Who remembers the days when our parents asked us to carry quarters at all times, in case we needed to call them from a payphone? Or the days of calling our parents collect from payphones?

Giving your child a cell phone keeps your kids from having to use pay phones. Just like it keeps adults from having to use them.

Why do you care? If you don't want to buy a cell phone for a child, just don't. What's all this, "Well, back in MY day, kids were kids and convenience was for grown-ups only and if I want to live in a cave with no Blackberries and Ataris, then I'll be damned if some strangers' kids are gonna have Blackberries and Ataris..."?

What are you, a senile old man sitting at a busstop, talking to himself?

Save some of that bitterness and busybody-ing for your retirement, why don't you?

"It's no better and no worse than the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition."

It's way worse, actually.

The saddest thing about it, aside from the attempts to convince us that it's not a beauty contest, is that it isn't even a good beauty contest.

Maybe in the fifties these things were a respectable way for women to profit off their looks. Now it's just a waste of time. Any pretty woman could make way more money being in Sports Illustrated, or any magazine, or any reality show.

This contest survives for people who want to believe that there can be something genteel about profiting off one's own looks. They can believe what they want. I'll be looking at the pretty women in the magazines.

Researchers at A&M also found that, whenever vervet monkeys are presented with a blog labeled "for women," male monkeys with the screechiest monkey voices, who don't have mates, will immediately post anti-feminist, pseudoscientific, vehement comments on *every single blog entry.*

"But is their decision based on hard, cold facts or upon a desire to feel a gender-based outrage and inspire similar outrage in others?"

You only feel outrage when men get killed, johnfairfax? You believe that women only feel outrage when women get killed?

You said, "Now here's the difference between you and I. I don't blame all of my problems on all straight people and all Christians."

We know. You blame them on women, instead. Every single post you make on Broadsheet mentions these phantom women kneeing you in the balls.

Here's what I'd say to the advice seeker and all the male Broadsheet regulars:

Your ex-wife is not all women. Your mother is not all women. The Hooters waitress who turned down your invitation for coffee is not all women.

This is what I see on Broadsheet every morning: Individual women try to make points, sometimes sharing their personal experiences in the process. Either you, Toshiro, or else one of the other men will quickly post, "Yeah, what you say sounds almost plausible but WOMEN HAVE ALL THE CHOICES THE WORLD IS ANTI-MAN ALL WOMEN HATE MEN ALL WOMEN ARE KNEEING US IN THE BALLS ALL WOMEN ARE HYPOCRITES."

I'm sorry that you guys have individually had bad experiences with women. But that doesn't mean that all women are the same. If you really read anyone's comments on Broadsheet, you would see that. But you don't want to see that, it seems.

I don't hate men. I can't, because I have awesome sons, an awesome boyfriend, and awesome male relatives, so I know that men can be good as well as horrible. What kind of person bases his view of half the human race on sitcoms and t-shirts? I guess the same person who reads *all* the dialogue on Broadsheet and still only sees that "women hate men"? Victim mentality, indeed.

"The amazing thing is MB says this with a straight face knowing all along past generations of women only had to bat their eyes to get their men to do their bidding and slay the enemies on the battlefields in order to protect the homefront."

I'm envisioning George W. in drag, batting his eyes at you like Bugs Bunny did Elmer Fudd.

Men like ice cream, tinkering and breeding together.

That's the sexiest imagery I've read all week.

You can't even make a comment under the proper post. How are you going to kill a dragon?

Violet, quit. You're turning me on.

I just re-read the book two weeks ago. It hints, actually, that Edmund has changed since going to a new school, maybe because he's being bullied.

Meanwhile... Stephanie, thank you for you in-depth description of the legs of the fauns that inhabit Narnia. I was wondering.

"Two people have a connection that is neither corrupted by perversion nor ulterior motive and people are griping about the moral imbalance of this story?"

I think it's disgusting that anyone was granted a wish to touch a stranger, whether it was a man or woman, whether it was "corrupted by perversion" or not.

I teach my kids to be wary of strangers touching them. I don't append that lesson with, "Unless it's a sweet, innocent old lady." Your mileage may vary - good for you.