"At 2:30 a.m., I have suddenly realized that six years from now my son will be forced to handwrite an essay in order to ace the SATs. If he doesn't score well on the SATs, how will he get into a good college -- and how will he get the scholarship he needs in order to attend that good college?"

1) IIRC, SATs are judged mostly on content and clarity-of-argument, not handwriting. My handwriting was (and still is) ghastly, but I scored extremely high on the English portion--and the essay-based ACTs.

2) My senior year in high school, my parents hesitated to buy me an electric typewriter because they thought it would make typing "too easy" and forever ruin my typing skills for college and the job market. The year after I graduated from college, PCs hit the market big-time. Suffice to say, my parents' fears fortunately came to naught. :)

3) In short, if you are that worried about son's handwriting, have him practice more. And keep in mind that by the time he does the SATs, he will probably be taking them on computer. ;)

At what point do you plan to believe anything the LW says? Oh, that's right--she's a _poet_(oooh, those "artistic types" are automatically unreliable right there) and she classifies her personality by an astrological sign (uh-oh--that's an utterly unforgivable Sign-Of-The-Flake.) Then you pile on with the "she's old, worn-out, and no man will ever want her so she better stay hooked up with a man, any man" bullshit. So of course, God forbid you believe her boyfriend has PSTD, for in your view, everything _has_ to be the flaky little slut's fault. If the LW said the sky was blue, you wouldn't believe her. You are the kind of person who never believes domestic abuse victims unless they are perfect angels because only women who have "something" wrong with them wouldn't regard marriage as a perfect sanctuary even if they have proof it isn't. Seriously, you need to recuse yourself when it comes to advice on domestic because you distrust women far too much and have way too high opinion of marriage-as-the-solution-that-solves-everything.

"the left" is doing exactly what it should be doing...

...constantly reminding "the center" about what a whack job this woman from "the right" is...."

Exactly. Because after eight years of voting Bush, God knows the center (and certain way-over-tolerant lefties) proved they don't need constant reminding that all is not political gold that glitters. :P

"she's going to be on the scene whether we're obsessed about her or not...best to have her there on OUR terms..."

Damn straight. Or did everyone forget just how good the right-wing image-making machine can be?

"Unlike movies of the First Great Depression, made by relatively small and independent firms, these films are all made by megacorporations, which are afraid of real innovation or ideas that their board of directors haven't chewed into bland baby food."

And it has always been crucial to studio production heads to believe in certain canards ("Women don't like action or horror movies." "Black stars can't open movies.") because doing so makes their jobs easier. They don't have to put energy into dealing with tricky material or getting a promising project into shape; nor do they have to worry about marketing such script. If they have a slate of thirteen movies a year, life is a lot easier if most of those are pre-fried crap they can sign off on, no fuss, no muss. (Hell, Disney is notorious for not greenlighting a project unless the marketing department believes it can sell it.)

As far as AMELIA goes, the studio probably figured that an expensive period biopic about a woman was as much risk as it was going to take--which pretty much killed any chance of this material getting innovative treatment.

"Apparently, if you believe in God, and have empathy for the unborn,"

If Palin truly believed in God and didn't regard it as a dodge or a hustle for the "rubes," she wouldn't say the hateful crap she obviously believes in more.

...the more ongoing reminders that Palin is a power-hungry idiot, the better.

...reaffirms once again that people will believe anything about Palin--and rightly so. :)

Man, what the _hell_ is with all these "marriage uber allies" posters whose advice would essentially sentence a child to this kind of nightmare-for-life? This household isn't a family--it's a ticking time bomb of potential abuse from one or both parents, but you all bleat that that's okay so long as the "famblee" stays together. Will it be okay if someone here gets injured or killed?

LW, you're repeating your past-of-abuse--and making your child experience it as well. You seek out situations where abuse is a component because that is all you know...and there is a perverse kind of comfort there. You take on responsibility for everyone else's happiness because you don't feel you deserve any yourself. And by keeping everyone "happy," you figure that that way, no one will get "mad" and ill-treat you. Do you want your kid to learn that same awful lesson--and make her child's life a misery as well? You need to get yourself healthy and break this cycle. Move back home; get help to come to terms with the abuse in your past, and find healthy ways to cope. Your boyfriend needs to work through his own issues and get himself on much more solid footing before he can be any kind of father. This situation is too emotionally "hot" for you to try to keep the lid on, even with help. Get yourself straight first so you can give your daughter and yourself a safe, reasonable secure life, at least.

It looked more like he felt Roger played dirty pool by dumping his wife for a younger woman. Don may cheat like crazy, but leaving the wife...naw, that would be acting like a scumbag. ;)

Fail. It was hard to read, harder to get around--and a real pain if you just wanted to read an article's letters.