I thought my ex wrote the letter. I can tell you how I felt, LW.

First off, there was the "I'm not good enough to satisfy you by myself"? Then there was imagining it, and it was

1. jealousy as I really cared for him and did not want to share him

2. fear that it would escalate and he would always want more than one and

3. practical: how is this going to work.

The practical led to looking at some male oriented porn. Can we say "hell no?" It did not look like female satisfaction was high on the list of what to do.

He really wanted to do this, and had lesbian and bi friends who expressed interest. I thought it ok in abstract, but once I was faced with the practical application, I said no.

I have bi and lesbian friends who have done it, and it has almost always destroyed the relationship, because if the women are close enough to do it, it will solidify the relations between the women, and exclude the man. If he does care about her, that will hurt.

Men who share a woman share an object, and it seems to shore up their friendship, etc. But unless the two women are very close, there won't be the same effect, and his pleasure will not be very important in the two-close women scenario. It sounds good in theory until they ignore him on the bed.

This is about more than the physical. It is about the emotional. I think the LW is idealizing the physical without really thinking through the practical application. For people who actually do this, setting the primary relationship first is important. He is not doing that from the get go.

Many things are better in fantasy than in reality. In fantasy, we can see ourselves as the receiver of all of the attention, the pleasuring, feel that our needs and wants will be instinctively met. But pleasing two women at once is going to be really hard to do for a man, no matter how good. He'd need to be a gymnast. And really, who wants to wait for "your turn"?

This is an example of more liturgically correct. You can save the mother's life by doing an abortion in a certain way. The controlling idea is "direct versus indirect" abortion.

http://www.cuf.org/Faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=57

It is still problematic. "Double effect" and "direct versus indirect" abortion are semantics. But it is acceptable for the mother's life to be saved by an abortion if the abortion is a byproduct of saving the mother's life. This episode is directly an example of that. The bishop is an idiot to be so literalistic, when the distinctions and theory are so fine.

The mother and the babies would have died. There was no way to bring this pregnancy to term. This falls under the "indirect" rubric, that if the bishop was not such a woman hater he should have used.

I am Catholic. My churches (and I was raised in the center of one of the most conservative diocese in the US) have always taught this.

That does impact how his reasoning can be assessed. I have no wish to go after his looks. But "sweaty" and "hopped up" are not the same as size. Sweaty describes a temporary condition- that can relate to drug use. Manic, frantic, hopped up- those are actions. Those are different than size. Those two things can indicate high blood pressure.

That said, Steele would have been better off had he stood up to Limbaugh, the way Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have had to stand up to the extremists in their party. Limbaugh owns the party. He is no longer an entertainer. He is looking more like Stephenson, the old Indiana Klansman who owned the Indiana/Ohio GOP in the Twenties, and who took it down with him in his crimes and excesses. Limbaugh has that same arrogance, addiction, extremism, and need for validation. True conservatives should be enraged. GOldwater is spinning in his grave, as is Lincoln.

I see ads with Limbaugh's greatest hits come 2009. When party bosses forget that this is a country of 300+ million, of whom some 150 million+ are registered voters, kowtowing to 20 million is not intelligent. If they are that disloyal, maybe the Republicans need to grow some real conservatives?

This was a big mistake. I'm sad, because I want centrists to win in both parties.

And the governors threatening to turn down stimulus funds are NOT turning down other federal monies for their states. Federal money for for their pals must be accepted. These states have some of the highest rates of taking federal money. They want to be virtuous? Turn down the federal pork for their pals.

@readerreader White flight takes out the tax base, because city services go next. So poverty means they don't get to have good schools? There are many working class blacks killing themselves to try to make it better for their kids? They deserve no help? All blacks in a school are not single parent, bad choice people. That's a media stereotype. And with the closing of many Catholic schools in the inner city and rural areas, there is no choice. The bureacracy is tough. In my husband's old neighborhood, the public school have voluntary Saturday school manned by unpaid teachers so that the ones who wanted to learn could. The Houston public school my brother taught at did the same.

The real problem is mainstreaming and IDEA. Once a child is diagnosed with anything it is impossible to get rid of them. Suburban schools dump serious cases. They simply will stonewall. So an ADD diagnosis makes discipline hard, or sometimes impossible. THe gang/guerilla warfare, and the refusal of landlords outside of certain areas to accept working class families for rent (along with a lack of affordable housing) makes it difficult to get out.

It has been triage for a while.