What I value about Roth, aside from the constant interest of his writing, is his honesty. He's a genius of honesty.

His work will live on after those phonies Salinger and Bellow are long forgotten.

A long time ago I read about the "disappearing" of Mexicans in Colorado. Does this still go on, I wonder?

The article I read referred to Colorado as "Red," because of course such a Mexican unfriendly state would not want to be called by a Spanish name!

I heard a speaker the other night who informed us that things are just fine in Kurdistan, the part of Iraq where he lives. What's a few people being blown up? It didn't happen to him; he's always well guarded. He associates solely with other Americans and English-speaking Kurds, who tell him what a great guy he is and how much they love America. And even he had to admit that most of Iraq was a mess.

Oh please let them go to Wisconsin! Bye bye.

These people are jerks. They have no courage. They are not willing to take a chance on life. They want to live in a safe, boring place with a bunch of other boring white people. Nice schools. Doors unlocked. Just plain folks right out of the pages of the "Readers Digest." How icky can you get?

And you don't want to know about the winters. That would stop you right there.

And as to expecting to be welcomed with open arms: forget it! You're Californians, and Midwesterners know exactly what they think about Californians! It's Soddom and Gomoarrah, full of skanky movie stars and exhibitionist gays. All their interesting relatives are there now, sipping lattes and transgressing against decency! The key to life in the Midwest: be dull. Be like Garrison Keillor.

A lot of women like me have been reading Lessing for years. I consider her a mentor. There have been times in my life when I hardly would have known who I was, what I was doing, and what was happening to me without her guidance. She could write about things I could only feel. She told me who I was when the people around me were telling me I was nothing. I can't say that of any other writer.

I saw her years ago when she came to talk in Portland, Oregon. I wonder if she was as amazed as I was at the turnout. After all, wasn't she my private property?

Her legacy is so rich that I hardly know how to stop writing about her, so I'll just stop.

I like the idea of a high-class prostitute for this lonely dude. A John gets it on with a whore, but a client who visits a high class prostitute is something else altogether.

Doing nasty things is OK if you pay a lot for the pleasure.

Mayor of Cleveland, the Mistake by the Lake? House of Reps? He is not even a prominent member of that body.

This is a serious country. We need a serious person to run it. Like Hillary Clinton.

I am reminded strongly of that other little old nut from Texas, Ross Perot. Thanks to him, Bill Clinton got elected. He attracted the same kind of people who would be attracted to Paul. If Paul can pull enough Republican votes away from whoever they put up to run, Hillary Clinton will win the next election in a walk.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Perot

We Americans have short memories.

What's all this hagiography about? Was he really all that great? I personally don't think so. If this were not a polite forum, I might just go ahead and write what I really think about him.

Ah, the Glenn Greenwald I know and love. I thought I had lost you to Ron Paul. Keep up the pressure on these liars.

I am not sure about the metaphor of the labyrinth. The glass ceiling implies that you can see what it's like at the top but can't get there. The labyrinth is something you try to find your way through only to confront the Minotaur.

Maybe we need a new way of looking at power.

This is compassionate advice. Some friends of ours got into just this bind in the 1970s. Their lives were a mess due to overwork, overspending, infidelity, kids's problems, ALCOHOL. They moved to a foreign country, cut way back on their standard of living, concentrated on the essentials, and re-invented themselves. By the time they returned, they could deal with a complex existence again, since they were much more stable.

They are still together and now grandparents. Somehow they got through all of it. It would have been tragic for them to divorce.

Oh for crying out loud! Prince Phillip is a noted philaderer. Some marriage!

You know, just because a bunch of guys don't think Barbra Streisand is hot any more...

Women vote too, in case you guys have forgotten that simple fact.

Ask the women you know who they are going to vote for. Go ahead. You may be surprised.

If people hate doing things for each other so much that they consider killing the dog, they are in big trouble. It is symptomatic of the way we have turned caring for people into this big ornerous task that keeps us from having any fun.

But...most of us are amateurs at caring for Alzheimers patients and other difficult sick and needy people. This work should really be done by experts. These people should be paid well for what they do. But no, we turn the task over to relatives who can't really handle the stress or to low-paid women that we look down on.

It's just our cheap-jack way of handling chronic disease, aging, Alzheimers, etc. in this country.