Maybe I watch too much "Deadwood", but...your brother has dealt himself out of the situation, as if he were dead to it...you characterize his "widow" admiringly...maybe there's a traditional solution here, where the brother steps into the role of the "dead" husband. Heh.

So many of the respondents in this thread are excoriating the man for not wearing a yarmulke. I wonder how many of them would be making exactly the opposite point if it was the man with the religious constraint. Actually, I don't wonder; this is Salon, and this is Cary Tennis's column, and women have only freedoms and men have only responsibilities.

I have to hand it to Cary this time, though. He made it clear to her that she does not control her partner. Then he went on to address the bigger issue. What a terrific, well-considered response. Normally I'm in the position of warning LWs that Cary does not care about men, but here, for whatever reason, he did the right thing. Congratulations, man. Good work.

As for the loons...ah, the back of my hand to you. You're not worth addressing further.

Whenever someone dares to criticize feminism for its bloated megalomania, its tolerance and promotion of outright misandry, and its habit of lying about the facts in order to promote its narrative, someone or another always chimes in with the notion that there are so many different kinds of feminism that it's impossible to apply any criticism to the movement in general.

Nonsense. If that were true, then one couldn't say anything positive about feminism either. People who spout this line are merely trying to make it impossible for critics of feminism to express their thought. It's a cheap trick, and it's crap.

"By their works shall you know them," and these are the works of feminism and feminists. Proponents of sexual equality are a lot more sensible than this.

The respondents who recommend finding friends through activities that interest you are giving better advice, dear letter writer, but forgive me for being delighted at Cary's prose and originality in his response to you.

I'm imagining you as Parker (the protagonist of the eponymous series of novels by Richard Stark, an alias of Donald Westlake), the cold-blooded king of heists, carefully assembling his team of specialists to take down the university. What a thought!

Consider the following excerpt from the movie "Max":

OFFICER: So, men, I want you on the street today, and here's the message: "Stabbed in the back."

ENLISTED MAN: By who, sir?

OFFICER: Who said that?

ENLISTED MAN: Me.

OFFICER: Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. What matters is that Germany is absolved from having lost the war and prepared to wage the next one. Fellow loses a game, he doesn't want to play anymore. You tell him he lost because someone else cheated, then you have to hold him back from picking up the cards again.

Given the party and the leader who emerged from this thinking, you might want to reconsider all of these accusations of treachery, this strange blindness to the idea that someone might legitimately disagree with you and that you are wrong. You've accused your opponents of being like that party often enough; are you truly ready to abandon that lie in favor of promoting this one?

Responsible environmentalists know that the great majority of environmental lead poisoning is caused by lead wheel weights. Common experience is enough to validate the conclusion. We see lead wheel weights all over the place. How often do we stumble on lead shot?

This is a nasty bit of political opportunism. It's no different from the right wanting to defund PBS out of a feigned concern for saving money. This is a cheap way of striking at a culture you can't stand, folks. There's nothing "liberal" about that.

With friends like you, the environment needs no enemies. The NRA does more for conservation than you do, far and away.

Fortunately, this is one battle in the culture war that you are losing. Between some recent Supreme Court decisions and the demonstrated success of liberalized concealed carry laws (see what the word means?), you're getting tossed in the ashbin of history. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

So many disingenuous folks here claim that this isn't an attack on hunting, that there is no slippery slope. Keep it up, fellas. Those of us who know enough to support the NRA have heard this nonsense from gun-grabbers before.

Funny thing is, the grabbers never specify where the slope ends. Certainly their hatred of hunters is unending; just look at all the ignorant generalizations in this thread. What would induce them to stop punishing those they believe are immoral? Libwits are neo-Puritans; lacking even the marginally civilizing influence of a God to temper their worst excesses, they criticize their neighbors' doings ceaselessly and rooting out traitors in theirt midst.

And every time you grabbers pass a new law, a new stupid restriction, your first statement is that this is "a good start". Tell us, then, where does it end?

The slope seems slippery because you are trying to grease the damn thing.

"Wayne Gresham is dead. A former VP at Gracen and Gracen, Incorporated, he was overworked, overweight, and now, well, just plain over."

Just wondering.

Phelps has finally offended a group of people who are unafraid to eliminate annoyances!