I can't stand Kobe but he's so much better than Nash that it's ridiculous. I don't think either of them should have been MVP though.

Kudos to Tyler Durden

jeffrey - your usual comment about "grad student with nothing to say" seems more apt than usual. The sweeping generalizations, the long-winded tortured prose, the facile reasoning and so on

Stephen - The Porsche comment - LOL!

The "girl" is just as bad as the "trolls". Although, in this instance, troll seems to mean "disagree with girl" and generally in this letters section, misogynist seems to mean disagree with the predominate opinion here.

Need more be said?

I think it's time the Powers That Be here follow the sage advice of one Dandy Don Meredith and accordingly...

"Turn out the lights, the party's over. They say that all good things must end...."

...give this Letters Section a mercy killing.

While I tend to agree with you, I can understand what some of my brethren are saying. I think they are reacting to a subtext the author may not have intended to give. Most people would probably agree that the concerened parenting angle is fine. Where the trouble comes in is in the "all males..." assumptions that seem to be part of the article.

That's some funny stuff. Oh, I have a feeling most people can engage in a little silly snarking about Tom Cruise and keep track of Dubya's nonsense. I also suspect that they are okay with their lives and their self-esteem is probably fine as well, but, your concern is noted.

You are amusingly over the top again. You can't be concerned about your country and make fun of Cruise? The odd thing is that you don't seem to get you're guilty of the same behavior that you're castigating others over.

"No one here can give me any reasons other than what they've read in the tabloids for their opinions, and that is what is so shocking. To have minds that are so easily manipulated by the tabloids, by innuendo and outright lies says so little about your own self-esteem, self-confidence, capacity to reason and your own lives."

Firstly, why should they have to "give you" anything? It's not that serious and it's hardly shocking. So what they're using tabloid fodder to snark about Cruies? BFD. Therefore, they have a problem with self esteem/confidence, capacity to reason and with their lives? That's an absurdly sweeping and dubious idea. The really interesting thing is that you're basing such a over the top thought about others on even less, and less reliable, information than the Cruise snarkers - a few posts making fun of Cruise!

Also, the notion that folks who do make fun of Cruise based on such stuff are somehow "easily manipulated by the tabloids, innuendo and outright lies" and therefore? can't follow or are misled by Shrub is an exteremly susepect idea. Especially here. Most Salon posters could probably quote you chapter and verse of Shrub's misdeeds since the day he was born....and still find the time to snark on Cruise. Imagine that.

Finally, I don't care about Cruise, Tom/Kat, Katie or Kate (if you noticed I haven't posted anything about him per se) and so on and some of the remarks are eye rollingly catty, but, the idea of using the director of MI 3 as some sort of unbiased/balanced persepective on Cruise is pretty laughable.

Well, I'm not sure "formal" debate rules apply here. Also, the ad hominen and snide remarks certainly go both ways between LeCastor and her critics.

Anyway, all the legal pontificating and posturing is beside the point. Absent a very deep pocket plantiff with a lot of time to kill, there won't be a lawsuit in this case. The costs, logistics and probable meager outcome don't bode well for a lawsuit.

First, you'd have to hire a good civil lawyer - $$$$. Then, you'd have to sue several defendants with varying degrees of culpability. Throw in depositions, motions, the court calendar, the trial(s), the thorny issue of trying to calculate any possible damages (hell, they had a hard time doing this with 9/11 victims), appeals, collecting any judgement(s) and so on. That's not even including if the potential civil attorney tries to get slick and attach the school to the suit. Now, you're really talking "forever".

I think Kevin's solution is probably the most realistic and correct and I share his surprise that some are pretending that this kind of behavior is unique to boys.

"it's amazing how so many anti-feminist men talk about how feminists talk too much about how evil men are, how women write all these horrible things on the internet about men (Erin Sullivan), but then when women say that something some boys did is inapproriate, it's suddenly "muzzling" etc."

That's a tad disingenuous. IIRC, the main objection to Sullivan's article expressed by some was that she seemed to extrapolate not only to her sons but to men in general. That's quite different than what's going on here. Also, I think the potential muzzling the poster was talking about is not based on someone saying something is inappropriate (btw, men and women have said so), it's based on all the dire calls for dramatic retribution (e.g. lawsuits, jail, beatings, etc). Although some of the usual soapbox preaching is tiresome, I can't get excited about it. I think this whole thing is overwrought and I would say the same thing if it were girls playing the fool.

They need to figure out EXACTLY what happened, who was involved, to what degree and then lean on the silly kids via their parents and the existing school rules, if applicable, and be done with it.