You have to admit that your one-liners don't give one much to go on.

Neither does sarcasm or a personal attack.

You may be -right-in the sense of "wing," but that doesn't make you correct because you say so.

Do you REALLY get away with that, except with like-minded sorts?

Punchy from lack of sleep. Well, I suppose that's better than "you need to get your meds adjusted" or "is it that time of the month for you?"

Save "dear" for whatever resident yesdear you may have applauding your sulks.

It's like Grumpus's wife who'd laugh in our faces or Brightstar's "sweetie" who doesn't think much of feminism.

Do they know what sort of hate-filled stuff you post (probably one-handed)?

No, I'm not Anne McCaffrey -- no dragons, but put it this way. I like Romulans, I like opera, and I've written professionally about the Holy Grail and finance and War World.

That ought to help some.

Enjoy yourself. Congratulations on your book too!

What you say was true for the seventeenth century. And Yale was founded because Harvard was considered too lax. But the idea of a broad-based liberal arts education is a value very much held by such colleges and universities now.

If you go back to the medieval notion of the Trivium and Quadrivium -- once again, you can legitimately argue that these were for clerics, but they were the seven liberal arts.

I know I've made your point for you. But these days, the theological training at Harvard centers on the undergrad level in the religion department and the majors linked to specific religions, and becomes professionalized in the Divinity School. In short, college is the start: you specialize in grad school.

Similarly, my late father went to law school. His first senior partner, however, "read" law and did not go to law school -- which tells you how far back things go.

Those would seem to me to be excellent career choices coming out of a women's studies major. Another thing I'd do, if I were such a student's adviser, would be to look at the school's curriculum. If it had a good general studies curriculum, I would not have to worry about the student's computer literacy, knowledge of a foreign language, and fulfilling science requirements. If it didn't -- well, in that case, I'd worry about the school, being me, because I feel strongly about a core curriculum. So I'd see how I could relate computer, economic, financial, historical, and linguistic training to the women's studies discipline.

If that sounds like a hell of a lot of hard work...gooooood. Faculty would be remiss in their duty to provide anything but, and you'd be wasting your money.

I think I'd start with self-reliance, penetration (sorry for the inadvertent pun) into areas that were sometimes harder for female students to succeed in, the whole question of financial literacy, which is absolutely vital for everyone these days, and languages -- again, vital if the student were to work overseas or become a citizen of a global community. They do relate, and if any major ought to provide a student with the ability to earn "a room of her own," women's studies has a moral obligation, by definition, to do so.

I'd also sit down, sometime during career counseling, and point out the dollars-and-cents consequences of the choice. Curiously, I -could- see women's studies combined with a lot of math/economics in SRIs (socially responsible investments). Or accounting in an NGO. As long as the kid learns now to learn and present him or herself at an interview.

I've never taken a women's studies course. But the contribution of women, as students, as artists or faculty, as citizens, was fully integrated into the curriculum, which was pretty much 50/50 coed back in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In my opinion and experience, a lot of very worthwhile students go through a ranting-and-raving political phase. I personally think it's part of the learning process, although very aggravating. Were -you- aggravating? I know -I- was.

Hell, I still am!

Still trying to play turnaround?

You're the one who comes in here and condemns women.

You're the one who dragged your family in.

You're the one who can't take it when someone points this out.

You're the one who's now trying not only to psych me out (not going to work), but to go morally one up. Don't be sillier than you have to be: I got through all that during the troubles.

SEEING as you did all this noble NGO stuff, you ought to know that the life you claim you're building is incredibly privileged, compared to a lot of the world. But instead of being thankful for it, you have to condemn other people for their privilege.

You're a moral snob, and an inept one. Do people really defer to you for superior principles? Silly of them.

I have noticed that certain types of Family Fascists, as I call them, not only whack people in the ankles with their strollers real-time, but expect everyone to get out of their way when they decide to pontificate.

Pope's in New York. I don't know where you think you're coming from.