I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a little better already, thanks.

That's a painfully naive statement, Katherine. Five'll get you ten they'll achieve that equal level of premiums by raising men's premiums, not by lowering women's. What, you think these guys are going to give up a PENNY without being forced to?

We can't put them out of business fast enough, the blood-sucking leeches.

It's hard to tell whether it's weirder that Rosen just freely observes that Sotomayor's clerks fill the baby-shaped hole in her heart (if she were a married mother, no Harry Potter for you, clerk suckers!) or that he feels OK about including it in the positive half of the story, in which he's cataloging the judge's "strengths."

Unless there's more in this vein than you're quoting here, it looks to me like YOU are the one making assumptions about "baby-shaped holes", Rebecca. When I read what Rosen wrote, it sounded to me like she was more involved with her clerks because she had time for friendships, not because she wanted daughter surrogates. People with kids have little chance to go out with other adults, you see. (I stress the word because in your assumption, you deny those clerks adult status, since they're just fake kids, don'tcha know.)

You do seem to jump to an awful lot of conclusions in your writing, Rebecca. You paraphrase people's words in the worst possible light and then jump all over them for the meanings YOU ascribe to what they said. You really should take a step back, maybe take a couple of refresher courses in journalism, because your bias oozes out all over everything. (You did go to school for this, didn't you? I mean, you being this super-competent feminist, and all.)

meant the participation of students in the classroom.

Damn keyboard gremlins, jumpin' on the enter key too fast.

While nothing can substitute for comprehensive sex ed in the classroom, The Birds and Bees is a daring step in the right direction.

How do you know? Perhaps this method is actually the best way to convey the information. The classroom isn't necessarily conducive to best learning in all areas; as you noted, Judy, the anonymity is the point of this method, and the potential for embarrassment and peer judgment probably put a damper on the full participation of students who are prone to feeling their pressure.

Rudy Giuliani is an asshole. Details at 11!

Seriously, does this surprise anybody?

Go find your mother so she can teach you some manners.

Really? You're really surprised to find it missing? I would have been surprised to find it included, given the level of research and/or education usually displayed.

("Dick and cover" joke redacted upon sober review.)

That's really sophomoric, Tracy. Cut it out.

Are pregnant women smug? Or are single people just bitter?

Don't you think you should rephrase that, Sarah? Because I count wank in 3...2...1...

As to the smugness, hell yes. I'm sick to death of breeding women shoving their "sacred" condition into my face, sick of hearing every detail of pregnancy, and sick to death of the endless "unique" moments that EVERY PREGNANT WOMAN HAS.

Yes, giving birth is a big part of life. A big part of YOUR life, miss pregnant queen. NOT any part of mine. Why can't people just be happy for themselves and not feel a need to get it all over everybody else?

Not to quibble with McClanahan, but I suspect some people considered it okay to be a feminist prior to "Maude."

Yes, Sarah. SOME people. Not very many. I was around when Maude premiered, and I remember having my mind changed about the issue by watching that show. Feminism was a fringe issue to the vast majority of Americans, something for women who couldn't "get a man". Maude came along and showed so many that it had nothing to do with that. Bea's strength and no-nonsense approach appealed to tons of housewives who looked at life the same way, but would never have used the word "feminist".

In other words, just because one's faction makes one convinced that the whole world MUST be agreeing, doesn't mean it's true. Maude changed the way we thought BECAUSE so many of us used to think otherwise. You can't claim Bea as a cultural hero if the culture was already on your side, so admit it wasn't and be done with it.

Wow, you people aren't getting the point of the article at all, are you? "Haggling? That's so TACKY." Your attitudes are just what the author is talking about: haggling is an art all over the world because people DO IT. Here in America we don't, and it's gotten a bad rap...why, exactly?

The folks commenting here who say it's so AWFUL have fallen prey to a mindset encouraged by the very commercial system they're addicted to. You believe that crap and pass it on, never realizing that you believe it only because it benefits the people squeezing blood out of you.

If having as much money as possible taken out of your wallet every time you open it is your idea of "polite society" or any other sort of good time, have at it, but I think you're insane. Profit margins are not set in stone, and prices are almost always flexible, no matter WHERE you are. It's just a matter of finding out if the people running the place are willing to deal or not. There's no law against asking for a discount, or giving one, or refusing one, and if you sneer at people for being "losers" this way, you may as well sneer at people who clip coupons...and I'm sure many of you do.

I'd have thought he'd wandered off a fire escape by now.