My first "bank" account was with my dad's credit union, which he got through good old Ma Bell. Years later when I met my husband, I joined his credit union which he got through his dad's work.

Credit unions have opened their doors to the community now, and are no longer limited by employers, union agreements, family members, and whatnot.

I love my credit union. No BS fees, excellent service, and they can even do small business accounts now. I love the idea of a nonprofit bank, which is in existence for my benefit, not theirs. A new branch just opened up about a mile from my house. I don't have worries about them failing, and I don't worry that they're going to do anything stupid with my money (what little there is).

Now I can go on to worrying about everything else...

Hmm. Let's see.

My family hosted a French exchange student for a summer when I was in high school.

I have kids, and they play soccer.

My brother-in-law married a German woman and lives in Germany.

My husband and I went fishing on our honeymoon.

Vote for me!

... out here in burbland...

It's OK for girls to do a range of activities, but not boys. My daughter tried soccer and didn't like it. Now she's trying gymnastics and plays the violin. Perfectly fine and acceptable. She's better at drawing and reading than at math. She'd rather sit inside and play quietly than ride her bike. All fine. The world can hold a range of types.

Now what if she'd been a boy with those tendencies? Doesn't like competitive, athletic sports like soccer but would rather play the violin and do gymnastics? Would rather play quietly inside than ride a bike outside? Prefers drawing and reading to math? Put "boy" with those characteristics rather than "girl," and all of a sudden you have "gay" instead of "straight," if we're sticking with the stereotypes.

My daughter's sexuality is not in question for liking what she likes. If she'd been athletically inclined, society wouldn't immediately assume she's a lesbian. She'd just be an athletic girl. Plenty of her friends play soccer, paint their nails, catch bugs, collect rocks, AND play dress-up. But boys don't get that luxury. If a boy wants to play dress-up, fugeddaboudit. He MUST be gay.

One of the boys in my daughter's violin class is also on my son's soccer team. Already, in the fifth grade, my son is convinced that it's "weird" for a boy to both play the violin AND play soccer. When I ask him why, he says he doesn't know, but "it's just weird, Mom."

And in the ubiqutous middle school band? There have always been "girl" instruments and "boy" instruments. If you don't believe me, try being a boy and playing the flute. Nope, boys play trumpet, trombone, tuba, drums, or saxophone. Girls play flute or clarinet. And again, it's perfectly fine for girls to cross over into the boy zone, but not for boys to go the other way.

Sad.

I was laid off, last summer, from an IT company that serves the construction sector. Lo and behold, last spring and summer (that's 07), guess who stopped spending on ANYTHING that wasn't absolutely essential? Construction companies, large, small, and in between.

Sorry, but I'm not buying the old "we didn't see this coming" line. Bucket of horsepucky, if you ask me.

offering low cost of free BIRTH CONTROL of all types (reversible and irreversible) to everyone? Would be a whole lot cheaper than having tons of kids. Hell, I'd hand it out on the street corners. Sell it from ice cream trucks. Open a county health clinic in every poor neighborhood across the country. I think an army of public health nurses offering free birth control would be cheaper than an army of unintended pregnancies.

Abortion, yes, when needed. But a whole lot fewer if birth control were cheap and plentiful for men, women, and teens.

But then again, I'm a dreamer.

Out here in reality-land, if I make a bad investment, I eat it. I don't recall anyone, liberal, conservative, or otherwise, running to my aid when my software startup employer tanked in 2001. My stock options were worthless. All the stock I bought at $4 a share went to a whopping $0.21. Bad luck for me. I'll admit it, I drank the company kool-aid. I paid. AND I was unemployed to boot.

Tellya what. You give me my money back on my worthless dotcom stock that I am STILL writing off, and then we'll talk bailouts.

Um... I'm 42, and I started college in the fall of 1984. On a merit scholarship. We also had financial aid, loans, sports scholarships, music scholarships, all kinds of scholarships. In fact, my school had a financial aid office, open to both men and women, without a swimsuit competition!

Who woulda thunk it?

Jeesh. No, women in 1984 did not have to enter beauty pageants to go to college.

Does this "bailout" and the mess of a market we're attempting to bail out feel like the Titanic? That no amount of bailing, none, is going to right the ship?

Sorry, I keep mixing metaphors in my mind. From all the rhetoric from all quarters (congress, financial press, this column, etc.) this seems like a vast swirling black hole, into which we're pouring money, but no amount will fix the problem.

The closest I've seen to an explanation is that the derivatives market (which all these mortgage-backed securities get sliced, diced, repackaged, and sold into) is too complex. Too big. Too sliced and diced so that no one (that's NO ONE) exactly knows what the hell they're buying. One giant swirling black hole of bad investments into which 700 billion is nothing.

I'm not convinced. My prediction? We'll blow through 700 billion, and the banks will keep failing. The Titanic is sinking. A "bailout" wouldn't have saved the Titanic. Some time in a drydock to fix the hole would. But are we doing that?