As a mother of a handicapped child, I know the attention that baby Trig needs, and it is considerable. That attention will make the difference in his later abilities. How in the heck can she be a real mother, with a handicapped child, a pregnant teen, and other children and still be a good governor or vice president?? Someone has to pay and it is going to be the children. Already you see the result, a pregnant teen.

I know she doesn't believe in 'choice' but when you have children you have to make a choice, and sometimes that choice is work or take care of the children.

He often says that feminism was invented as a way for ugly women to get into the mainstream of society or some such. And apparently he thinks he is the judge of which women are ugly and he has decided that Hillary Clinton is ugly and evil. He jumped on her as early as 1993 saying she murdered someone in the Clinton administration and subverted a secret service man by making him an accessory.

But the real problem is the programming decisions made by the powers that be. They put the show on tv when they only have 2 or 3 shows 'in the can'. Then they put a special program in that slot after 2 shows, and then when they get back to the show, it is a rerun. Then you watch reruns for 2 or 3 weeks with maybe one new show, and then they interrupt the flow again for some 'special', then you maybe get a few shows and then they interrupt it again for a whole month in December when they think no one is watching, and tease you to please watch us again in January sometime, if you are lucky. With that sort of thing going on it is no wonder no one knows what to watch. A whole new slant on programming needs to happen. They need to get a show all done and then run it week after week until it is done. Then program your specials in between series. Programmers need to understand people are watching in December and January, while we wrap presents, cook holiday meals, and are snow bound by weather.

Commercials also have to be re thought.. We see the same d****n commercials maybe thirty times during a two hour movie. Ninety percent of those commercials are irrelevant to our lives, they have no power to change our buying choices. Repetition does nothing to make them more relevant. Repeating them more frequently does nothing to change our buying choices. Interrupting the program does not make me want to turn in more frequently because I love the show, it only makes me concentrate more on what I am doing instead of the show. Therefore television becomes a background noise to our lives, instead of a time to sit down and enjoy. And don't even get me started on those little inserts they put in right over a program to advertise another program!!!!

If the present system continues, I think television will become the equivalent of today's talk radio. Nothing but low budget shows. Bare minimum programing.

When the government makes laws about what a person can hear about in school, or at the doctor's office, or at a health clinic, or what procedures can be done by doctors; I think the government should be more responsible for their actions. Bristol Palin wasn't even old enough to vote on the issue, and apparently not strong enough to tell her mom she was wrong.

That said, teenagers have been getting pregnant before marriage for centuries and we should face it, and adjust our educational system to reflect that. Longer school days for the kids. More training in baby care and contraception. More money for college educations for all our children. If they all had that to look forward to, fewer would get pregnant.

I miss all the conversations we might have had. Cherish your memories.

I have a daughter in her thirties who was born severely mentally retarded, and I have always found truth in what Edgar Cayce taught and that is children like this are probably here to teach us something. What you learn is probably up to you. This man just learned to cope. Perhaps in his next life he will learn the real joy of having a child like this. I have seen my daughter do things that if a normal child had done it I would have burst with pride. As it is, I make a fool of myself by telling the stories over and over again. Inside my daughter is someone who is wiser and kinder than the best of us.

ps. I'm an atheist.

Your opinions are about as enlightened as his, too. Get a life; take up gardening.

both my boys were teased, taunted, and harassed, in school and out. The schools not only did nothing but many times set up the conditions that fostered the harassment. And we moved around and my sons went to different schools in different states and they were all very similar. The only difference I saw was that in areas that highly valued money and success, the harassment was worse and tolerated by teachers even more. Many of the incidents, physical and verbal, happened in class while the teacher was there. In one school it was a teacher that told my son that he would "have the worst adolescence in the history of man, and that his parents would never be able to understand because we had easy times." This teacher, in my opinion, was not only abusive but historically ignorant.

Thank heavens my kids had some relief and did not get to the point of suicide. My condolences to the parents.