Seems like what the LW needs is a gentle goad to sit down with her boyfriend and explore the various possible compromises they might come up with (after all, they are both adults) -- so why does Mr. Tennis instead fuel the LW's unrealistic "it's-me-or-the-job" stance with a load of touchy-feelyisms more suitable for an EST pamphlet?

These are logistic and economic realities that American couples face all the time... Add a child and a nearby ex-spouse and you've cubed the problem. It seems like the LW is the source of a much greater share of the complications here than her boyfriend is. I'm not saying she should be faulted for that, but Cary might have found a way to dissect the situation more thoroughly.

I've been in a similar dilemma: incredible girlfriend with 2 incredible kids, her parents living right down the street (always willing to babysit), and her ex-husband a few towns over -- an ideal arrangement for all of them, and one which they were (understandably) unwilling to give up; but since they lived in the middle of nowhere, for me it would have meant tossing 15 years of my career away, to go live in a place where I would have been lucky to make minimum wage. Was I a heartless bastard for saying No Thanks? Probably. But it still seems preferable to being broke, bored, underemployed and depressed in the middle of cowtown.

Salon -- were you hurting for a cover story or something? If these photos had been taken last week or last month, certainly they should be posted up immediately. But these pictures are more than 2 years old, and frankly, the editors ought to have had the sense sit on them for a few weeks longer, given the current Danish cartoon hysteria.

This reminds me of an old joke: a woman goes into an OBGYN's office for a routine pelvic exam. While examining her, the doctor notices that she's extremely nervous. He reassures her that everything will be fine, but she remains quite agitated. "Is there something troubling you?" he asks her. "Well, doctor, you see, I -- oh no, I can't, it's just too embarrassing!" He takes her hand and speaks in a measured, confident voice: "Miss, I've been an OBGYN for over 40 years, there's probably nothing I haven't seen at this point. So you just tell me what's on your mind, and we'll see what we can do about it." She takes a deep breath. "Okay, doctor -- is it -- is it possible to get pregnant through anal sex?" "Absolutely," replies the doctor -- "that's how lawyers are conceived."

Seriously, though -- there's nothing more annoying than a controlling, money-obsessed partner. Just wait till the babies come and you're no longer an earner...

Have you all forgotten that Mr. Keillor is a HUMORIST? That what he posts on Salon (and elsewhere) falls under the rubric of SATIRE?

Lighten up. If you need to be so humorless and serious, go post a comment to a Cary Tennis article, you'll find yourself in good (i.e. sour) company.

Goldstein needs to take a chill-pill -- or, better yet, a self replicating chill-nanobot to keep his blood-pressure permanently down (until it stumbles into a lurid protein-tryst with some roving cell and ultimately turns him into the Goldstein From the Black Lagoon)

The deeper problem with Goldstein's argument is his unspoken premise about some supposed sacrosanctity about what it "means" to be "human" -- ultimately, the idea of "human" is pure arrogance -- we are facets of nature, and nature is a tireless nanobot factory, no matter what we do.

SURPRISE!!!! -- "Civilized" Americans are just as capable of evil as any other country's citizens.

I mean, we DID invade their country. I don't see how bombs and guns are any more inhumane than what went on at Abu Ghraib. Frankly, I find Salon's recent re-capitalization on the Abu Ghraib horrors to be as outrageous as the outrages they claim to be portraying.

I sure hope Hilary C. wins the nomination -- then we're definitely in for (at least) an additional 8 years of this sort of horrorshow.

...don't be an ass.

- A New Yorker

I absolutely have had lovers I've felt "allergic" to -- something about the penis/vagina connection didn't work, and I'd itch for days after a night of screwing. Got tested for every VD under the sun but they all came back negative. Go figure. I never had the gumption to stick with the person for 20 years, though. Hope the LW gets out, her life sounds miserable.

Jews writing about Jewishness are about as interesting as WASPs writing about WASPishness -- i.e., b-o-r-i-n-g. Get over your bad selves, kiddies. Monoculturalism is, like, SO 20th century,

Why are all but one of these people Caucasian?