Removing stigma is great, but personally I don't want STD's having that much celebrity cache.

But 75% of sexually active people will contact some form of HPV at some point in their lives. Some forms of HPV cause genital warts, others cause cervical cancer. Some forms of HPV can infect a baby with a respitory disease as it moves through the birth canal.

Isn't that worth explaining to teenagers in plain English? I knew girls being treated for cervical cancer while they were in high school.

A vaccine is now available. I grew up deathly afraid of contracting HIV which was all over the media, got myself and my partners tested for HIV before and between relationships... while somehow believing that all the "lesser known" STDs like syphillis and gonnorhea were only contracted by pirates and prostitutes.

GYT sounds and looks like a gynecological disorder, if you ask me. I wonder if they did focus groups to test this slogan out?

I have degrees from three colleges/universities and I get called every three months for a donation. I give each $25 a year and another $25 to my husband's undergraduate college and law school. We are mostly suckers for the student callers, mainly because we worked those jobs ourselves as undergrads. I will be paying my student loans off for the next twenty years. Why do they keep asking for more money?

And they don't just call once a year, they call every quarter, for a building fund, or a scholarship fund, or a new law clinic...

What bugs me is some private universities have massive endowments. What is this money for? Do these endowments supply annual income to the universities or are dividends just re-invested? How many college presidents make more than $1 million per year? Why do they make so much? Is it because they secure that much in grant money or because the bylaws specify that they must make a higher salary than any of the vice presidents?

Anyhow, I agree that the situation is leading to great inequities.

I have barely watched ER since Dr. Greene died. I tuned in a little bit this season for nostalgia's sake but I thought that last week was the finale. I thought the finale was that deal with the heart patient kid's camp in the gym with the two doctors singing in the band. A few plotlines had resolved-- one doctor sort of proposed to his girlfriend, another doctor seemed to agree to an open adoption with a reluctant birth mom, another doctor learned a lesson from a sick child about the importance of visiting his friend who was in a coma following a transplant rejection. If she died, maybe he would adopt his friend's daughter someday, and learn to face his demons about his own mysteriously difficult childhood?

Anyhow, sounds like I didn't miss anything further by missing the show last night.

It's not like he can earn the child support payments at the local car wash or McDs.

My populist right-wing friend will love this blog entry when I email it to him tommorrow morning.

I was never an Obama-is-Messiah true believer, but I voted for him and was hopeful that change would mean real change.

Geither, with his tax problems, was my first stirring of doubt on this issue but to have the oligarchy cycle put forth this starkly is truly demoralizing.

My law school tax professor once said of the highest paid, most esteemed national tax law experts, who are paid handsomely to invent loopholes-- they cycle in and out of the IRS. When they work privately, they invent loopholes. Then they go work for the IRS and prosecute the loopholes. Then they return to the private sector and invent new loopholes.

He didn't tie the cycle to the change in party leadership but why not.

Most Americans are ethical, hardworking honest people who pay their taxes and file their returns.

This is just a slap in the face to the populists that elected Obama believing in change. Tell me there are no financial experts with clean hands? Can't we travel to the midwest, to a nice university to find a professor who is learned and smart whose hands haven't been sullied by outrageous speaking fees?

Populist rage will come sooner than expected. This government can only put the screws to the unions for so long before people begin catching on.

But consider joining up for the military. I normally wouldn't encourage anyone to do that, because of the dangers involved to one's pysche and physical being.

However, you are looking for an intense sort of experience where you and your compatriots must rely upon one another for your well-being and survival. I think that soldiers have this sort of to-the-death comraderie, which you usually will not find in other lines of work.

Maybe it isn't necessary to go to war. Maybe any project where you are put into an unknown environment and have to work with others to make it will give you what you need. Maybe the Peace Corps, or missionary work will suffice.

Just don't join a cult. Don't become a Sea Org Scientologist, for example.

There are organizations whose leaders know exactly how to exploit people with the kind of emotional needs you describe. So be wary.

If only someone else would pay the bills and mind the children we could all pursue our creative dreams rather than murder our souls to pay the rent.

LW you sound pretty depressed right now. Can you seek counseling? I hope you can find some balance in your life.

Your husband, having survived a difficult upbringing, may have a great deal to offer a young man seeking a good role model and mentor.

I would suggest a Big Brother type program for him. He can develop a consistent, long-term relationship of commitment, meaning and purpose, and leave you out of it for the most part.