Seriously, you're wasting precious time and space reading into the fact that Fitzie got his shoes shined? I know we all want to open our papers on Fitzmas morning and find that Turd Blossom has been frog-marched out of the White House and Scooter is scooting his way to a jail cell, but really, a visit to the shoe shine guy? This is your breaking news? Lawyers get their shoes shined in DC as a sort of coffee break. Let's not lose our heads, people....

Does that mean the we can let Mayor Giuliani's ex-wife talk about her experiences with him when he tries to run for President? I mean, what kind of person leaves his wife when she's sick with cancer and installs his misstress at Gracie Mansion?

I have a very small child, and I know first hand how hard it is to get a child to behave in public. And I feel palpably the loss of freedom that comes with taking on the responsibility of parenthood -- I can no longer go where I will, day or night, without thinking of how to care for my child. I sympathize with parents who want to dine at places where they can feel like thinking adults, and where cartoon animals are nowhere in sight.

But that's why God invented babysitters.

I am sick and tired of the nouveau parent's overdeveloped sense of entitlement -- that because they have graced the world with offspring, others are supposed to bend over backwards to accommodate them in every venue imaginable. Suddenly parents expect that their wee bairns MUST be made welcome everywhere -- at weddings, bars, parties, fine restaurants, boutique hotels -- irrespective of the inconvenience to others and the fact that the little tykes are way too young to even appreciate the experience. To add insult to injury, the kids are so overindulged behavior-wise at home that they are simply incapable of maintaining adequate self-control in public.

I simply don't bring my child to places where adult behavior and quiet conversation are the norm unless I have full confidence he'll behave appropriately. And if he acts out while we're there the solution isn't to put on a brave face and hope everyone understands. The solution is to leave IMMEDIATELY and end the disruption. What these parents don't understand is that while they may need some exposure to adult life in the form of cafes and fine dining, dragging a child to these places when they are too young to behave properly isn't doing them any favors. It's not fair to a child to place him in a social situation where he is inevitably going to disappoint those around him because he or she is simply not developmentally capable of maintaining the proper standard of behavior. Until my child has demonstrated at home that he is able to handle himself in that kind of setting, he'll stay at home with a babysitter. Both he and I will be happier that way.

Of course, I'm always grateful when people do make accommodations that allow me to bring my child -- the wedding coordinator who hires a babysitter, the restaurant that has a secluded table where my child and I are welcome, the hotel that welcomes children under 5. I may frequent such establishments more often because they accommodate me. But I certainly don't expect that just because I have a child, everyone else MUST cater to us.

I hope these selfish and spoiled parents aren't surprised when junior ends up selfish and spoiled as well....there wouldn't be any blaming him, really. He's only learning the behavior modeled by his parents.

Far better than some blog, try my trick -- call their boss. Most of these guys are on the job, either driving a truck or working a construction site or just hanging about in front of their place of business. So it's relatively easy to figure out who they work for. ("How's my driving?" numbers on trucks are great for this...)

Whip out that cell phone. Take the picture. Call the company and ask for the PR director or the CEO. Tell them that some yahoo is ruining thier company's reputation by harassing women on company time. Let them know you plan to make sure that all your friends know about it. Let them know you'll encourage their customers to do business elsewhere. Email them the photo if you like but definitely demand an apology. Chances are that the offender will get a talking to from his boss.

Let's face it, most of these guys don't care about some blog on the internet. But they do care about their paycheck. And when the fallout for bad behavior hits them in the wallet, maybe they'll think twice before doing it again.

You know, most men I know are quite apprehensive about kids. Some I know don't want them at all. I find it amusing to discover (courtesy of the feckless Mr. Ross) that indeed, it is this desire to actually produce offspring that dictates nearly all their sexual choices. I'll remember that next time some guy is chatting me up in a bar...because telling him I'm fertile is obviously going to cause him to fall for me instantaneously.

I also find it amusing that folks can take Ms. Dowd's entire book and boil it down to a straw-man soundbyte so that they can promote their own oversimplified version of how the whole "battle of the sexes" thing really operates. Those who've bothered to read even the limited publicly available excerpts of the book know that Dowd doesn't offer pat answers, clever soundbytes, or oversimplifications. What she offers is one woman's view of the question, and it is an interesting and fairly nuanced viewpoint. Dowd makes it very clear she's not offering a definitive statement on the questions she raises, which is pretty damn refreshing in the Internet era where any jerk with a keyboard can pretend he's a literary critic who knows everything about everything.