Cary, how long did you spend looking at the AVEN site? 'Cause it really does seem to be about picking an identity label for yourself. For example, their "General FAQ" begins with the question "Am I asexual?" And the answer is:

You can't be told the answer to this question. Only you can decide which label accurately describes your experience and feels comfortable for you.

Emphasis added. Question 1, sentence 2, time to pick your label. The FAQ is broken down into four sections labelled -- tellingly -- Definitions, Identity, Doubts and Fears and Relationships, in that order. If Ms. Freak-or-Geek was primarily concerned about doubts, fears, and relationships, there's a lot of material she'd need to skim which is more relevant to the group's political agenda than to her problem. It ain't called a "visibility network" for nothing.

To be fair, they stress in the FAQ and elsewhere that there's no "litmus test" for determining whether you're an asexual or not, and that it's the individual's decision to adopt the label. They try to be welcoming. But the fact remains that they've got an interest in people "coming out" as asexuals. If you're not interested in parading your sexual habits (or lack thereof) around for all the world to see, the site's going to be a major turn-off. So to speak.

Basically, Ms. F-or-G's reaction to the site doesn't seem even the tiniest bit illogical to me. It may be slightly illogical to stop looking for answers to your questions because you don't like one source; but the negative reaction to the AVEN site seems entirely reasonable. The site's about defining yourself by your sexuality; she wasn't interested in doing that; so she didn't go back to the site. The only puzzling thing from where I sit is how you managed to miss the site's interest in "defining you as a person" when the main index page bears invitations to "help build the community" through "visibility work." ~_^

That was a cheap shot, Garrison. Do you really think that all young people are inarticulate self-absorbed slobs who can't say three words in a row without throwing in, like, "like?"

Yes, there are young people like that -- who don't care about politics, who can't see that it affects them strongly, who can't say why they believe what they belive, who walk about wrapped in an electronic cocoon that insulates them from anything they don't want to think about. I see that type daily on the college campus where I work.

But don't make the mistake of assuming that young people are all like that, or that they're doomed to stay that way. They're not dumb, they're not detached narcissists, and they're not all the same. They're young. So were you. Once upon a time, your perspective was just as limited, short-term, and self-centered as theirs are now, even if you don't remember it that way.

You grew out of it. So will they.

At any rate, you'd better hope so - 'cause they're going to be running the country before long. Kindly think of that the next time you're tempted to dismiss an entire generation as lovers of ignorance.

"Ye shall have the same law for the stranger as for one of your own country."

Leviticus 24:22.

Wow, that's a neat trick.

In the original context, having "the same law for the stranger" means that you stone the stranger to death for blasphemy, even if he's not a member of your religion. Yet this John Bingham fellow turned it into a call for tolerance. Amazing. Let's hear it for selective quotation!

Manjoo writes:

We all have music like this, music that burns into the soul when we're young and remains essential for the rest of time. [...] it's surely something -- there's a tape or record or CD that once knocked you out with a force that, cheesy as it is to remember, felt like true love.

I'm just a few years shy of thirty. And I don't have music like that. There's no tape or record or CD that "felt like true love" to me. I have music that I enjoy, sure, but I honestly can't think of any that stirs me with the intensity he describes. Nor do I feel particularly deprived by the lack.

I am therefore skeptical of this claim that musicality played some sort of key role in human evolution. I'm human; or at any rate I see one in the mirror, and people seem to treat me more or less as they treat one another, and not as they would an animal. Since that's the case, why don't I recognize some aspect of myself in this?

Basically, claiming universal applicability to all members of a species six billion strong is a hard claim to make, and in this case I'm an odd one out.

-- P.S. In case anyone is tempted to make a smart-aleck remark like "the exception proves the rule," I'd like to point out that in that context "prove" means "test" not "verify."

Donna35 wrote:

This mother is clearly looking for any excuse to get at her younger son's money. [...] This letter is bunk.

The letter writer wrote:

I am the custodian of my younger son's money.

Emphasis added.

Given that the LW is already in charge of her younger son's money, and that he's not even 13 yet, she has no need to concoct some elaborate helping-bro-through-college scheme. Lay off the poor woman - she just wants to do the right thing, and is having trouble figuring out how.

The author is Gary Kamiya - check the "About the Author" box just below the letters link. Also, his last name appears in the URL. And there's a by-line underneath the teaser text for the article on the main page.

You're right, though, that there's no by-line at the beginning of the article. I noticed that too. Since the rest of Kamiya's past articles have had a by-line, I assume this is just a glitch.