Simple, isn't it? Forget "female bonding", ban events in which gender is the primary requirement for participating. I don't care if it's a gold tournament or a cooking lesson, if it excludes some participants for reasons beyond their control, then it is bad for the company. A company is composed of team members, not men and women. Anything that emphasizes gender, race, or other factors over team spirit is harmful to that bond.

"We can share the women We can share the wine We can share what we got of yours 'Cause we done shared all of mine"

We've been trying to work with the Republicans. We've been sharing our time, our good will, our energy, our ideas. They don't want share back, if sharing means compromise in any form. They simply don't want to hear what we have to say. What they want is for Democrats to give Republicans a blank check to do whatever they want in whatever country they want to do it. The Right is so power-mad that they actually seem to believe that they have a right to tell the Democrats what to do and when to do it, and that compromise means "We Win, They Lose". I think too many of them have started to believe their own press releases.

This isn't the 70's anymore. The idea that women can't be soldiers or cops isn't going to sell for the tens of thousands of women who are soldiers or cops or their families. The idea that women can't be raped by their husbands isn't going to be popular with the many divorced women who were abused, even sexually, by their husbands. Her ideas may appeal to a small segment of authoritarian's who really believe that women should be barefoot and pregnant, but I suspect that every time she opens her mouth she is turning people a bit more toward feminism.

Then go read Patrick Smith's last few columns, with the responses. You'll find that the hostility isn't gender based, there are just a lot of nasty people out there.

Anybody can post on the web. Anybody can e-mail anonymously. That's an invitation for people who normally would have to control themselves to simply let go and be what they want to be. Is it possible that Kathy Sierra attracted a real life stalker? I suppose so. But ANY women can attract stalkers, on the web or off. I never saw anything in this story that indicated that the person who threatened her had crossed that critical line between threatening on-line and threatening in real life. I know one thing for sure, though... whoever threatened her is thrilled that he (or maybe she, but probably not) achieved the reaction that he did, and unless he is stopped by authorities he will terrorize others. Next time I'd suggest that Ms. Sierra get a large dog (preferably a German Shepherd) and take it with her to every speaking engagement. I doubt that her stalker will want to hurt her enough to face down a hundred pounds of dog.

They hate the government of the United States. They want to transfer all responsibilities of the government over to the private sector. They believe that anything that a public employee does can be done better and cheaper by a private employee, and that anybody who serves the public for any length of time does so only because they are too incompetent to cash in by going private. I would not expect any Republican to respect long-term civil servants. The only things they respect are money and the power it brings.

...they temporarily banned lego in order to teach the children a lesson about sharing. It's really not fair to pick individual sentences out of a long article to make people sound ridiculous. Of courese, with lines like "We expected that looking frankly at the issues of power and inequity that had shaped Legotown would hold conflict and discomfort for us all" it is understandable that some people will mock the writer's for taking child care a bit too seriously.

...they prove me wrong. It's bad enough that they are willing to trash veterans, but trying to destroy the reputations of parents of soldiers who dare to speak out against them is simply beneath the pale. What's next? Making fun of war medals, like Purple Hearts? Suggesting that decorated veterans are liars and cowards? Not providing soldiers with adequate training and body armour.

Oh wait... uh... never mind.

This should at least reduce the level of trolling. I like that you've kept the anonymous option. I generally post under my user name, but occasionally I want to write something personal and I would rather it not be associated publicly with a name that might be connected to me.