I don't garden to be virtuous or more organic than thou. I garden because I love the taste of fresh, home-grown tomatoes. Few culinary pleasures can compare with picking a sun-warmed tomato from a vine in my garden, wiping the dirt off, and just biting in. Mmmmmmm! Plus, I just plain like playing around in the dirt. Besides tomatoes, I grow lettuce, mustard, beans, peas, peppers, basil, parsley, chives, oregano, and whatever other stuff catches my eye -- this year, I'm going to give Japanese eggplants and beets a whirl. If I couldn't have a garden, I'd still have a couple of containers of tomatoes and herbs.

All of this isn't a huge amount time committment in the grand scheme of things, although preparing my garden the spring does take a couple of weekend days. My garden is not that big, I mulch to keep down the weeds, weed as I go, pick as I go, and try to stagger plantings so everything doesn't get ripe at once. (The weeds sometimes get the upper hand around August, but by then the plants are well-established so it's not as big of an issue.) And I'm a mostly-organic gardener because I'm a cheapskate. For instance, compost is not only a great mulch and fertilizer, it costs nothing and keeps my grass, leaves, coffee grounds, peels, and similar kitchen waste out of a landfill.

While I understand not gardening due to lack of time, lack of space, or because you enjoy doing other stuff, what's with the garden hatred? If you don't like gardening, don't do it. Gardening isn't something that West Coast latte-swilling liberals dreamed up to prove how elite and special they are; it's an age-old human activity that's practiced worldwide. People everywhere, from the poorest to the wealthiest, like to grow things to eat. It also strikes me that having a lawn in a dry part of the country is a worse way to waste water than having a veggie garden -- you actually get food from a garden, for starters, and mulching and planting drought-tolerant varieties reduces the amount of water it needs. If water conservation is such a big worry, wouldn't it be better to talk up the benefits of things like xeriscaping instead of harshing on people's backyard lettuce and peppers?

He's still around. And so are his supporters. On my way home from work, I saw more (and bigger) signs for him than Clinton and Obama combined.

I guess the campaign ain't over till it's over for the Paulistas (or Pauliacs, or Paulists, or Pauloids, or whatever they're called).

For a similar take on the sports of gymnastics and figure skating, read Joan Ryan's "Little Girls in Pretty Boxes." Everything that Sey said in her interview corroborates what Ryan found out when she investigated these sports back in the '90s.

However, neither of these books talks about elite gymnastics as it stands in 2008. Are these kinds of abuses still happening? Judging from the bodies of gymnasts, it looks like eating disorders are still pretty common.

I'm only surprised it didn't start sooner.

Companies that had more female employees (especially those with more women in senior technical and management positions) were usually nicer to work for. The workaday atmosphere was more pleasant. Management made it clear that sexism and discrimination were not going to be tolerated. HR policies were more evenhanded. Gay and lesbian employees did not have to lurk in the closet.

On the other hand, one of the most unpleasant people I ever worked for was a woman -- a borderline sociopath who cheerfully screwed over her female employees and was a lousy manager to boot. So the mere presence of women in top spots isn't a panacea.

Maybe the presence of women is the byproduct of a more enlightened tech workplace, not the cause of it. In companies with less sexist policies and attitudes, women can rise to the level of their competance (or, in some cases, their incompetance) without being arbitrarily passed over for promotions. Workplaces with friendlier, less sexist atmospheres also retain more of their female employees. (Many women vote with their feet when they find out their employer is unpleasantly sexist.)

I wouldn't recommend marrying or even moving in with this man. He and the LW are too incompatible in their attitudes towards money and cleanliness. The guy sounds like he's pretty set in his ways and the LW is setting herself up for failure if she thinks she's going to change him. He's probably always going to be an untidy cheapskate, and they will end up arguing about these issues all the time if they cohabit.

However, there's no reason why they couldn't continue their current relationship and maintain two separate residences. But the LW needs to tell him to stop belittling the way she chooses to live her life, which by any sane standard is modest and reasonable. They need to agree to disagree on financial and lifestyle issues.

If Mr. Thrifty can't find it within himself to show some tolerance for the LW's life choices, their relationship is doomed.