My guess is that you'd have found that tragic young woman fair game if she'd have given you a moment's notice.

You wouldn't have respected her in life, and now you're only using her to vilify a better man than you.

It's disgusting.

I don't think it's about the meds at all. Those people who need them and, with the help of a therapist and/or a prescribing psychopharmacologist, who take them and monitor their usage will, no doubt, continue to do so.

Those people who don't need them -- well, some will mind their own business and be thankful that they didn't have to go through major or even dysthymic depression, while others won't be content until they mind everyone else's medical business too.

I've got a great idea. Why don't you back-seat-drive the next appendectomy in your hospital? Maybe, with a family member? I'm sure everyone will just be delighted.

When we start treating mental dysfunctions with the same objectivity (?) as we do physical dysfunctions, we'll have grown up some. Tell the person who's presenting with symptoms of acute appendicitis that it's all in his mind, do.

I hope he swats you, but he's probably in too much pain to focus.

As for pain, if I can deal with it, alleviate it, or cure it, why would I want to endure it for the rest of my life? The process of healing, not the process of sucking it up, is what makes one a stronger person. Just sucking it up (unfortunate word choice as it is) makes you passive, resentful, and resentful of other people's choices.

Whatever happened to putting up a fight against circumstances you don't like?

I woke to the sad, but not unexpected, news that Teddy Kennedy had passed on. He put up a good fight, lifelong, and in an era when liberals squeaked and euphemized, he went on as a proud liberal voice who used his position of privilege to accomplish a great deal for other people who are less fortunate.

Also not unexpected where the trolls and ghouls. They are inconsistent. It is the job of a man or a woman to atone for what they've done wrong and to seek to redeem or rehabilitate themselves. Kennedy had a lot of demons to fight and a lot of responsibilities to shoulder. He took on his brothers' families (what, no kudos from the Family Values braggarts?). He took on a demanding career as a public servant, serving longer than only two others. I personally would call a life of service rehabilitation.

Everyone speaks well now of Michael Milken for his work with prostate cancer. No comments about Drexel?

Oh, it's only politicos?

Kennedy would have laughed you guys out of the town hall.

He accomplished all this despite you and in the full glare of publicity. That's the difference between a man and a bunch of Yorkies with logorrhea.

Wow. A star for you, if they still gave stars.

I don't think I've ever seen that comparison expressed with such precision and compassion.

Thank you.

I think this is an appropriate move.

Trusting Voight's opinion on the culture wars and possible secession is like trusting Mel Gibson's view of Talmud.

I have a friend whose two kids have gone/are going through college on ROTC scholarships.

You, of course, cannot "enlist" her. What you can do is some footwork or phone or network about colleges, junior colleges, financial aid, ROTC and recruiting.

Once you've got that information, consult her sister who might know what teacher(s) the younger woman is closest to.

Then, bring her in for a week to talk to people and consider her options. If she GOT an ROTC scholarship, she'd have four years before she was deployed anywhere.

Ah, progress.

When I was 30, "defensive" was a word guys used to win arguments with women.

"I'm not defensive" is an AWFUL verbal stance to be in, because "you're being defensive" is a preemptive dis, but truly, I was asking for more information, which I did not get.

Pardon my age: was that a "neg"?

I have trouble mastering the language these days.

The thing I have learned as a Boomer Classic is to build my own confidence, gauge it, and own it.

...but this article took me back to Jell-O and growing up Midwestern. There were the jello salads with cottage cheese and grated carrot and celery (avoid); the ones with mayonnaise-oid additives (also avoid); and my mother's classic sour-cream/green Jell-O/canned pineapple mold for holidays (served, of course, alongside the casserole of frozen beans, frozen onion rings, and cream of mushroom soup).

I do know better now, but it sure is fun to remember. So was straining Jell-O through your teeth or getting the "old" stuff that had set so it had kind of a carapace and banging on it with a spoon until the adults shouted (you cannot tell me teachers never hit Jell-O with a spoon when they were kids). And in a food fight? Instant ammo.

At science fiction conventions, a bathtub filled with lime Jell-O acquired mythic significance.

I -have- little fluted cups, inherited from my mother, not to mention classy Orrefors dishes. Maybe...I wonder if you could make a big bowl of it and soup it out with one of those things you use to scoop melon balls.

This is not the Harvard Law Review.

Tell it like it is.

They'll scream, but what's new about that?

How you went from 60 = 30 and 30 = 60 to despising the Boomers didn't make any sense. Please teach the grandkids better logic than THAT.

Anyone forget that word? I remembered it really fast after reading this.

I have never been so glad to be a Boomer Classic, non-edgy, invisible, and over-the-hill.

This sounds like a lot of work.