Well, sure. You can find someone somewhere who likes anything; everything is statistical. The Uncanny Valley still exists; for most people, things that look LIKE people but not QUITE like people are freaky and terrifying. It seems to be an instinctive reaction of some sort. You're seeing it here. So far, not one post saying, "Gosh, I wish my kid looked just like that! I just commissioned a work from her!" So people are asking the obvious next question: "What's different about the people who patronize this site that they don't notice the whites of the eyes? Do pageant judges really go for obviously fake photos? Are these people totally unlike me?"

In addition, some of the captions to the photos raise concerns beyond the aesthetic. It bothers me that the mother of a black child doesn't want her child to look black. It bothers me that if a child doesn't want to sit through hair, makeup, and a photo session, mom can buy a photo of someone else's child who presumably behaved better pasted over her own child's face. It bothers me that a little girl who is almost weeping has her "sadness removed" in Photoshop instead of being allowed to get up and walk away from the photo session. It bothers me when children are judged on their sexiness (and don't be ingenuous, a girl giving a come hither look to the camera while dressed in a blowing scarf is being coached to imitate adult sexuality). It bugs me that there's such a thing as a bikini contest for 3 year olds.

Uh huh. It's just women who refuse to treat men as anything other than men - other men are always absolutely gentle, open-hearted and understanding to men who don't fall into gender norms.

If you have a cell phone, people expect you to answer it and get mad when you don't - bosses, friends, family members.

One of these days I'm going to cave for the sake of safety, but at the present time I savor the freedom of being completely unreachable. My landline goes instantly to voicemail. My AIM is set to invisible. Even my email is virginal and has not so far been sold to a spam generating company. I'm happy and far more productive than most of the people I work with, who spend hours "networking" instead of working. My boss wonders how I get things done in half the time other people do - and wishes I'd call him more frequently with updates. Uh huh. He's like a sandtrap; let him get you on the phone, and that's a whole day down the drain for no reason whatsoever. Not having a cell is the miracle secret of my productivity.

Is it surprising that many people hate cell phones? They create a whole new range of possible ways in which people can be rude to each other. There's a deli near me which has a sign posted that says, "Do not chat on cell phone while ordering." It's fascinating to me that enough customers did this that the staff found it necessary to put up a sign. It's also fascinating to me when one member of a couple at a restaurant, clearly on a date and too new to the other person to be bored, picks up the phone and starts yakking about nothing in particular. It's not so much fascinating as just sad when a child at a playground screams, "Mommy, look at me! Mommy! Mommy!" while Mommy talks to girlfriend on the cell, her eyes firmly fixed anywhere but on the child.

The more I think about it, the more I like Cary's hang up tactic. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" elicits, "Oh, too bad, I'll talk to you when the connection is better." Click. It could work.

Well, my stepfather-in-law brags about beating up queers outside gay bars, and he's a man (or what passes for one). I've also hung around plenty of men who aren't afraid to bash less-than-manly men verbally. It's not primarily women who use the word "gay" as a pejorative.

I'm thinking when a guy gets the crap beat out of him, that's about as "real" as it gets. Just a thought.

A little thought would tell you that it's stupid to try to insult the police by calling them "police."

"Ma'am, we're here to serve you a court order because your restaurant is in violation of the city's ordinance against trans fat."

"What're you, the food police?"

"Well... yes, ma'am, I guess you could say that's what we are."

As others have pointed out, the two words are not interchangeable. Nannies treat people like children; police treat them like criminals. In addition, when you insult someone by calling them "the [whatever] police," it implies not just that they have no business trying to enforce their opinions, it also implies that they have no actual authority over the matter under discussion. With nannies, it's a different matter; someone somewhere has given or wants to give them authority over something they have no business policing.

While you're yipping about misogyny, how about noticing that there are male nannies and female police officers?