.  I contacted him again and told him I found it disturbing that a married man who professes to be a christian was spending so much time friending women he didn't know.  And, if you looked over his friends list, you found that 8 of 10 of his friends were women, often very young women.

He stopped, so far as I know.  I haven't had anymore of my friends ask about him.

But, a couple of weeks ago, posts started showing up in his feed (which then show up in the niffy "lists" feed on everyone else's page) from some "weekly match" site.  Apparently, he went trolling around the interwebs, looking for hook-ups, and now that site is posting hook-up opportunities on his page.  I was willing to dismiss it as a spam posting, the first couple of times.  But, now that I get to see his "weekly match" every Monday morning, well, it gives me the creeps.

Should I message him and tell him that it's creepy, and public?  I've already unsubscribed to him in my main feed.  Or, do I unfriend him completely?  

Cheating on your spouse is creepy.  Using social media to seek out your hook-ups is common and dumb (um, electronic trail = divorce court).  Posting about your trolling for cheating is pathetic.

The Most Enduring Lesson

A hundred years ago (if it didn't happen in the past two weeks, might as well have been 100 years ago), but more realistically 20+ years ago, I had an internship.  My internship placement was with a women's advocacy center.  My on-campus supervisor was a favorite professor.  This professor was a lesbian.  She didn't wear t-shirts proclaiming it, but she was genuine and honest about it, as it was just one of the many facets of her person.  My agency supervisor was also a lesbian, although much more subtle about it.  She would speak about her partner with a nonchalance that you might think she was speaking of a friend or neighbor.

I was at a young, impressionable age.  The Phenom and I were at the start of our relationship, and I was pretty comfortable using the phrase "my boyfriend" 100 times a day.

During a meeting between my two supervisors to discuss the expectations of the internship, they realized that they each knew, socially, the others partner, but had never met each other.  While watching this conversation, I realized that they both were talking about their partners in fairly generic terms, even though we were in a private office and everyone in the room knew what the situation actually was.

I was struck at how lucky I was that I could openly and freely talk about the love of my life . . . as the love of my life.  And, they couldn't.  Even in private, they were cautious and concerned that they might find themselves being judged or even attacked.

Twenty some odd years into the future, and my agency supervisor is open about her relationship.  She lives in a community where she is safe from close minded types.  But, she's lucky.

We need to vote down Amendment 1 . . . not because it opens a pathway to gay people getting married in this state (we have a long, long way before we get there) and not because the only people this amendment will truly harm are the most vulnerable amongst us and not because you don't use the constitution to deny rights to some that others gain by virtue of their birth.  But, we need to vote against this hateful legislation to tell people who live in daily fear of judgement and violence, we see you and we want you to be safe.

Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!

I'm feeling crotchety and feisty today.  So, a couple of rants.

One, when did we lose political savvy? You know how we're still getting scandalous details about JFK's bad behavior?  And, we all take it in with a dose of "yeah, we suspected he was a dog" with a helping of "nuh uh" ?   I kinda miss those days.  Days when politicians seemed to understand that the appearance of being a person of character was an important thing.  Those days when you had unsavory conversations about your motivations for drafting hateful legislation with your wife over the dinner table, ya'll knew that it would be imprudent to discuss those motivations or conversations with reporters.  When wanna be prezzies didn't bone some groupie 45 minutes after meeting her and then hire her for some made up job just to keep her on the campaign trail with you . . .. and you surely never never never made a video documenting your sexual encounters . . . because back then, you knew that eventually, the video would be found and made public.

Two, when did we become a society so undiscerning that we accept some one's two day old twitter apology?  I'm sorry .  . . if you publicly call some college kid a slut and demand videos of her sexual encounters, if there be any, in a national forum, and then spend two days riding the attention wagon you got from your rant .  .  . a twitter apology or posting some shit on your facebook page isn't actually an apology.  It's a plea for more attention and lame attempt to keep the story alive. 

Now, I have some bushes to hide in and a garden hose to point.

Squandered

I've said, more than once, that I seriously dislike stupid people.  Not people who can't . . . but people who can and decide not to.

So, the train wreck that is/was Whitney Houston kinda bothers me.  Well, the unabashed romanticizing of her life bothers me.

It seems to me that there are so many humans who start out life with so many disadvantages.  Sometimes it's poverty or lack of access to proper medical care or isms or disabilities.  But, you so often see people who start off with disadvantages work and struggle and create something of their lives.  Whether it's the intellectually disabled person who has faithfully arrived at their job at the sheltered workshop for 20 years without a single absence, or the person from the third world who was just awarded a Nobel prize, they made something of their lives and contributed to the planet.

Whitney Houston started out life way ahead in the race.  She had a family pedigree that bought her instant entry into the world of entertainment/fame/fortune.  She had an incredible talent.  She was beautiful.  She could have seriously contributed to the planet.  (I know, some would say that her music did contribute.  I won't argue with that, but I was thinking that she could use her position to advocate for medical care for the poor or food for the hungry or music education programs in the inner city.)  But, instead, she threw it all away on a spiral of self-pity and drugs and booze.

That's the stupidity I dislike in humans.

Progress, maybe.

Years and years ago, I served on a local community committee. We would meet monthly, over lunch, and discuss ways to promote better living in our community. The group had both men and women of various ages, but I was the youngest of the bunch. During these lunch meetings, the men would sit at one end of the table and discuss sports, and the women would sit at the other end and discuss child birth.

I would sit at the mens end and talk sports. The men seemed to think it was a tad weird, but didn't openly object. The women looked at me like I had two heads.

The other day, as I was sitting down with the SMLF, I realized that the table of men sitting next to us were discussing their wives child birth experiences. I recognized most of the men in the group . . . some of them have worn badges and guns in previous lives. I thought, wow! now that's progress that men can openly talk about the births of their children without being viewed as less manly.

Then, this morning, I read about how selling the HPV vaccine to parents of teen boys is an easier sell that for teen girls because parents expect their sons to have sex. Sigh.

Talk Sexy to Us

I haven't decided if Bachman has just gone way way off her talking points or if she has crafted a campaign based solely on controlling the sex lives of the entire nation.

I know the media hones in on a message and beats it to death and beyond. And, a little part of me wonders if the all sex talk all the time media portrayal of Michelle Bachman isn't because she's a chick. Rick Perry is just as messed up about sex, but we see media coverage of other issues with him.

On the other hand, we have a candidate that seems to allowed her campaign to be totally derailed by sex issues. She submits to her husband . . . she doesn't want sex ed to be taught in schools . . . she thinks gay people should be denied rights granted to non-gay people by birthright . . . she doesn't think women should have easy access to contraceptives and/or preventative reproductive health care . . . she seems to think that the handful(s) of girls/women who develop cancer each year from a virus are expendable.

For a party who thumps their chests and claims to believe in big government staying out of our lives, they sure love to know/want to control what we're doing during sexy-sexy time.

Backfire?

Men who think with their dicks must be terrified of women, at the root of it all.

Take for example the accused, former, IMF chair Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Here is a man with a long, public record of creepy, disrespectful, objectifying, over-sexed behavior towards women. However, his position and wealth has more or less allowed him to continue on his little life with few consequences for his actions.

Now, he's actually accused of a real crime. (This is not to say there haven't been other crimes, just now he's facing charges.) The person who made the accusation wasn't in his social or work circles, she wasn't his social equal. She was simply a woman trying to do her job when she got caught up in an international scandal. The victim is an immigrant, a housekeeper, a single mother, a few decades younger than him, and didn't even know who (or what) he was when their lives intersected.

Now, he is living in posh surroundings, has armed guards on the payroll, is enjoying a standard of living the hotel maid could never attain on her own (and, frankly neither could he, since his wife is footing the bills). His family posted $6 million dollars bail to land him in the posh penthouse prison. And, now, in light of media coverage of details that, if true, damn him pretty thoroughly, he's hired a "crisis team" complete with former CIA agents and PR experts.

I really really really hope his gross and lavish outlay of money in pursuit of "getting off" back fires for him in front of the jury. Everything about his current situation smacks of a level of monied audacity that I hope most people find revolting.

And, even though there is a huge difference between "not guilty" and "innocent" . . . I hope the jury is able to wade through his "team's" spin and resources to get to the heart of the matter.

Oh, navel navel!

I, like the rest of the planet, have been absorbing the news of the latest strike against terrorism. My personal feelings probably would appear to be contradictory to the peace-loving, pinko-liberal, I'm generally known to be.

One phenomena that I am finding interesting is the factions of people who on one hand are taking to the streets and chanting and acting as if they personally have been freed of some invisible bondage. . . but won't give the elected leaders who directed the operation a bit of credit.

I'm also finding interesting the number of college students who are acting as if they are all "team USA" . . .

I am a big believer in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Research into rescuers in a genocide find that those people have reached the highest level of the hierarchy. I also suspect that if you experience a threat to one of the basic levels, it threatens everything above it.

I also suspect that a lot of folks get stuck in the "belonging" level. And, I wonder if social media has created artificial belonging for a whole generation. I can't imagine that one can truly attain self actualization if one's sense of belonging is false.

OOOH . . . lint . . .

I do love me an advice column

One of the rituals I like to subject ESK, and sometimes Phenom, is reading aloud and discussing responses to, and then evaluating the actual response in advice columns.

I have liked Dear Abby over the years. I even had my own response to one of her columns printed by her. Sadly, my local newspaper doesn't carry her column anymore. We have Dr. Joyce Brothers instead. I just haven't gotten into that one.

Currently my favorites include: Dan Savage, Dear Prudence, and the Ethicist.

Dan writes about sex. He is a gay man in a committed relationship and a parent. I've observed him become less tolerant of behavior that victimizes others. He also points out that many of the measures proposed/enacted to take rights away from gay people also takes rights away from straight people. His columns are the sort you shouldn't read at work. Sometimes the letters have a horrifyingly high squeamish factor. This week, he gives spot on advice about a person who acted out in a sexually aggressive manner to an unsuspecting and non-consentual person. It was gold.

Dear Prudence is more like what I use to get from Dear Abby, only I think with a better grasp of modern culture.

Most of the time, I like the responses from the Ethicist. Some of the questions posed in the column are thought provoking. I don't always agree, but I do like the discussions the column sparks.

I don't really do "reality tv" . . . I imagine my love of advice columns isn't too different from being drawn in to reality tv, only in really small doses and with a nice neat ending.