Agreed, the comment about men was pretty stupid, given circumcision. Can we get past that and maybe discuss the article?

Some women have long, curly labia. I don't, but my best friend in grade school did, and she was ashamed to be seen naked - wouldn't change for swim class without going into a stall, etc. I remember the first time I saw her naked, at a sleepover, and I thought there was something wrong with her. I didn't say anything to my friend, but I asked my mom about it later, and my mom (bless her, she is extremely shy about sexual matters and it must have been excruciatingly embarrassing) told me that different women's vulvas looked different, and they were all normal.

I don't see how this has anything to do with a fetish for pre-pubescent children. At the time, we were both about nine years old, and even then, her internal lips clearly protruded beyond her external lips.

I wonder what my friend, wherever she is now, would think of this surgery. After a childhood of being made to feel ashamed of her genitals, did she ever come to accept them as they were?

The funny thing is that I know a bunch of guys who complain about the "slit" popular in porn today. One of my friends says he goes to amateur sites in hopes of seeing boobs that actually bounce and vaginas that have some frill to them. Another of my friends goes to Asian sites not because he likes Asian women particularly but because it's the only place to see pubic hair. Women who base their looks on porn stars are failing to realize that there are a whole lot of men out there who don't like the current fashion in porn stars.

Somewhere on the web is a site which features reader genitals, in all their peculiar glory: long frilly labia, a guy whose penis is only a nubbin when soft but over seven inches when erect, penises that have a distinct crook to the left and vulvas which are chocolate brown, not pearl pink. Look under the hood and there's a lot more variety than porn would lead you to believe. Does anyone know the site I'm talking about, and does anyone have a link?

Gossip = bad. If you can't get through the day without it, find a better job.

Hey, my last "simple rule" went over pretty well, here's another: Never say behind someone's back what you wouldn't say to his or her face. Do this, and you can cut the time you spend regretting things you wish you hadn't said at least in half.

Carter's sudden about-face made me cry. Hardly anything in the world is sadder than watching an old man sell his soul - and for such a bargain bin price. Is anyone in this country both brave and decent?

I'm going to, just for the sake of argument, assume that the LW is telling the truth at all times.

The way to avoid feeling guilty about breaking up with someone to whom you owe large amounts of money is to pay him back the money. You do this whether or not he grows weed in the basement, whether or not he physically abuses you, whether or not he said the money was a gift with no strings attached. You do this because it's the shortcut to self-respect. When you have done this, you will be able to say, emphatically, to anyone who calls you a gold-digger, "Blow me." Until you do it, you remain in the unflattering position of someone who has taken a large amount of money from a man and then dumped him.

So, first of all, I know nothing about bees except what I just read in the article, but given what I just read, there seems to be an obvious cause for the loss of the bees. Would someone with more authority and experience comment on my theory?

Here's the critical paragraph.

It's important to look at what's normal. In the summer, bees go through a six-week life cycle: three inside the hive, three outside it as foragers. Then they die of old age. When bees are coming to the end of their life for whatever reason, they just fly off and don't come back. They fly out to die because flying out and dying is what they do. The question is, Why are we seeing bees with such a shortened life cycle? Well, now we're talking about winter bees. As you move into fall, the colony is supposed to be rearing bees that have a long life expectancy -- from about October to March of the next year. The problem is the winter bees aren't making it. Everything just sort of fell apart near the end of this summer and those bees that were supposed to live up to six months didn't come close.

So, the problem is that the winter bees which are supposed to be longer-lived, for some reason, weren't. Is there any reason that this couldn't be because climate change confused the bees' life cycle, such that the bees which were produced at the beginning of winter, were actually short-lived summer bees? In other words, no disease, no mites, no whatever, just climate change and bees not adapting to it?