Recall the too-honest ad on the side of a passing bus:

PEPSI -- FOR WHEN YOU CAN'T FIND COKE.

Helm

Do you read John Varley? When I feel discouraged in an act of charity by reflecting that it's a drop in the bucket compared to all the want and evil which still exists in the world, I take heart from what one of the characters said. She and her fellows had just rescued a group of slaves from their captors, set them free, and directed them to a place of relative safety. Her friend said, "You realize that many of these will be enslaved again before the week is out?" She replied, "True. But it is not my intention to rid the world of all evil for all time, but just in this place, and just for now."

You can't do everything; but every bit of good you CAN do helps.

Helm

The BPA thing just confirms my previous decision to give up on SIGG bottles. My daughter and I each got one in the spring, and within a few weeks, they were both dented. Hers was in her school backpack, mine was in a daypack that I used for light hiking; both had deep dents in them even though we couldn't remember any traumatic event which should have caused such damage. For $25+ a water bottle should be a bit more durable.

Later, my SIGG bottle split wide open when my daughter filled it with water and put it in the freezer, but I'm not blaming SIGG for that :-). (though we do it with plastic cycling water bottles all the time).

Helm

It blows me away how LW, who can be very cool and rational, can be so clueless into her own selfish actions. Early in the letter she allows that she harbors no romantic notions about a one-and-only soulmate, that there are many people she could be happy with; yet of all the possible candidates, she fastens onto a married man with three kids! She doesn't describe him as "separated" at the time, so it's probable that she was a contributing factor to the breakup of the marriage. Why is it so hard to say "He's taken; move on!" Instead, she is party to a situation which is disruptive and making a lot of people unhappy, including herself.

Maybe Chris Rock was right; a guy is never so attractive to women as when he's in a relationship. I went two years once when I was single with almost no dates; soon after meeting my new girlfriend, suddenly there were four or five women calling me. (Married the girlfriend 18 years ago, but don't call -- I'm taken!)

Helm

> I hope that helps.

It does not. I fail to see the value added by this column, though I keep reading it in hopes of seeing a glimmer of genuine sentiment. Instead, week after week it's the same Republican talking points, the same moral certainty despite all evidence of the shortcomings of many "Conservative" initiatives, the same lack of self-criticism. We can get all of this on Fox Noise.

Wingnut, is there ANY position taken by conservatives in the past 8 years which you would question, maybe take a do-over? Or must you be right all the time, at all costs?

btw, G. Gordon Liddy was nonviolent? Since when is breaking and entering nonviolent? Or breaking into Ellsworth's psychiatrist's office? Plus his buddy Charles Colson was making plans to bomb the Brookings Institute. And don't forget conservative hero Ollie North, who sold arms to Iran to raise money to help Central American terrorists. Your justifying such men as "nonviolent" highlights a central issue in the blinkered worldview of neoconservatives -- you are far more bothered by a car thief than you are by a Liddy, who worked actively to subvert democracy and (last I checked) was unrepentant; or by North, whose actions undoubtedly cost many lives in Central America and Iran.

Vito Corleone said a lawyer can steal more with his briefcase than a hundred men with guns. Ken Lay and Bernie Madoff, to name just two, caused thousands of times more suffering than a common murderer does; I would have preferred if they were violent!

Helm