I have a friend who is fat, but not so fat as to be considered unattractive. She is actually really attractive. BUT, she does not accept herself as fat in the slightest. How do I say this with such conviction? Because as her biologically-predisposed-to-thinness friend I am the recipient of the crying jags and the rage. If I say to someone that she looks great and she overhears me, then it means that she used to look awful and I don't hear from her for six months. All sorts of innocuous (to me?) set her off, from my complaints that I can't find clothes that fit, to guys paying attention to me. It all comes back to her feeling like I'm trying to make her feel bad about her body. Which I'm not. I'm just trying to commiserate with a friend. But its always, always, about her.

I mean, sure, there are things about her and her life that she has so easy and I can be jealous sometimes when she complains. But I recognize that she isn't trying to deliberately make me feel bad. She is just talking about her own life.

Either way, saying things like "but you're not fat" are the survival skills I have developed for being friends with her. Otherwise I'm walking in a minefield in a bathing suit.

I would love to say to her, "yeah you're fat, but you're still hot, and if you could get over the self-hatred for five minutes I could introduce you to guys who think you're sexy as hell just as you are...." But that would be something that they don't have in common. I will never ever be able to talk to her about it frankly, because I'm thin, and that means I have nothing to say.

It just shows how completely out of touch they are, that they think that there are enough extremely high paying jobs out there to absorb all these spoiled brats who are about to be capped.

They're going to go off somewhere to find greener pastures? After they bankrupted the richest country on earth?

Good luck with that!

Why people think all these high fliers are going to jump ship for better pay....

Exactly where are they going to GO?

Who is desperately seeking a greedy banker in a depression?

Give it two more years and they'll be selling apples on the streets with the rest of us.

Read it and weep: http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/connections_n2/great_depression.html

One, being a parent is becoming less stigmatized. Single parent or not, everyone knows someone who has a kid and is just fine, so it looks like it isn't such a bad idea.

Two, oh just you wait until this financial crisis really hits. Right now, people are still in denial, unemployment hasn't run out yet. When it does this baby boom will be nipped in the bud.

Christ, I'm second guessing the dog I was planning on adopting this summer.

Seems that our troops still haven't gotten the message that we need to support our troops.

I feel pity for the writer of that hi-larious report.

But I read the book, and I got a very different impression of the story. In the book I got the sense that Coraline does feel somewhat neglected, but its less a duel between herself and her mother and more just that sense of disappointment that one's life is not as perfect as it should be. And since your mother is the one who is in charge of your life, you resent her. You resent your parents for the move, you resent your parents for working so much and not playing with you all the time, and you think the neighbors are weird (slightly fascinating for it) and obviously unsuitable playmates.

Clearly someone has been slacking on the job of giving you what you need as a child!

So then the stranger with candy comes in, offering to make everything better and perfect. The Other Mother is terrifying (probably even more so for adults) because she promises to replace those you love and make everything perfect so they can gain control of you and bleed you dry. Just like that creep who tried to trap Britney Spears, these monsters exist, and they always seem so nice in the beginning.

She promises to love you more than your mother, better than your mother, to right all the wrongs your mother ever committed, but she is not your mother and you don't really know what she wants. Its seductive, but its a trap, because real people are frustrating and imperfect. And as with any real life Svengali the gloves come off when she tries to leave. Her poor mother can only watch helplessly from the sidelines, hoping her child does whats right in order to save the family... Which might be why adults seem to find the book more frightening than children do.

True real life enemies often start with friendly faces, to take advantage of your vulnerabilities, your desires, your discontent. Its like Bluebeard, but for children.

And nary a freudian parable in sight......