A thoughtful post by Judy Berman.

As someone who spent a few years working in and with domestic violence shelters, let me say: Violence is not the only thing to look at.

So many of the men seemed more lost without their women, as the women seemed without their battering men.

Ongoing, injurious, one-sided violence is one thing. But if the wife constantly abuses him verbally, and he takes a swing at her once a month, I'd call it a draw. Not a reason to intervene unless they actively seek out help. Remember that many men bottle up their feelings and just don't know how to verbally fight with the woman they're living with. Once you de-nuclearize hitting, it becomes easy to see that this actually a valid excuse. Or rather, it does not good to say, "That's no excuse!" Well, she really has no excuse for the verbal abuse either.

It does not good to take an absolutist position, like some of the commenters here -- "Hitting is *always* wrong!" Well, great, I pat you on the back for your pacifism. But it ignores what is really going on in the relationship.

Self-identified feminists go apeshit when you try to make this point. Comments like this one -- or even a post like Judy's -- will get you permanently banned from most feminist blogs. I'm very impressed, though, with Broadsheet's open-minded approach to most issues. Again, a thoughtful post by Judy Berman.

A beautiful obit, with a devastating final line.

In his various hypotheticals over the years Saletan is obliquely getting at an inconvenient fact:

That pro-choice people support the right to abort for silly reasons.

No matter how much we talk about abortion being a wrenching decision, the fact remains that a lot of times it *is* done for silly, selfish reasons. I have a big, big problem with that. A fetus (or as we used to call it in the old days, "baby") is not just a collection of cells. And most of the people who agree with me are women.

You can dismiss the example given as weird or even concocted. But to call it a "booby trap" is to admit that we are uncomfortable talking about abortion. Otherwise we wouldn't be afraid of falling into "traps". The answers, as you admit, are uncomfortable.

His last two comments.

Screenwriters might not want to write for older women, and producers might not want to cast them, but I think actresses just don't want to play them.

So many are unwilling to undertake older or unsympathetic roles. They are in love with their magazine covers. And the roles they put themselves in are so boringly the same. It's always "one woman's brave fight to blah-blah-blah in the face of blah-blah-blah". And they hate to play grandmothers!

Name ONE actress who's been willing to finance and undertake unsympathetic, complex, older-person roles such as Michael Douglas has.

There are several over-40 actresses with clout in Hollywood. Julia Roberts. Jennifer Lopez. Catherine Zeta-Jones. They could easily get the funding for movies presenting interesting, evil, complicated, and older women. But . . . they . . . don't.

Would you be bummed out by Candy's mom, too?

As someone who lost 50 pounds at age 49, and now wears a 32 waist, let me tell you: I now dare to wear a speedo (at my wife's request) on the beach. And it feels great to be able to do so.

It's not just a woman thing. Getting into shape, especially after years of being overweight, is one of the best and proudest feelings a person can have. People who are content with being chubby just have no idea.

Clement Attlee, widely regarded by historians as the best Prime Minister (1945 - 1951) of the 20th Century:

..............

Q: Do you mean you have no feeling about Christianity, or that you have no feeling about God, Christ and life after death?

Attlee: Believe in the ethics of Christianity. Can't believe the mumbo-jumbo.

Q: Would you say you are an agnostic?

Attlee: I don't know.

Q: Is there an afterlife, do you think?

Attlee: Possibly.

...............

If you believe in Christianity because the teachings of Jesus are the right thing to do, it makes no difference what is said about Jesus's divinity or what happened on the first Easter.

If you're a Christian because you want to save your ass in the afterlife, then I suppose those questions become important.

A long time ago, when there were few female designers, National Lampoon did a feature called, "What fashion would look like if designers were straight".

A pretty funny piece. One of the designers was praised for his "simplicity" in his outfits, which were nothing. As in, the models were all nude. He said, "If she gets cold, she can wear a car."

And the models had curves.

So I suppose this is progress.

If you make a wrong thing safer, it's still a wrong thing.

Don't for one minute think that abortion is a women's rights issue. Not when women OPPOSE abortion more than men do.

Wrong!!

I'm against the death penalty, was against the Iraqi war, in favor of sex education and free access to contraception, in favor of national health care and support networks for single pregnant women and other women in crisis. I'm a liberal Democrat, and (like liberal Democrats like Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson circai 1970) am pro-life.

There: all your straw men have been knocked down.

*now* you can engage me on abortion. And remember: most of the people who agree with me are women. Most of the people who agree with *you* are men.