I hope I find love again, I truly do. But -- unwilling to risk any further rejection -- I am too attached to my comforts, to my books and threadbare oriental rugs and the two cats.

The problem I find with women as they get older is that they lose the willingness to take a risk. Any risk. It makes you, in the eyes of men, just plain b-o-r-i-n-g. Younger gals are still youthfully adventurous, both in and out of the sack, so it shouldn't come as a shock to you that men are pursuing them preferentially over you.

Indeed, our entire society suffers from the modern malady of risk aversion. "We must be in control. We must be safe." is the mantra, and the phrase "at-risk" is become nauseatingly ubiquitous. Much of our society has effectively shut down socially, based upon endless lurid stories in the mass media of random acts of violence, to the point where parents hardly allow their kids out of their sight anymore. Hell, when I was a kid growing up in L.A., my (single) mom had but one rule for me and my little brother: "Be home before dark." We explored the L.A. sewer system, LAX, and many other fascinating places -- alone and unsupervised. We weren't stupid, and we both made it out unscathed (and much wiser) for the experience. Nowadays, "helicopter parents' are the norm. Kids are kept on a very tight leash, lest they experience pain and suffering (a.k.a., real life) at the playground or just cruising around on their bicycles. (Here in Hawaii this phenomenon is not so bad; little kids surf big waves!).

Here are a couple of links that illustrate this inward-turning crap-mindset:

Children Detach From Natural World As They Explore The Virtual One

"Every time CNN or Fox makes a huge story about a lost Boy Scout or a bear attack, it feeds the growing fear that parents and kids have of strangers and of nature itself...The actual number of stranger abductions has actually been level or falling for 20 years, but you would never know it from the media. When they get done telling about the crime, they tell about the trial. And when it's a slow news day, they bring up JonBenet Ramsey again."

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/22/4739

And here is a link to a video from NBC News entitled, A Nation of Indoorsmen

Brian Williams introduces the piece, where he refers to Americans as an increasingly "housebound nation".

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&fg=rss&vid=111e7193-5c61-4862-85fb-f496c389d4e2

Insofar as the writer of this piece, unless you're willing to risk it all -- including the possibilty of broken heart and even a miserable death -- you have condemned yourself to a spinster's life.

Now, get out there and LIVE, baby!

Neocons would never eat trash. That would be cannibalism.

Of the many witticisms with which you regale us on a daily basis, this one deserves to be etched in stone -- perhaps on the façade of the Pentagon, or Bush's heart.

I learned long ago that eating/drinking and reading your posts at the same time can lead to a very messy computer screen.

I'm still trying to remember the old line you used on the NYT forums. I believe it went something like this:

"You're so far out in left field that you're over the wall, beyond the bleachers, and somewhere out in the third parking lot with the winos."

Keep those classic lines a'comin', Master Yoda!

(Hope you don't mind if I borrow a few now and then -- only to bash filthy neocons, of course!)

re: Younger women, you need to think about what happens if you like sex and your partner is significantly older

Gee, it couldn't be YOU, could it?

I regularly stroll the beach at Waikiki and I see literally thousands of babes of all ages in the barest of bikinis. There's a fresh turnover every week, so plenty of variety. I can count on two hands the number of middle-aged women I've seen that don't look like someone's fat, dumpy grandmother. Of course, they all think they're hot.

In all fairness, most of the guys over 40 are in pretty bad shape, too. I've dubbed the lot of them "potato people" -- bloated, nondescript hunks of flesh that spend 51 weeks a year sitting in a cubicle, vehicle, or lying horizontal on a sofa watching TV, then they come to Hawaii and put on boardshorts and lay on a beach towel for a week.

However, just because a guy is older doesn't mean that he is unable or less able to perform. While that may be the case in some instances, perhaps (based upon my previously stated observations) many instances, it all depends upon how a guy has taken care of himself over the years. Yeah, if he's a smoker, drinker, obese, and generally a slug, no doubt that will affect his ability to perform -- or even take out the garbage, for that matter.

But before you go blaming your man for a lack of interest, ask a few neighborhood guys over and stand naked in front of them. If they begin to hurl and run for the door, maybe you need to reassess your thinking.

The U.S., therefore China, therefore the world, is not only off the tracks, we're off the bridge and plunging headlong into the abyss.

Fed mulls issuing own debt: report

The U.S. Federal Reserve is considering issuing its own debt for the first time...the credit crisis showing no signs of abating...

http://tinyurl.com/63a7sp

http://tinyurl.com/6qpms4

This is where we're going, folks.