I can't read the LA times article because I don't want to register. But just the question...

Absolutely not.

As a child, my brother had severe learning disabilities and struggled for everything he ever did academically. For him, a C was sometimes a real achievement. Not getting kicked out of school was also a real achievement. I was the "good" kid... school was easy for me. Getting A's was like falling off a log (until college, that's another story). Rewarding my A's would have further enhanced the differences between my brother and me... a relationship that didn't need any more tension.

Fast forward to today, when guess what? I have two kids. One who struggles for every single thing, and I'm delighted when he makes "grade level" in anything. Another kid for whom book learning comes easily, and she does well without even really trying hard. History repeats itself. As a parent, I know when they're trying hard. I know when they're doing the most they can do. The marks on the paper are what the school measures them by, but have no bearing on the work that they're doing or its relative difficulty. Any parent knows that--the difference between trying and coasting. And often it's not measured by grades.

So no. I do not reward my kids for their grades. I do keep track of how they're doing in school, and help them wherever I can. The grades are all relative, in my eyes anyway.

What planet do these people live on? I have yet to hear of a state that says "we are overflowing with qualified, safe, appropriate foster care families, and we are just looking for more kids." Uh huh. So unless incarcerated women have families (usually their mothers) who are willing to take care of a newborn, what possible place could the state have in forcing an inmate to bear an unwanted child? I think that would qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. I can't see forcing an abortion, but I also can't see forcing a pregnancy either.

Honestly.

OK, I'm not much of a Bible scholar, but here in Oregon, we've had our share of anti-gay ballot measures. I can always rely on one of our more well-informed citizens to write a hilarious "argument in favor" for the voter's pamphlet, about how we should absolutely not allow any acts of sodomy. In addition, we should ban the eating of shellfish, the shaving of beards, and several other acts that are all spelled out in great detail in Leviticus. I mean, if you're going to enforce SOME of the Bible, you should enforce ALL of it. The letters are a hoot when they appear, true fodder for the Colbert Report.

I agree with other posters that there are many moderate Christian churches who have learned to interpret the Bible for a modern world. But for those would-be literalists (like the one in this article), I challenge him to give up his Red Lobster habit right now. He probably needs to keep a kosher kithcen too, since all those Jewish food laws are spelled out somewhere in the Old Testament as well.

Or does literalism only apply to the New Testament? But, wait, isn't that interpreting what to take literally and what to not take literally?

Oh nevermind.

This is branch of health that we would prefer to ignore. Strong people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Weak people need to talk to therapists and take pills. If it isn't bleeding or falling off, we can ignore it and it will go away. I could start a debate right here in this Letters section--name the mental illness/condition of the week (ADHD, schitzophrenia, psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, whatever) and I'll bet a beer there will be at least three letters saying these conditions don't exist, that they're only invented by big pharma to sell drugs. Just watch.

In this kind of national climate about mental health care, is it any wonder that children who survived Katrina in one of the poorest regions of the country are getting little or no mental health care?

Even Uncle Sam, via the VA, would like to pretend that these conditions don't exist. Those vets coming back from Iraq to murder their spouses, rob stores, beat their children, or sit in the dark and jump at every noise must have had these conditions before, they certainly weren't caused by anything that happened in Iraq, and no we won't pay for them.

... just the other day, after getting new pink tennis shoes for school: "Mama, I just can't wait to show Emily (her friend down the street) my new shoes! I'll have nicer shoes than her and I'll be so popular!"

She's going into first grade.

Just about made my blood run cold.

I cannot figure out where she is getting this from. We don't have cable TV. She watches a few Public Broadcasting shows, we read books from the library. Maybe from other girls at day care who have older siblings? I really don't know. She only goes to day care a few hours a week.

We talked about her shoes, about how being a good friend to someone was more important than new shoes. I hope it sunk in. From talking to her, it turns out she really didn't understand what "popular" meant, other than having nice new clothes.

How I wish we had school uniforms. I wore them for a year in high school as an exchange student in England. What a relief it was to get out of the never-ending fashion game and put on the same thing that everyone else had. I loved it, and I'll never forget how liberating the feeling was. I was finally free to be myself and not my clothes.