I would agree that Katie Couric was miscast in her role as news anchor, and that the network did some woefully stupid things (leg shots? Honestly. How come Dan Rather never had butt shots?)

However we deal out the blame, it doesn't change the fundamental problem that the network cast the wrong PERSON for the job, not the wrong gender.

Katie Couric was perfect in the morning--informal, upbeat, full of human interest shows about whatever was happening. The evening news is an entirely different format. There are plenty of women newscasters who could have pulled it off, but the network was trying to "spice up" its failing evening news show with adding Katie, and the attempt failed. People don't want spiced up evening news... they want serious, sober reporting. Plenty of women can do that job, and do it well. Unfortunately not Katie, or at least not with the zillions of different instructions the poor woman must have been getting every day as the ratings fell further.

"Be more upbeat! No, more serious! Be softer, we need more women viewers! Be funny, we need more laughs! Show your legs, maybe we'll get some men! Oh forget that, we need Walter Cronkite! Can you be him?"

I don't see this as a gender issue. I see it as an issue with a network that doesn't know what it wants. One woman cannot resurrect a dying format. If they'd gotten a serious, staid, calming presence, (male or female) they would have complained that he/she wasn't warm enough. They got their warm, human person, but she wasn't sober enough. Whatever.

I'm a freelancer, and my husband (bless him) just finished the taxes. Next year, we are going to a real accountant who, as Catherine says, chose this as his profession.

Nice to know there are other freelancers out there.

I just turned down a job today, at a well-known cube farm with great benefits. Just can't bring myself to do it again. It wouldn't be fair to them if I go completely postal in the first two weeks, would it? Two hours later, my email pinged, and another job came in my queue. Sometimes, when I read the financial papers, I think I must be nuts to be a freelancer. But my dread of fluorescent lights, beige carpet, and cubicle mazes keeps me here. And I get to hang out with my dog all day long.

And I even showered before 1:00 today!

OK, so 12 year-olds through teens are being raped by older men. Horrible as that is, those are the only facts we have in the case.

No one (that we know of) is abusing small children, elementary age and below. They might be teaching them weird stuff, they might be preparing them for rape at age 13 or so and calling it marriage, but none of that stuff has happened to the smaller kids YET.

What's in the best interests of the smaller children? Knowing my own children, those kids are beside themselves terrified. Even a few days away from their homes WITH their moms would be awful. But taking their moms away? That's the stuff of nightmares. I've got a fourth grader who is afraid to go to summer camp because he doesn't want to sleep away from home that long... and I consider him to be a fairly well-socialized, public-school-attending kid.

So they're going to take these kids, whose parents haven't done anything to THEM, and put them in the state foster care system? Holy crap. I can tell you that weird religious beliefs aside, if someone came and took my kids away, that Al Qaeda would start looking like a good option.

Yes, the moms are probably kooks. I don't have an answer for what to do with the teenage boys and girls. But terrifying a whole bunch of toddlers, kindergarteners, and school age kids out of principle just seems wrong to me. I think the kids should stay with their moms while the state sorts out what to do.

A few years back, we coached some good friends through refinancing their house (30 year fixed rate) at a better interest rate. They specifically wanted to use their local credit union who they banked with, because the credit union promised not to sell the loan. We thought they were nuts, because they didn't get as low a rate as they could have through other loan providers.

And here we are today... they have a stable, fixed rate loan through their local credit union. We have a great fixed rate loan, but it's been sold three times and is currently held by CitiBank, which I trust about as far as I can throw. Kinda makes me wish we'd gone for the credit union too.

Just drive along almost any rural highway in Oregon, and you see miles and miles of clearcuts. Very scenic, eh? Miles of mud, brush piles, stumps, and itty bitty seedlings that the deer haven't eaten yet.

The forestry industry would blame all their woes on conservation. If only they could cut down every last tree, there would be money for everyone, jobs would come back to tiny single-industry timber towns, schools would be funded, and life would be good.

But, even if we threw the forests open tomorrow, WE'D STILL RUN OUT OF TREES. It's FINITE. Yes, it's a "renewable resource", but not on the scale that Wall Street wants. It takes hundreds of years to grow the kinds of trees the forestry industry wants to "harvest" today.

So it's not surprising the oil industry uses the same logic. Open it all up! Pump it all out! If we just keep on pumping, there is no shortage!

1. Insert fingers in ears.

2. Sing "la la la la."

3. Continue pumping oil.

4. Repeat as necessary.