What blasphemy!

You can't make a grilled cheese sandwich that way. That's just a nuked cheese-n-toast. Shame on you, Garrison. Sheesh.

Ingredients:

2 slices of white bread

2 slices of Kraft singles cheese (what we used to call "rubber cheese")

room temperature butter

Heat a large-sized pan over a gas stove (electric works, too, but is harder to finesse). While heating, butter both sides of each slice of bread. Lightly. Don't go overboard.

Place both slices in pan at the same time and brown one side.

Once browned, remove the pan from the heat. Flip the bread over so that the browned side is facing up. Carefully arrange the cheese on one slice of bread (this might involve some ripping to get the cheese to cover the slice fully - if you have extra cheese, try to place it towards the outer edge of the bread, rather than in the middle). Place the bread without the cheese on top of the one that is laden with cheese. The sandwich should be browned on the inside but still white on the outside.

Return to stove. Cook the exterior sides of the sanwich to desired level of brownness. Flip very carefully with a spatula.

If the cheese hasn't melted sufficiently, cover the pan with a lid or baking sheet and cook for roughly one minute on medium heat. Be careful when removing the lid, as hot condensed water will try to roll down and scaled your hand.

I'm not going to get into the issue of the U.S. using torture, except to say that it shames me and shakes my faith in my country to the core. However, to suggest that somehow Iraq's new government is torturing prisoners because of some sort of monkey-see, monkey-do mentality is probably off the mark.

The U.S. recently began acting like a rogue nation, defying international law and breaking treaties designed to protect the innocent. Iraq has been doing it for decades. Whether under one dictator or an imposed government or a newly elected group of cronies, Iraq doesn't to be inspired by the U.S. to partake in torture. It's endemic to their system of "justice" - perhaps we are the ones taking the cue from them?

Maybe the writer could instead pass his female friend a note at work! You know, "Do you like me? Check YES or NO."

Or, better yet, he could ask another coworker to determine if she likes him, and if she does, if she LIKES HIM LIKES HIM or just, you know, like, LIKES HIM.

Grow up, Tennis. Adults talk to their spouses in these situations. Kids in junior high school play "What if?".

To be fair, no one was calling Murtha a coward. I thought that the quote implied that we, as a nation, would be cowardly to cut and run. Not that I agree. That's just what it sounded like.

Before anyone takes a moment to roundly condemn what I'm about to say, let me just point out that I'm not condoning a gangsta or faux-gansta lifestyle, even if it's innocent emulation. I understand a kid's need to break out of the life he's known - although I think CAmille's child did it at a very young age.

However, while it's a shame that her son's grades have dropped, and he hasn't been accepted to any of the schools that they were hoping for, I'd like to point out that speaking in an African American dialect is not a sign of "bad grammar". It's a very systematic language, with much more to it than mere slang or verb-less sentences. I recommend the book "Word on the Street" by John McWhorter to anyone who thinks otherwise. McWhorter, who is African American, does not have much patience for hardcore rap music, but has very valuable input on "black" dialects, one of which Camille's son has apparently been successful at speaking. His manner of speaking may alienate others and affect his chances of getting into good schools or landing a good job, but it doesn't affect his reasoning abilities or his ability to write in standard English. He knows how to do that - but he chooses not to in his everyday speak.

The thing that makes him an obvious poser is that he doesn't seem to code-switch, which is common with bi-dialectal speakers. He actually said to Camille "Yo mama's on the phone"?. Most parents would given him an ass-whooping that he would never forget after hearing something that disrespectful coming from their child's mouth. And it's clear from this that his "identity" is far from authentic, merely an act put on to impress others.

It's silly for Camille to think that her cancer had everything to do with her sons' transformations. Plenty of kids go through the same thing and come out with original identities intact. But I understand her hesitation in curbing her sons' choices - it might be hard for people who pride themselves on their open-mindedness to come out and say "You can't talk like that because you're not black. Only blacks talk like that." However, I think her sorry attempts at boosting her sons' ethnic pride (The Godfather - great freaking example, Camille) only prove how conflicted her own identity is.

Mind you, I think her son is a complete idiot. I could be wrong - perhaps he is an ambassador of types, between two worlds, with something to teach us. Perhaps we can learn from him, or perhaps he'll get laughed out of college. I just hope he doesn't end up in jail like so many of his friend's fathers - I hope there is a future brighter than that in the music he listens to.