...with thorswitch and the other posters who have said the LW absolutely must NOT "let it go". So much hatefulness goes on in the world today because good people don't stand up and say "This is wrong, and I will not sit by quietly and just let it happen." I think the approach of working with the elderly neighbor to determine her opinion of the plants is a good one, but at the very least the LW must let the witch across the road know that the plants are poisonous and a danger to the whole neighborhood. Let her live every day in worry that her actions may have criminal consequences for her in the future. May she know no peace for this horrible behavior.

I refuse to donate money to my alma mater because I believe they spend too much money on the sports teams there, to the detriment of academic programs. I have told them so in a lengthy letter that highlighted the cuts in educational programs and staffing that have been made since I graduated, along with the massive spending for scholarships and construction projects for sports arenas over the same time period.

I received a reply that basically said "we need good sports teams to make the big donors happy" to which I responded that if they have so many happy big donors then they don't little ol' me and my chump change.

I have received no further solicitations.

"1. Give us men all the rights you women currently enjoy which we men do not."

Such as?

"I don't think -any- responsible person thinks abortion is a -good- thing"

If your pregnancy is the result of rape, abortion is a *very* good thing.

"Go look through my earlier posts, I have outlined the myriad rights and privilges women have than men do not automatically have."

Read nearly 3000 letters because you won't answer my question? I don't think so. Plus, you mentioned "rights" the first time, not privledges. Rights are objective, privledges are subjective.

"For one thing, men cannot bear babies. This leads ot all sorts of abuses of power by women against men."

I didn't ask what men cannot do, I asked what rights woman have that men do not. Women do not have the "right" to bear children - for example, in most states minor females, especially the mentally disabled, can be forcibly sterilized by court order.

Care to try again?

I'm with the author on Baby Einstein and $800 strollers and Gymboree, but I must defend my son's favorite baby toy, the Whoozit. He loved it from the moment he saw it, and would often seek it out over other playthings. Thank God it was washable, because it got dragged everywhere, chewed on, used as a pillow and a seat cushion. It is also the only baby toy my husband insisted we save, and is still in my (now 7 yr-old) son's room.

Did it stimulate his brain more than other toys? I have no idea, but it made him laugh and smile and squeal with glee, and I have to give kudos to whoever thought it up. It is a terrific toy and one we have given numerous times as baby gifts with great success.

Ok, I feel better now.

...so my list is a bit different. I second the Indigo Girls and Tori Amos, and add Melissa Etheridge, Tracy Chapman, k.d. lang and Sinead O'Connor. I still have my original cassette tapes of these ladies, and still listen to them all the time.

"When mom encourages the appearance of sexual maturity..."

Since when is the *absence* of pubic hair a sign of sexual maturity? It is, in fact, the very opposite. Pubic hair is natures way of indicating that a female is capable of reproduction. If, as another poster indicated, a young girl was growing pubic hair at very young age, I can see a mother wanting to make it go away so as to *not* sexualize her daughter.

But to make it go away in order *to* sexualize her is a horrifying sign that some peoples' idea of sexy - an infantilized pubic area - has moved from the merely odd to the downright dangerous.

...and fun to argue about, but I believe we won't even get this option. Study population biology at even a basic level and you will learn that Nature itself handles overpopulation by either mass starvation or disease. Mass starvation, in the case of humans, won't help the planet much because those likely to starve (it's already happening) aren't the ones who do the most damage to the planet with overconsumption.

But disease? All the money in the world won't be able to hold off a lethal contagion for long, so everyone is fair game. I've always found it to be morbidly amusing that the animal that holds itself up to be the master of all life on Earth - man - will eventually be brought down by a virus we can't even see.

Shadow makes an excellent point. So maybe in this country we need a ban on things like commercials that encourage people to *over-eat*. Those free-delivery pizza ads that come on late in the evening are pure evil.