You named him Oscar and you're surprised that he's pissed off? No kid wants the name of a 90 year old guy and/or a cranky puppet. Why did you hate your baby?

If she'd left Trig with a sitter, people would have speculated that she was ashamed of him or was a bad mom, etc. Since so few Down syndrome infants are carried to term, there's a good number of young people who've probably never seen a baby with this. If her baby had autism, the trendy lefties would be applauding her. The baby's no more of a prop than any other politican's child or family member.

If Walsh wonders why so few women run for public office, (and I'm sure that she's written some handwringer about that), the media's treatment of Sarah Palin and Walsh's baying for her blood might be a reason.

Walsh has that lock-step mentality that there's only one way to be a woman, and that's the way she and other professional chatterati have approved. Palin must not have gotten the official manual.

Question her record, question her actions.

If Joan Walsh thinks that Obama was "savaged", she must not read the letters from Salon's readers. Walsh really, really needs to get out more.

Alaska, according to Guttmacher, is # 1 for contraception access. So, please, don't preach about "abstinence-only" when you're wrong.

Among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, Alaska ranked

* 1st in service availability;

* 14th in laws and policies;

* 1st in public funding; and

* 2nd overall.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/state_data/states/alaska.html

The 28 states participating in a federal abstinence education program and the amount they have received in federal grants this year:

Alabama, $716,369

Arizona, $776,082

Arkansas, $440,640

Florida, $1.9 million

Georgia, $1.1 million

Hawaii, $122,091

Illinois, $1.4 million

Indiana, $565,556

Iowa, $238,648

Kansas, $252,832

Kentucky, $612,974

Louisiana, 962,673

Maryland, $427,257

Michigan, $1.1 million

Mississippi, $621,716

Missouri, $664,196

Nebraska, $164,055

Nevada, $210,130

New Hampshire, $71,177

North Carolina, $936,723

North Dakota, $66,744

Oklahoma, $517,756

Oregon, $365,772

South Carolina, $563,972

South Dakota, $102,285

Texas, $3.6 million

Utah, $216,117

West Virginia, $289,389

Source: Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

States ranked by rates of pregnancy among women age 15-19 (pregnancies per thousand):

1. Nevada (113)

2. Arizona (104)

3. Mississippi (103)

4. New Mexico (103)

5. Texas (101)

6. Florida (97)

7. California (96)

8. Georgia (95)

9. North Carolina (95)

10. Arkansas (93)

States ranked by rates of live births among women age 15-19 (births per thousand):

1. Mississippi (71)

2. Texas (69)

3. Arizona (67)

4. Arkansas (66)

5. New Mexico (66)

6. Georgia (63)

7. Louisiana (62)

8. Nevada (61)

9. Alabama (61)

10. Oklahoma (60)

Notice a missing state?

Your point being? So Covenant House has to raise money from sources other than tax payers. Big deal. Covenant House is one of the faith-based charities so despised by Salon readers, remember? One with a sketchy track record, as well. And it must not be hurting too badly--

"In FY2007, 3,165 youth received services from Convenant House. These youth included the homeless, runaway, and at-risk

populations that needed emergency shelter and assitance in education, employment, and health care. In the last three

years, Covenant House has seen a 58% increase in its average daily census. In order to continue to meet the needs of

Alaska's youth, Covenant House must relocate to a new, larger facility in downtown Anchorage."

And likewise:

http://www.usaspending.gov/faads/faads.php?reptype=r&detail=-1&datype=T&sortby=t&principal_place_state_code=02&database=faads&recip_id=212296&fiscal_year=2007&record_num=f500

Great job Cary--rather than tell the guy to either grow up or shut up, you decide, by virtue of your MD, to throw around some medical jargon and infantilize the LW.

How many times did he use the word "uptight"?

The LW needs to figure out that the world doesn't revolve around him and his artistic pursuits, which I'll bet include writing fan fiction and amassing vast quantities of gold, tradeskills, and experience points.

How is Palin an ex-beauty queen? She entered two pageants. She won the first, was a runner-up in the second. Hardly a beauty queen, unlike Diane Sawyer. Of all the things to object to in her resume, this is the silliest.

Was Palin married to a powerful politician? Or did she actually run for public office and win--without a machine behind her?

She's a token? Conason's hypocrisy and snobbishness is breathtaking.

Andrew O’Hehir is so naive as to be astonishing. Lessin and Deal did get lucky when they met Roberts and her footage, but she got the better part of the deal. Anyone who thinks the federal government is supposed to swoop in and kiss your boo-boos is a fool, and pleased to be one. What's the next step for Kim Roberts?

@Leslie Talbot--But Ryan didn't parlay blogging into any freelance assignments--this is probably her first. Does she have a book deal or just hoping? If you read her blog, there's a lot of discrepancies between this piece and the blog. Salon's editors might have nudged the pathos along.

And I didn't suggest WalMart or waitressing or anything like that. I just suggested something that makes money, and there's writing, even in Eugene, that does make money.

Pinched is off to a rather poor start--we've had Salon's TV critic and now former grad. student with little kids at a soup kitchen.

Just to throw this in:

"On the diversity thing, suburban schools are completely homogeneous. My children who attend public school are in classrooms with children who are all white and upper class. "

Maybe in Cleveland, but in Los Angeles? In Van Nuys where Sandra lives? Not even close.

Bloggers looking for book deals are a dime a dozen, and I think that's one reason for the strong reactions to this piece. It seems more than a little contrived. If you've got time to blog, you've got time for a second job.

The assignment for today is to contrast and compare Heather Ryan's work with The Glass Mountain by Jeanette Walls.