The stuck up LW is so impressed by her boyfriend's thick wallet (yes, they are rich...please read her fawning description of their lifestyle...if they aren't fabulously wealthy, she desperately wants to leave the impression that they are) that she's willing to overlook his daughter living in the same building and being totally neglected by him on this scale! What can we hope for from her? Nothing! She's a selfish skank who is into the guy's fortune--nothing else.

I'm not convinced the nanny is this lovely lady she describes, either. A nanny can raise a well-adjusted child by herself, and many do. The child sounds passive-agressive and overly compliant--both signs that the nanny may be controlling and even abusive in private (it happens). The nanny wants the child back, but the child doesn't seem to want to--and she left the nanny in the first place and tried to move in with her parents--why? Something is fishy here.

But the LW and her boyfriend both have their heads so deep into their own asses that they'd never know.

Tragic story with no good endings. It's already too late, and the personalities involved are too warped.

Also I'm not so sure about the mom--what, did she just walk off, screaming and foaming at the mouth, leaving the child on a street in Bombay? I somehow don't think so, although this is the way this LW breathlessly tells it. Did she marry or get a job abroad, leaving the child in the care of the father or sending her back to him? More likely, I somehow think. I just get this impression that the LW is a liar and a drama queen--the daughter is to ugly to ever marry? Really? Gahhhhh. Also, it sounds a little third world to suggest that you are saddled with a daughter until she marries.

This letter was written by a real hyena, I'm afraid. Nanny doesn't sound much better, and Papa is the worst of the lot. Poor Anna!

Your advice was right on, two thumbs up! Although I doubt that this mental and moral midget is capable or willing to take it.

This cartoon is based on the old Epicurean Paradox, which basically states that sinces God either cannot or will not put an end to evil in the world, there can be no God defined as such (all powerful and all righteous).

Of course, there's another possibility, which is that there is a God, only He is indifferent to or complicit in evil. Of course, this is contrary to our notions of God.

Lovely cartoon.

The first Big Lie about the "fat acceptance" crowd--well, the second after the Big Lie "you can be as huge as you want and still be healthy!" is that being fat is no different than being a black person or blue-eyed or whatever.

No, it's fucking not, okay? Being born black or blue-eyed is not a choice. Being obese is a choice. The number of people who have true thyroid problems or genetic predispositions to obesity is very small. 99% of fatties are fat because they eat too much and don't move. Thats it, that's all.

Sure you can be fat if you want to. Nobody wants to stop you. But since you made a choice to look that way, stop bitching if other people don't find you attractive. Becoming fat is NOT the same thing as being born black. If you don't believe me try being black in America for a while. You will soon figure out the difference.

My children were never fat. We lived on a farm, had no sweets in the house, and no television (this part is, I believe, very important). My kids' bodies were totally hard to the touch and their skins glowed with health. Due to my job my kids have been with my exe's mother for six months. She doesn't really like to be bothered with them, so they sit i2n their bedrooms and eat cookies in front of the television all day. My ex has scheduled some sports a couple of days a week, but it is not the same. Their weight gain has been dramatic. I have quit my job to go back to my former lifestyle with them because I cannot bear to see them locked into the prison of fat they are now entering.

I'm not stupid enough to pretend that becoming fat teenagers and then fat adults is going to do anything short of destroy their lives. I KNOW that it will--I'm a teacher and I know how emotionally crippling it is to be fat girl (or boy). And it really is all in the lifestyle.

Kate Harding needs to lose the damn weight or just shut up about how fine it is to be fat, because she's lying, both to herself and to us. This is what, he millionth article on the subject of her own fat? If she loved herself and accepted herself that much, would she really be writing about it all the time? If she has actually made peace with her weight, would she feel the need to constantly bitch that other people don't like her the way she is? Why for God's sake is her fat her main topic of conversation with all her friends?

Her case, and Oprah's, and others, are the main reason I want my kids to have a healthy self-image and a healthy body weight (and I do believe the two by necessity go together). Watching the sick displays of obese people either beating up on themselves or trying to talk themselves out of believing that anything is wrong with them is very depressing. It's not what I want for my family; life is full of better things to do.