I don't know, I actually have pretty good reasons for my vehement opposition to Hillary Clinton as a Presidential candidate. My reasons are borne out of my experiences, my careful observations, my intellect (yes, I do mean that, not in a grandiose way, though), and my hopes for the future of America. All these things tell me that Hillary Clinton and another Clinton co-presidency is NOT what we need going forward, and I'm convinced that, were the Clintons to win the White House, we'd face four years of absolute gridlock and the ugliest political environment we've yet seen.

I was for John Edwards, but I'm throwing my support to Barack Obama. I think he presents us with the best option not just for the leadership of this country going forward, but for re-vitalizing the Democratic Party as well. If Hillary wins, as Mr URL said last night, the Democratic Party is dead and there will HAVE to be a viable third party emerging. I agree with him, too.

If the Clintons 1. Call in chits, promise ambassadorships, and wage their famous "We will crush you" war on the super-delegates, and, 2. Turn this already fractious race even uglier and MORE racist (e.g., the astonishing comments that "Hispanic voters don't identify with a black candidate"), I just don't see the Democratic Party meaning much of anything to any decent non-Republican anymore.

I'll take this opportunity and use this platform to send a message to Hillary Clinton: Please, from the bottom of my heart, please do the right thing, and lose gracefully, if it turns out that you're obviously beaten. Please don't do the Clinton thing of fighting dirty and making it all about YOU, YOUR "WIN", YOUR "DESTINY". Because it's about the future of your party, and the future of this country, not YOU. (or Bill.)

Thank you.

There's not a single non-satiric TV or radio talking head that's not beneath utter contempt, in my view. Get rid of them all and start all over again, after a year or so of consciousness raising, up to and including water-boarding these idiots who think it's not torture.

And, no, I'm not kidding.

That is all.

First, every decision made by a parent simply MUST take into consideration the child's OWN temperament, emotional readiness, character, resilience, curiosity, ability to adapt to stress, and so on and so forth. Kids are so variable in their own personal abilities to adapt and in their responses, to put it generically, to highly and perhaps overstimulating events that these issues simply MUST be the first thing considered, even BEFORE ex's, step-mom's, and mom's feelings. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, to me, to go to great lengths talking back and forth above this kid's head about all this OTHER stuff if the kid herself just doesn't have the emotional maturity and psychological ability to participate in this overwhelmingly stimulating experience.

Second, that it's the Dad who is pushing this thing is very creepy to me. A fourteen-year-old girl is just coming into formulating her own sexual identity, and it's weird to me to have her Dad seem to want to pressure her into this experience that, let's be honest, is a highly sexualized one on so many levels. This girl is probably exploring her own relationship with her genitals; why on earth does Dad want to push his new wife's pudenda into he daughter's face??? I just find the whole thing, especially the Dad's pushing this agenda, to be very odd and even suspect, despite all the glowing tales of siblings' wonderful birth-viewing experiences. I get a visceral feeling of: uh-oh, there's something really wrong here. And my gut is a pretty good weirdness detector -it's never failed me yet.

So, that's what I think about this thing. First: the kid. Second: why this, why now, and what fantasy is Dad entertaining here? and is this really appropriate to be foisting on this particular fourteen-year-old kid?

McMansionville is like agricultural monoculture: Certain death.

Re: The superiority of suburban schools which seems to be the big reason otherwise reasonable people move to the 'burbs. Yes, some of them turn out wonderful, well-educated kids with character, but only after those kids navigate their way through an overwhelmingly self-absorbed, isolated, probably racist and certainly arrogant peer group. The vast majority of them simply won't get any real experience with people who are different from them, and it makes them, in equal parts, dismissive and fearful of all those "others" the real world is populated with. I can't imagine that, as a dual-earning couple who can afford a McMansion, you couldn't find a decent in-city public OR private school that's committed to diversity

I know, I know: there will be folks in high dudgeon about THEIR suburban schools, but, sorry: the vast majority of schools in high-end suburbs are lily-white and just not representative, on so many levels, of today's world. You will find yourself becoming appalled at the fruit of your open-minded, progressive loins echoing the ignorant, self-absorbed smallmindedness of their isolated peers, no matter how much you force them to volunteer at soup kitchens and foodbanks and choose to "vacation" in developing countries - and not as gawping toursits safely ensconced in gated resorts but as Lonely Planet-type travelers.

After you do the self-analysis you need to do to get to the bottom of the deeper personal reasons for "why this, why now?" (AND you actually value the kinds of things I've discussed above) you're still left in a really sterile, increasingly anachronistic lifestyle that will become even more so every year that passes. IF you have even a small spark of resentment now, and if you don't allow yourself to become numbed to the fatuous features evident all around you, you will only fan a flame that is sure to diminish you, bit by bit by bit.

I say get the hell out while you can.

I know of which I speak.