that are not taking pot-shots at other letters. Or commenting on Andrea Dworkin, who didn't actually make an appearance in the essay.

The fascinating point made by the article is this mysterious way in which otherwise decently behaving men tend to misbehave in packs. This is brought to light often on college campuses and particularly in their fraternity organizations. Maybe older men simply don't find themselves as often in these chummy man-club situations.

In New York City, I have noticed also a tendency for men's attacks on women to come in waves; or are they just reported as such? The Puerto Rican Day Parade rapes of several years ago come to mind; I recall a pattern of verbal abuse leading up to the event. Victims' comments on a rash of subway platform exposers and the like last August carried a theme of perps and cops alike telling them they were "crazy." In other words, forget it -- it just didn't happen, sweetheart. Your reality does not exist. A mob creates its own reality.

When being attacked -- and I have been -- I see in the eyes of my attacker a hypnotic state. He is unreachable. He's checked out. Driven by some unseen communal force that must be obeyed. It is as if the culture itself will crumble if he does not carry out his act. This is seen as sane -- resisting it, insane. Breaking the trance with the aid of a baseball bat only brings out incredulous smirks, violent rage, and denials.

Perhaps I don't understand the subtleties of this, but how does C-SPAN have a copyright on ABC's video feed? And if ABC has the copyright issue, why are we not criticizing ABC? Copyrights are be licensed for money, and if the demand exists, somebody should be offering ABC serious cash.

That said, though, I agree with the folks who say the reporters'--and the president's--supposedly affronted reaction to Colbert has been over-spun. He was biting, satirical, ironic and sarcastic. Every joke hit the mark. But he was not always laugh-out-loud funny. This was not stand-up.

As for the president, I would have liked to have seen this close-up video to judge for myself, but I never saw anything but the usual bewildered "what's that smell" look on his face in the wider shots. And what was he supposed to do, invite Colbert to dinner after being roasted like that? Pose for a photo? Would a liberal have done that after being skewered by a sharp conservative wit? He has a right to be upset. Knowing his dictatorial ways, the fact that Bush HASN'T punished The Daily Show or Comedy Central is the real story here. There is a precedent: Didn't the Smothers Brothers lose their highly popular show in the '60s for similar reasons?

At age 24, during dinner at a restaurant with my sister and me, I listened while my father flatly refused to help me with my career choice or finances. I quit my job in journalism and went into secretarial work for the next 15 years. When I returned to dinner from crying in the ladies' room that evening, my father was quietly explaining to my sister how his stepfather had told him every day that he would never amount to much. And that if he ever found out he was like his stepfather, he would kill himself. I felt like handing him the knife. I still wonder if my silence was compassionate or self-killing.

The point is, we all have blind spots. Even when we are lecturing others about how completely we have overcome our past, our past haunts us and colors what we do. I have nothing but compassion for these parents but there is another view, just as nonjudgmental, that would say that they cannot possibly know without help what caused their children's poor choices. To say it's all genetics is just as much a cop-out as saying it's all their fault. What we don't know is greater than what we do know.

After congratulating Mr. Tennis for his bold response, I would like to remind him that every parent, even a misguided one, thinks they're doing the right thing. And so many are not. The fact that these parents point to their daughter's Ivy League education as proof of their success as parents raises a red flag for me. Did they say, Our daughter has always cared about other people? Or, our son has shown values that we admire? So we just don't know what a good upbringing means to them. It is likely that their ideas of love, nurturing, family, and so on are dysfunctional -- if it is possible to say that without blaming them for their own dysfunctional upbringing or failing to give them credit for the enormous achievement of climbing out of most of that dysfunction in their own lives.

Is it, then, rude to give an honest opinion when a parent is acting out a blind spot with their kids in public? Or if they drop hints in conversation about just how screwed up their worldview is? How are they ever to know they're dysfunctional if no one ever reacts in disbelief to what they say or do?