Mr. Behrand,

There can be no Muslim Atheist any more than there can be a Christian Athiest. To suggest otherwise is to call them "believing disbelievers", it is an oxymoron. Arab Athiest, Indonesian Athiest, American Athiest, New Zealand Athiest, these are all fine. Muslim and Christian specifically refer to the adherants of a religious belief and thus "atheist" is not an applicable term for them.

The bright side of this is that it is a load of crap. I don't know a single man that thinks this way. Any that might would do well to remember the corrolary: If she's that much of a neat freak and you aren't get ready for nagging. This works either way: Man is neat freak woman isn't, nagging begins. Hell, just watch a few episodes of The Odd Couple to understand this.

And yes, if anyone does come across someone who's primary desire is a neat house then run away unless that is your primary kink too.

Now how about you talk about the Arena League?

Actually I don't care, but you said no-one ever asked you to so I thought I'd chime in. I would be interested in a single article about it, how the rules are different, how play is different and if the NFL could learn anything by it. Also another article on the Women's Football Leagues.

But I'm just happy you're talking about football at all. I think the reason you get people writing to you asking you to talk about cycling or cricket or the world cup or golf or any of those other marginal sports (like Hockey, which you do write about) is that these are the sports that interest them and you're the best sports writer out there. At least to them. And me. I've said this before, I don't really care much about baseball except hearing the standings a few times a year and finding out who won the AL and NL and World Series. There's too many games for any of it to really matter. Yet I read your column daily and wait for it to post every day. Why? Because even when you're writing about sports I don't care about you do it well and take approaches I might not have otherwise considered. These people just want your ineresting approach applied to what they care about.

I'd love for you to do more than 16 articles a year on the NFL. You took time off during the playoffs, or was in the last few weeks of the season, and you tend to do around 1 article a week on the NFL during the season. But then, that's not my call, it is your column and I thank you for piquing an interest for sports I'd otherwise ignore.

At least the nutjob talking about your beard seems to have gone away.

I was thinking that about the XFL when I saw those posts, King. My brother and I had season tickets to The Hitmen and went to all the home games. It was a fun minor-leage experience. Shame it didn't work. I didn't care for the TV presentation that much and the announcers in the stadium were literally non-existant the first few games leaving fans wondering what penalty was currently being walked off.

That said, the race for the ball was pretty silly in execution. And having the teams run AT each other as someone suggested? Injuries waiting to happen, worse than after a kickoff.

Strange that the two main complaints in the letters section seem to be

1) This is an old idea, what's the big deal, there's nothing origninal here.

2) Why bother with this book? Because of the shocking statement that Homer was a woman.

So essentially the shock value of the book's radical theories are old news and tiresome.

Why all the protesting? Examinations of the classics and the authors can teach us quite a bit about literature and history. Sadly, as we see by the number of "conservatives" in our society, people fear change, fear questions and fear uncertainty. The complaining letters are nothing more than this desire for an absolute, unchanging world.

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Another yawner, Gwool, relates a story by someone who evidently failed to get a PhD and gives the reason for failure "When I asked him about this, he simply stated that since his thesis didn't enhance the role of women or delve into the sex lives of long dead white men to question their sexual orientation, no one gave a damn in academia"

This is nothing more than sour grapes. He likely just wrote a poorly researched thesis. Graduate students are guided by professors and their topics have to be approved before they ever even start writing them. It isn't like he went to grad school and produced this in a vacuum, he had to take classes, produce multiple papers and defend his conclusions. By the time he got to presenting his thesis its topic would be well known. If "no one gave a damn in academia" it never would have gotten to the level of thesis.

Isn't his mother the one that was riding her bicycle back from church while he was winning the race? When asked about it she said "We didn't need to watch him, he's not the type to settle for second."

Gushing? Maybe. Strange? Definately.

Yellowdog,

It becomes even more rediculous when you think back to the litany of criminals pardoned by Bush Sr. and Regan. Just wait until this one leaves, he may even try to pardon himself.