Rather than banning low-dosage birth control pills, what's needed are better explanations of their drawbacks and benefits. Ditto for high-dosage pills. Women (in consultation with their doctors) can then make their own informed decisions about which one is right for them.

But this sensible approach relies on the assumption that women can make independent decisions about their own bodies, so it'll never fly at Bush's FDA.

And might not have been as good of a president.

In our era of short attention spans, a president needs to be able to communicate effectively and reasonably concisely, in a way that's clear and understandable to ordinary people. Kerry has a hard time doing this. It's difficult for him to distill his message down to its essentials. Yes, not all messages can or should be reduced to sound bites, but good verbal communicators can boil even complex concepts down to their essential components and express them well. Kerry's lengthy speeches are fine for the senate, though, where the communication needs are different.

Bush has a different set of problems with communication. But he's better at phrasing things for the "common person" than Kerry is (or at least he's better at listening to his handlers).

Its pretty, young female stylists cut men's hair while dressed in lingerie. The salon itself was on a busy corner in a storefront with large plate glass windows, ensuring plenty of visibility.

Within a few months, though, it was out of business. They charged too much for the market and the novelty of having one's hair cut by a scantily-dressed woman paled after a while (especially when word got around that they were not very good at it).

The lingerie gimmick may bring 'em in, but they'll return only if the product is decent and its price is competitive.

I can see why parents might want to conceive a grandchild using a dead child's sperm (or eggs, for that matter). Perhaps the deceased person had expressed a desire to have children but never got the chance. Perhaps he or she was an only child and the parents want to continue the family into the next generation. Perhaps the parents feel that their son or daughter isn't completely dead if they have children. And yes, perhaps the parents are simply not dealing well with grief, or a thousand other things.

Point is, we can't know this. People have kids for worse reasons than sadness over a loved one's death. If it's legal and the parents and surrogate can iron out a custody agreement, who are we to interfere?

I just hope I'm never placed in this situation.

Donating sperm (or eggs) ahead of your deployment strikes me as a more purposeful and anonymous act. The donor is the one who's making the decision about possible future children, not the family. Any children resulting from this donation wouldn't have had a relationship with the donor, anyhow. It's simply a way to continue one's genetic legacy, a shot at a kind of immortality. (It's possible that a grieving family member might request their deceased loved one's sperm/egg from the bank, though; would donor anonymity still apply?)

I thought you could.

Longtime Molly Ivins reader here. I loved her wit and her fearlessness, not to mention her immortal turns of phrase. Politics just isn't going to be the same without her.

This woman was arbitrarily denied medical attention despite obvious signs that she needed to be taken to the emergency room! This is utterly appalling. And it would still be appalling if she had a heart attack, stroke, seizure, or some other medical condition that required immediate attention instead of a miscarriage.

This feminist thinks the judge made a lousy ruling about the dad's visitation rights. But based on my observations of other divorced couples, I will lay odds that there's more going on here than just a mother's paranoia about sex offenders. I suspect this couple has fought before over custody and visitation issues and was unable to resolve them without outside intervention; hence the courtroom drama about the skeevy neighbor. Otherwise, the two of them would have come up with a solution that would not involve cutting off the father's home visitation rights. Of course, the real loser is the kid.

But I used FMLA on a day-at-a-time basis to work a part-time schedule after my youngest child was born. It was a godsend and allowed me to spend some much-valued time with my baby. My manager and the HR group kept track of how much FMLA time I spent; it was hardly an unlimited license to goof off work. So to me, it sounds like companies are blaming FMLA for problems that are really rooted in their own poor HR policies and lack of proper management.

My mother-in-law took FMLA to care for my father-in-law after he had a heart attack. When she came back to work, she found out that in her absence she'd been transferred to another department. Apparently employees can be given an equivalent position when they return from leave, but don't have to be given the same position they held before taking time off. She kept the same salary, title and seniority, but had to work for a different organization within the company.

After seeing other parents deal with birth defects, complications from prematurity, etc., my husband and I felt like we hit the lottery when our kids were born at full term without any of these problems. We didn't care what gender they were, we just loved them. So we have a difficult time understanding why parents would want to select their child's sex for any reason other than avoiding a serious, sex-linked genetic defect. It just doesn't seem to matter that much.

Maybe because it has the same sick fascination as a car wreck or house fire. You know you'll regret it afterwards, but you just have to check it out.