There is some really crazy talk going on here, and apparently some people think it's sensible talk. You, Mr. jmcdsf (nice name) apparently think that all the trannies in San Francisco are mentally ill. Or something like that. I lived in SanFran for 15 years, and I am a transsexual, and I can tell you that, as is the case everywhere, the trannies in SF are an unspectacular lot, just about as average and dull as "real people".

Of course, you may be referring to the fact that people in SF tend to be more flamboyant than people elsewhere. Or are you confusing Trannies with drag queens, or gay men, or the leather community . . . or repuglicans, like you?

As for "chicks with dicks", I really have no idea who they are. Someone here wrote about the sheer number of these people, advertising in the back of newspapers in every city. I think we would need to really understand who makes up this apparent population. I have the suspicion that there is some kind of fakery going on. For a start, if a male-bodied person takes estrogen (kind of a base-line prerequisite for being trans), the organ in question shrinks down to pre-puberty size, and works only as a spigot for urine. No stiffie, folks! So who's going to pay for that?

I'd like to ask all these huffing and puffing anti-trans people how they dare to have an opinion on this subject. Do you have any experience with knowing trans people, studying their cases and their lives, or with being profoundly displaced somehow in your own body and your own life? Do you really know anything at all about the subject? When all trans people say the same thing about their condition -- that they need to alleviate it -- and so do the doctors and psychologists who work with them, what exactly is it that qualifies you to have any opinion at all? I could make a bunch of obnoxious and disrespectful suggestions about you, too. That's very easy.

People who are so hostile to trannies ought to have treatment for what is quite clearly a mental disorder.

Mr. jmcdsf, do you even really live in San Francisco, or are you one of the bridge-and-tunnel guys that pretends to live in The City? You probably live in Diablo Valley.

Oh boy, let's get into a real slanging match. Actually, this is my last word to you. I have to go and act crazy in the streets, and I'm late.

Cosmopolitan? Moi? Having lived in four different countries, six different cities, and having travelled internationally for forty-five years? Speaking three languages? Grunting in two more? I bow to your superior erudition, Mr. Tenderknob.

BTW, I too lived on the south-west side of Knob Hill. What's really horrifying is that we may have been neighbours. Oh no, maybe I know you! Perhaps I even like you! I'm outa here . . .

"Slurking" -- is that really an official word? It's a great one, and since I can imagine any definition for it that I like, I am pleased to say that it precisely characterizes W's reptilian parsel-tongue pronouncements.

And don't forget -- the family that slurks together, flirks together.

I'm afraid that Cary is really off the mark this time. He asks "What does it mean that we long to believe in these things . . .?", and all of his answer presupposes some type of unconscious motive for belief . But that is not what the letter-writer wrote in about.

Here is an intelligent, reasonable woman who was surprised when accidentally discovering the subject of UFOs, who looked into it some more, and became persuaded by the weight of the facts and evidence. This is not someone who is longing to believe. Did her daughter, who actually saw a UFO, harbour a wish to believe? Seemingly not -- in fact, she didn't even seem interested, although reporting the event as a fact.

Cary is basically laughing it off, although more politely than most do. Not trying to think about the subject per se, and instead analysing it like a dream, instantly relegates the subject to the slush pile of human thought. Not fair, and he did not answer the question. He didn't even think about it.

I should say: my mother actually did give up knitting to join a UFO club. This was in about 1960. [She was undercover for a sociology thesis.] I thought it was very cool. And yes, actually, I do believe, but for my very own reason. I decided some time ago that, of all those things which are unknowable, I would let myself believe in anything that I would like to true. I will probably never be proven right or wrong, so I may as well spend my life in a more wondrous world. It works for me.

I just want to know when the entire Bush administration is going to be hauled into court, charged with every imaginable crime against humanity. When will they be paraded through the streets on tumbrels, being pelted with rotten vegetables? When will they be sent to black sites for not only the rest of their lives, but the rest of eternity? When will the names George Bush and Dick Cheney become synonymous with Stalin, Hitler, Vlad the Impaler and Nero? When will the US political class get some kind of conscience? When will the horror end? When will I wake up from this nightmare?

You are joking, aren't you? This can't be true. PLE-E-E-E-EASE tell me you are joking. The United States is a country of total idiots and lunatics, but even so, this has to be a joke. Please oh please oh please. -- Katherine in Canada