I don't know what to say. I went to public school in Hawaii, with children of many different races, economic backgrounds, and skill levels. I had good teachers and bad teachers. I never felt angry or hostile because my peers of other races and classes held me back. None of my friends (white, Asian or Hawaiian) did either.

My son is one of the few non-whites (his father is chinese) in his school. It's a fine environment, but I am sorry he has not had a chance to experience the diversity that I experienced. I was shaped in a really good way by diversity. I won't try to say it always works out right. But you should not think that it always works out wrong.

I think you are missing something.

Caitlin Flanagan is a woman-basher. She of great privilege and dubious stay-at-home credentials hits those of us who admit to be working mothers with the most unkind cuts of all. we don't love our children as much as she loves hers. our husbands don't love us and would not carry us to chemotherapy the way hers did.

And not only does she bash, but she has been given the most coveted fora in which to do so.

I don't blame people for getting upset. In fact, I can't imagine a more natural response. People tell me I am not a good mom or a good wife, I tend to get a little -- warm.

some are bad, some great, many need work but certainly should not be abandoned.

I know plenty of really smart kids who are challenged in public schools. I know national merit scholars, I know kids taking advanced math and science, ap, college courses .....

Many areas now have charter schools, which have many features that distinguish them from traditional public schools. But charter schools still have to accept all kinds of kids, and that's what Cartman is upset about. He doesn't like those unruly children!! He's a grown man with kids of his own and he still hates the kids he went to school with. Sad.

I had a similar experience when my son was five. We were in Hawaii, and it was actually the year before 9/11, but he atttended a school in an older Japanese neighborhood where things were very rigid and very patriotic. They played a military sounding bugle call after the first bell, made kids stop where ever they were in school and face east when the flag went up, stand for the pledge and all of that. It made me queazy, all right.

I dealt with the queaziness by telling my son that, because of the first amendment, he did not have to stand when his class recited the pledge of allegiance, and he did not have to say the pledge if he did not chose to say it. I told him that kids used to have to say it, and some families objected and took the matter all the way to the US Supreme Court. I told him those families fought for his right to pledge allegiance if he wants to, or not. I told him that right was one of the things I loved best about america.

Through the years, he has stood for the pledge or not as he sees fit. I have politely reminded teachers and principals of his rights (and taught them a bit about the first amendment too). He and I discussed the fact that he would stand for the pledge when a classmate's dad came back from Iraq to present a flag to the school, since he should certainly show respect for that returning soldier. I figure he often stands so as not to make waves (I don't press him on that).

He's now in sixth grade and he and his friends have a real bad attitude about knee-jerk patriotism. They all belt out Grenn Day's "American Idiot" any chance they get -- it's the sixth grade anthem in north central idaho, strangely enough.

One of these days I'll sit him down and remind him America is not all bad. I'll remind him about that first amendment, and remind him how he would not have had the right to choose whether to pledge his allegiance in many other parts of the world.

I really had not thought it all through back in kindergarten in Hawaii, and I certainly could not have anticipated what would happen in the years after that. But looking back it is cetainly one of the best things I ever taught him.

now she's not about lovin her babies. she's about lovin her MAN! doesn't she understand that she's undervaluing stay at home moms when she says they're not even entitled to a friggin night at the olive garden?

having my baby

get a job

This may sound a little -- organic, but I am actually attached to my periods and the related hormonal changes I experience each month. I can discern changes in my verbal and mental acuity, in my level of sexual desire, in my energy level and my apetite. I don't track them closely, but I sometimes note my body's phases like I note the phases of the moon. Those recurring cycles remind me that I am a part of the natural world, which I think is a valuable thing.

Very tofu and sprouts, I know. But I have been having my period for 33 years now and I'll be somewhat sorry to see them end.