I am an atheist, too (born Jewish). I see no reason at all why your husband cannot wear a yarmulke to synagogue. Tell him that it is not an admission that God exists, but instead a sign of respect for the beliefs of the other people in the synagogue. Moreover, his logic fails him. Simply stepping into a house of worship can be construed, if one wants to, as a sign that God exists. After all, it's a house of worship, not a house of ill repute or a house of pancakes. If he is willing to enter that house of worship, then for the sake of good manners, let him put on the yarmulke.

Look, when my wife and I entered a Buddhist temple as tourists, we both obligingly put on long pants instead of the shorts we were wearing. We took our shoes off, per the requests of the monks, and if memory serves, we never turned our backs on the idol within. Doing that didn't make us Buddhist, either in real terms or within our minds. It only made us respectful of our hosts' wishes, at no harm to ourselves. Tell hubby it's the same way with entering a synagogue. Put him to put on the yarmulke and ponder the theory of evolution during services.

To err is humna.

Let's not be too harsh on the kid. I remember when I was auditioning for a Jeopardy-type game show based on the pop entertainment industry. Piece of cake, I thought: movies, books, and music, stuff I knew. The tryouts were in a local bar, and the pressure level was almost nil. There were no cameras, no prizes, and no guarantee that if you won in the bar, you'd end up as a contestant. To cut to the chase, when I got up there to answer a question about pop music, it was about the classic song, Wild Thing. I'd heard it a million times before, but suddenly, standing up there in front of everyone, with a competitor across the podium from me, I blanked out completely and so never made it past round one. (As it turns out, the show itself never made it past the pre-production stage).

So, I'm sympathetic to this young woman. True, she may be a dope after all, but it's unfair to judge her based on her performance in a very stressful situation. That said, 'tis true, Americans of all ages are nitwits regarding geography, world events, etc. Just look at the guy who we chose to run the country not once, but twice. 'Nuff said.

Last week I thought the Post was being overly cautious with regard to offending Muslims, but after this second half of the Bloom County saga, I see now that it wasn't Muslims the Post was afraid of offending, but rather the Bush Administration and the 28% of dead-enders in this country who support it.

No doubt, if Breathed had managed to conclude the strip with an anti-Democratic Party insult, the Post would have run the strip on its front page.

I haven't seen "Tell Me You Love Me," because I dropped HBO after the Sopranos blackout, and I'm glad that I did; otherwise, I might have enjoyed the sight of a woman pissing on a pregnancy test stick.

One thing I do not understand is why filmmakers feel the need to actually show us piss and vomit coming out of people (thank goodness that aside from John Waters, we don't see shit, too). I know that "Show, Don't Tell" is the golden rule in film, but sometimes, "Imply, Don't Show" is better. In ye olden days, you didn't see vomit issuing out of Bogart's mouth, or piss dribbling from Hepburn's hoop dress. It was enough for the character to lean one day looking sick and making wretching noises, or to show a character sitting on the john or standing at a urinal. We got it:

they were vomiting, they were peeing. We weren't show the FX department's brilliant attempts at replicating puke or piss.

Call me a prude, but some stuff ain't fit for viewing.

I haven't seen "Tell Me You Love Me," because I dropped HBO after the Sopranos blackout, and I'm glad that I did; otherwise, I might have enjoyed the sight of a woman pissing on a pregnancy test stick.

One thing I do not understand is why filmmakers feel the need to actually show us piss and vomit coming out of people (thank goodness that aside from John Waters, we don't see shit, too). I know that "Show, Don't Tell" is the golden rule in film, but sometimes, "Imply, Don't Show" is better. In ye olden days, you didn't see vomit issuing out of Bogart's mouth, or piss dribbling from Hepburn's hoop dress. It was enough for the character to lean one way looking sick and making wretching noises, or to show a character sitting on the john or standing at a urinal. We got it: they were vomiting, they were peeing. We weren't shown the FX department's brilliant attempts at replicating puke or piss.

Call me a prude, but some stuff ain't fit for viewing.

I checked out the www.ahiida.com website, and those burqinis look like something out of THX 1138. Do the male religious fanatics who impose this kind of clothing restriction on women also wear full length robes at the beach, or do they enjoy more freedom?

A few weeks ago I was at the beach in Delaware. On a very hot day, I saw a woman in a burqa, complete with face mask. Her husband and son were wearing only shorts and sandals. Sorry, but that's unacceptable.

Women in backwards patriarchal societies dominated by religious extremists are at much more risk of harm than the men in those societies. How is that observation anti-male?

It seems that you are on your own jihad against Broadsheet and feminism in general.