You have to have faith that you have the potential for great writing and your practice of writing professionally is a constant search and struggle to reach that potential.

You have to understand that there is the work of creating a beautifully written story (fiction or nonfiction) and then there is the work of making a living from providing written materials into the market place. They are almost two different careers.

Lastly, you have to understand that talent does not mean or gaurantee success. Success is random, can be unfair, and not always wholely deserved. The worst book I have ever read in my life (I mean the worst in every respect) is "Eat, Pray, Love," but it is a huge selling nonfiction memoir. So, who's to account for the tastes and subjectivity of the market place?

It is interesting to see that the left wing and the right wing so pationately and irrationally dislike the Clintons. I have seen accusations here that are right in keeping with the Vincent Foster murder theories propogated by the right wing.

And what's amazing is that this is coming during a competitive primary (i.e. two or more people vying for the nomination) and all of this ire is directed agains her because she should disapear in deference to the favored candidate.

So there is really very little difference between left wing and right wing when it comes to how they approach electoral politics. My guy or the highway and I will say anything about the other candidate rather than respect their right to run and the right of others to support them in good faith.

This is what I liked so much about Bill Clinton's presidency. He ignored the left and right shouting match and went with what worked and made sense. Ergo his presidency succeeded. As an example of what happens when ideology trumps doing what is right and works, see the failed presidency of George W. Bush.

And again, I think Obama and Clinton are both very good people and attractive candidates. Let all of the people have their vote as should happen in a democracy and the process will play itself out.

If Obama is all that people say he is, he needs to come out and hit these adds very hard, to the point that the issuers of these ads are embarrassed to be associated with them.

the AP/Ipsos poll has Hillary beating McCain 50 to 41 percent and Obama tied with McCain...

Hitting the 50 percent mark in a poll is a pretty big deal (unless there are a large number of undecided voters in the poll, which is hard to say because the media never reports the most important number in a poll--the undecideds)

And he makes some good points. The people here should read the whole thing rather than this little excerpt that is essentially irrelevant to the points he was making.

with our first child she had completely bought into a very politicized mentality that said home birth is the only loving and natural way for a woman to give birth. And with that came this attitutde that if a woman chose another form of labor and delivery that she was weak, had no faith in her body, loved her child less, and buying into the patriarchy of birthing.

Well, she very nearly killed our son by refusing to go to the hospital even when our midwife and I were pleading with her. Finally, I all but forced her to go and that decision saved our son's life.

Her attitude toward my role and being a co-[arent and allowing me even to feed our son (and then daughter) did not change. It was a constant struggle that in the end hurt our son and then our daughter terribly. In fact, with the birth of our daughter the only reason we didn't go through a repeat of what happened with our son is because we had such a strong willed midwife that she demanded and then drove my ex-wife to the hospital.

In the end, I had to leave our marriage because I couldn't take it any longer. The result is that our kids now have appropriate health care and I can be the parent I feel I need to be and want to be.

This article reinforces what I have learned already, which is that life is about being able to make choices and being able to make choices means being able to seek and find information and evaluate it and etc. Feminism to me has always been a reaction to a patriarchal society that denied women the right and ability to have choices or to even seek and evaluate information regarding choices. It has never, to me anyway, been about enforcing a single choice on women whether its have a home birth or work or whatever.

and Hillary and McCain's failure on this issue read Thomas Friedman's op-ed in todays Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30friedman.html?th&emc=th).

He lays out in very precise terms and better than one will find here why this is such a bad idea.

I like Obama (and Clinton) but I really don't like the comments and inability to take any negative mention of their candidate by Obama's supporters. You guys are off the wall.

If you can't take Walsh reporting news (its only polls) how are you going to handle it when the GOP goes to work on Obama? Toughen up because we are going to need everybody firing on all cylinders to win and if you guys can't take this very modest bit of heat... well it's going to get very difficult for you shortly.

In a word... Ignorant.