Thanks for explaining, Joan, why you appear on his show. Especially that it's a way for you to bring other readers to Salon who might not otherwise find it.

I don't have cable, so I only see it when I'm at my daughter's house, but I have also thought that as conservative hosts go, he is better than most.

That doesn't mean that I agree with him often, but only that he treats people more fairly, and is also willing to hold the administration's feet to the fire when he thinks they deserve it. Compare that with Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace!

And for the rest of us long-time Salon readers, it is a good thing to have this additional opportunity to communicate with you. Really, there is no other "paper" that I know of that does the same. And it does seem like a natural outgrowth of the open letters feature. Other papers do (sometimes) allow that now, but they are usually less responsive. Who knows, maybe they will eventually have to follow this example on being more accessible, too.

I still like BigMedia, but must admit it doesn't quite capture the group think aspect very well, only the corporate greed.

And "mainstream" is just so inaccurate, given the huge disconnect between the media and the public, e.g., on whether to investigate the attorney purge.

How about TheLemmingPress?

Doesn't that say what we really want to say, that they all just run right after each other without giving it a second thought?

Then let's just start calling them panderers, and as a group the "pandertry?"

...had some in-depth coverage on this story tonight. Check out their site on PBS for links.

Day Care Centers are not all alike. I was fortunate enough to find a good one when my daughter was a toddler in the late 70's. But I was very lucky in that. Before Day Care, I had a very motherly babysitter across the street. When she could no longer do it, I had to cobble a few arrangements together for awhile until my daughter was old enough for Day Care. That was hard. A babysitter can/will just call you up in the morning to cancel. "It's all connected" will relate... I was young, divorced, and working because I had to (even before the divorce) and making very little money. But I had an inside contact in the Presbyterian church that sponsored the Day Care center, and my name was probably moved up the list. The caregivers there were wonderful, and I never doubted that they loved my daughter, but you may not find that everywhere.

I related to Andrea having to remind her daughter who is boss. In our house it was "I'm the mother; you're the daughter." Repeated often. Now, she tells her son (11) that she's the boss of his applesauce. Whatever works. Parents do have to be in charge. As for Andrea's suggestion to spend some time with a kid, I would agree, but go further. Also spend some time with a middle-school child or one in high-school, and, just for good measure, a young adult or one who is in high school. Ideally, all of these kids should have some age appropriate problem for you to help them with. Because it's true: Small children = small problems; Big children = big problems. In fact, older children's problems are rarely "cute." But they are often important and painful, and sometimes not even something you can share in order to ask advice from another parent, without betraying your child's privacy.

Something else I've been thinking about lately is the usefulness of being compatible with the DNA of your child's other parent. It would be helpful, because eventually the other traits, mannerisms, etc, that they have inherited, but not from you, will surface. It helps if you at least used to like that person. If you don't, then you'll just have to hold your tongue. Because you really won't want to say "Stop doing that-- it reminds me of your mother/father!" It's the rest of your life, after all, that you'll be sharing with this child.

For "It's all connected" and anyone else who is interested in improving mothers' (and fathers') lives, you may want to check out Moms Rising: http://momsrising.org/ It is so true that the problems and issues of middle- and working-class mothers are very different, due to their different place on the survival continuum. And for single mothers of either class, it's even harder.

The one last thing... Catherine, you don't have to have kids, just because our culture insists you should. Of course, I may also be biased, as the oldest of 6, who has had only one.

[A statistically significant outcome?! Great-- if you're selecting an age/weight appropriate car seat. But for home/day care/career/health care/parenting/financial issues and decisions? They are too complicated to be submitted to quantitative analysis. You'll have to go with your gut.]

for everyone?!

Nice big bottles right next to their glasses of water.

...is that they do so little to vet or screen their nominees that they didn't know, or just didn't care, that he didn't even have a private practice as he claimed, just the phone number for a crisis-pregnancy center that rang in his home... according to what I just read.

I guess it must be awfully time-consuming to administer those Bush-loyalty oaths after you first test every nominee on his or her ideology... leaving no time at all to make sure that the nominee has even a facade of qualifications.

Of course, that does make it so much easier to expose these creeps, so I shouldn't complain. Never mind...