I consider myself a feminist, but more so a rationalist, which is why I just hate the sloppy thinking so often displayed in this column. Here's a prime example:

"But now that the Food and Drug Administration has lifted the ban on silicone implants, one can expect more perfectly healthy women to regard their breasts as inadequate in some way."

Huh?

The second part of the sentence doesn't follow from the first part at all, despite the gratuitous use of the hand-waving phrase "one can expect." Lloyd can't possibly mean to be saying that the FDA lifting its ban will somehow change the way women think about their bodies....can she?

I think what she's trying to say is that more "healthy" women will be ABLE to get implants now that the ban is lifted, which is true but completely trivial...although it's not as provocative, and doesn't fit as nicely into the dire implications of the rest of the paragraph (parents enabling boob jobs! breast enhancement cookies! oh these are troubled times indeed!!!!!).

Oh, come ON. I am so tired of fake trend "reporting" of this type.

Apologies, this is OT, a belated love letter of sorts. I have been lurking here in GG's rigorous and inspiring Salonspace for months now, never needing to add my own two cents because Glenn's got such a smart, articulate, and thorough Standing Commentariat (not to mention a few bleakly amusing if utterly predictable trolls). I am extremely thankful every day for Glenn's posts and for the sharp extensions and debates that go on here in the letters section. You are collectively the only reason I still subscribe to Salon. Keep doing what you all do!

There was a time in my life when I actually did some modest bit of political/cultural commentary for a living, but I quit that kind of work about 2 years into the Bush presidency...A cop-out, perhaps, but honestly, I just felt started to feel out of my depth. The alt-weekly newspaper column I wrote was called "Underwhelmed" but I couldn't maintain that blase, world-weary stance anymore...since OVERWHELMED is what I'd started to feel, and continue to feel almost every day. Once again, I am grateful that there are a few highly qualified and extremely stalwart people out there, Glenn among the very best, to make sense of the world for those of us who still believe in something call Reality.

The first five months of new parenthood are incredibly difficult. You're deranged with exhaustion and very short-tempered, and underneath all that, extremely fearful of doing anything (or allowing your partner to do anything) that might harm the baby. There's so much pressure, even fairly solid couples start bickering like crazy and contemplating divorce.

It's so sad to see marriages break up at that stage. LW doesn't say whether brother and sister-in-law tried couples counseling, or even whether they had enough help from family and babysitters to at least take a break once in a while. Maybe the problems between them were deep and unresolvable, or maybe they were primarily situational and could have been addressed with some better communication skills...as well as with the knowledge that this awful, deranged-with-exhaustion phase would pass.

I remember loving my baby but also being viciously angry that my husband, who'd wanted children more than me, had foisted me into the hell that is the new mother's life for the first several months. It would have been easier if I'd understood that the exhaustion and rage would mostly disappear, in just a few months' time. But no one really knows that, at least not the first time around.

has considered the strong possibility that the husband feels terrible--profoundly, utterly, irreparably emasculated and disempowered--by his defective sperm i.e. HIS infertility...

...and SO, by being stubborn about the yarmulke issue, he is trying desperately to hold onto a tiny symbol of control and power while all other evidence in his life points to his utter lack of control.

~Sandy Asirvatham (infertile person, now happy adoptive mother, who survived her own procreational disempowerment by becoming a control freak about certain things, too)

Thanks for the excellent video. Although the fact that it's even necessary makes me think that we now need to update Santayana's formulation for our current predicament: "Those who forget last month's propaganda are doomed to think it's news."

I remember thinking that "Drown" was going to be a tough act for the author to follow, if only because Diaz would be expected thereafter to Represent.

I wonder if you remember me from the MFA program...click my screen name to see who I am.

LW, if you've been hospitalized for mental illness, it's entirely possible that your father also suffers from some form of mental illness that has been undiagnosed. Your father's inability to tell the difference between his truth and his lies, for example, and his sense of being overwhelmed by anything not in his immediate control (evidenced by the way he rudely brushed you off after your hospitalization), point in the direction (possibly!) of some kind of personality disorder. I have no professional expertise in these matters...I'm just saying, it may be possible to attribute your father's hurtful actions to a mind that is really not in control of itself. At the very least, such a possibility may help you detach from your latent desire to reconcile. It's not a real warm and comforting thought, the idea that this person you love is truly NOT CAPABLE of having a relationship with you...or that if he was and is hurtful to you, on some level he truly can't help himself...but it may be the tonic you need to help clarify your own feelings.