Even her first name says "don't take me seriously." With all the interviews before her taking the helm of CBS's flagship news show, I was hoping she'd finally gotten the chance to be a 'hard news' reporter, which the rumors had was what she'd wanted all along. No such luck. TV news is a wasteland at best but she's too cloying, too perky, and way too fake.

As for the Komen foundation, they're not the only ones with their head in the sand as far as environmental causes and cancer are concerned. I found the Breast Cancer Organization website to be pretty interesting, informative, and depressing (linked at my signature).

I'm appalled that anyone could say that women are the true experts in childbirth and then breathlessly dismiss the thought of a midwife. What a sad, discouraging thought; that in the name of 'freedom,' some women reject the very notion of sharing a birth. There was, for me, something terribly lonely about giving birth; having loved ones by me-- and an experienced labor nurse at my side-- made things infinitely easier.

And labor pains come from the fear of a hospital? I suppose my monthly cramps are the result of my fear of...months?

Lillian, for many years hospitals were a cause of the high maternal death rate, before handwashing became an accepted norm. I have no problems with home birth, as long as certain precautions are taken. But a home birth shouldn't be a lone birth.

I'd rather have a C-section than try to have a kid alone, at least.

Carol, an epistiotomy is not a required part of vaginal childbirth. And trust me, becoming pregnant screws up your body plenty, no matter how the baby comes out.

And let's just pretend I can spell.

That the Bush administration considers a court order to be such a roadblock to effective law enforcement, and that it continues to wave the flag of 9/11 to encourage the rest of us to ignore the rule of law and hand it more and more indiscriminate power.

Nothing that we learned about 9/11 indicates that the attack would have been stopped if we had more information, really-- the failure was a failure to use the information we had effectively. The Bush administration's solution to this? Add even more information to the pipeline. Has no one heard of the 'signal to noise ratio' in this administration?

But, of course, that assumes anyone in the Bush administration really cares about stopping terrorists, a proposition I'm more and more dubious about as the years go by.

I was disappointed, though not surprised, to see the "Golden Idols" back again this season, even after the series had drawn such heavy fire for being cruel this year. The Children's Choir was the one truly classy part of the night-- I braced myself for having to see them sing with a 'guest star' (Diana Ross came to mind), but they let the kids perform on their own. And yeah, the final show's always a mishmash but this one was super-special incoherent, and BeBe and CeCe Wyans gently but firmly sung Melinda off the stage. Ruben and Doug E. were gracious enough to share the spotlight, which was nice.

I'll be curious to see who the 'winners' are in five years' time. Will Sanjaya be our generation's Tiny Tim? Will Jordin be the next Whitney Houston/Kelly Clarkson, or will she disappear-- I'd say the odds are 50/50. And what will Blake do? I have to admit, his potential career has me the most intrigued.

Having said that, there was a study a while ago that postulated there might be a connection between soy formula and peanut allergies later in life, and my breastfed daughter reacted very badly to the soy milk I drank (I switched to rice milk and we were both much happier). I think sometimes people can be so inflexible in their diet choices that the health of their child-- or even their own health-- can be forgotten.

Having said that, that editiorial is batshit. These people were crazy child abusers; that they were crazy vegan child abusers doesn't mean veganism is to blame.

In addition to having an interracial couple and their accepted without comment, Heroes has also featured a daughter who embraced her adoptive family as her real family, and an Indian man whose blood could save an adorable tiny white girl. Even more intriguingly, it's strongly suggested that Indian man will be the girl's parent from now on.

While it doesn't relate to the war on terror, it is another way Heroes subverts many traditional expectations (and is kinda liberal).

If Jordin Sparks were actually overweight. Throughout the whole competition I was thinking how nice it was to have someone who was of a healthy looking size-- not overweight like Reuben or Lakisha, not rail-skinny, just sort of nice-looking.

I'm so naive.

The trolls read these columns just to get their panties in a bunch. The self-righteous froth they're able to work themselves into makes them feel better about themselves.

I pretty much read the trolling for the same reason, but I usually point and laugh.

...is about judging angles? Really? Because in my experience, judging an angle is pretty much useless when trying to read a road map. What's more important is, well, the spatial relation-- how interstate X connects with route Y, and where.

Having said that, I too am the family navigator, and I too aced the angle portion of the test and did more poorly on the 'objects in space' one.

Not sure there are really any great insights here-- other than the well-known fact that headlines are written to be provocative more than accurate. Still, the study's kind of fun.

(Don't you trolls have a bridge to lurk under?)

Exactly what was wrong with Ned Lamott again?

Just curious,

Persia.