I was amazed when I read the letter about the Mother-in-law. She could have been my late MIL. Except that mine was highly educated, a successful businesswoman, etc. Mine was a complete queen bee who expected the world to revolve around her, and woe to the person who did not do as s/he was commanded.

My kids' birthdays were not even about them, they were about her. I never got to sing Happy Birthday to my kids because as soon as I went into the kitchen to get the cake/matches/coffee/whatever, she would start the song.

Christmas meant her gifts had to be opened when she arrived, rather than when the family was all together.

As she got older she became more and more self-centered until finally when her health began failing, she was put in a nursing home. Her antics there were so bad that she got kicked out.

At the end of her life she paid huge amounts of money for caretakers who would put up with her eccentricities, even though she could have done much to actually care for herself.

Her grandkids were glad to see her go. The command performances were tedious. She expected visits from them (an hour's drive each way) but after they had been there 10 minutes, she was bored with them and she just wanted to talk about her.

I could go on and on. There were times I enjoyed her but most of the time she drove me up the wall.

LW is tied to this woman for the rest of her life because of the child. LW needs her husband's support, a sense of humor, and someone she can vent to about her MIL. LW is not crazy. Cary does not really understand this situation.

Steven Spielberg's movies have always bothered me. Many of the early ones, especially, are of the young boy learns a lesson variety. E.T. could just as easily have centered around a girl.

I was unaware that Shrek was a classic children's story. And in Hansel and Gretel, the stepmother is mean, the witch is evil, and Gretel is clueless most of the time.

It is not surprising that there are so few girls in young people's movies when one looks at the literature that most kids read in school. The assigned readings are almost always about boys. Occasionally a "Little House on the Prairie" will be included in booklists, but most of the time the assigned readings are about boys. Out of six required books my daughter was assigned to read one year, one was about a girl (Little House on the Prairie). I even commented to her teacher about it and she said she had never noticed the imbalance, but those were the books assigned by the state education department.

Until writers start writing about girls as well as boys, and until schools and state education departments do a better job of selecting books to include girls, it will be very hard to have a reasonable number of girls in movies.

I wish Geena Davis and her group success in finding a better way.

Unfortunately ignoring AC will not work. Kerry already tried ignoring outrageous claims when the Swiftboaters were at work and all it did was encourage them.

Someone needs to go on against her and outshout her. All the Dems I have seen on tv when she was were just too nice. That is the usual Dem response to any loud Repub, the Dem waits for his/her turn, then the time runs out and they look like wimps.

We need someone out there who repeatedly says that AC is outrageous, a liar, etc. The Dems need lots of people doing that all the time, not just against AC.

This is why Karl Rove is so sure the Democrats will not take Congress. Obviously this has been planned for a long time and happens so late in the campaign that it is hard to counter. Even if the NRCC is fined, by the time that happens the Republican will have been sworn into office. As a result, no penalty for such despicable actions.

We pre-heard it? What does that mean? Why does this administration get away with making up words?

Considering the configuration of most of the classrooms I have been in recently, it would be really hard to rush some guy who came in. I do not know what the classrooms at VT are like, but most modern classrooms seem to have a really long table-like thing attached to the floor and then chairs are attached to it or to the floor. That leaves nothing to throw, except maybe backpacks. It also makes it really hard to get out quickly, especially with backpacks and laptops and coats all over the place. These tables are really close together. If the person on the end cannot move, nobody else can either. It seems that not only would it have been hard to attack the attacker, but it would have been hard to run away.

I have not seen anywhere that people think about classroom design in a situation like this.

When someone with the political weight of Sanjaya is invited to such a party, is even calling it Versailles too much? It does bring to mind, though, the story of Marie Antoinette dressing herself and her ladies in waiting up like milk maids and going down to the "cottage" to pretend to be real people.

The whole dinner sounded pathetic, and this attraction to celebrities is sad. Maybe is was so bad this year that they will call it off in the future? Oh well, a girl can hope.