Since women do volunteer to serve and sometimes die in that service, selective service is an anachronistic herring, as crimson as the blood shed by those women serving.

I feel like I haven't made my point well. It's that when one changes, it compels change in others. For example, if Ms. Clark-Flory replaces her alternator, she's not in the kitchen.

Otherwise, her boyfriend can then fairly assert, "Hey, I just replaced your alternator. It's your turn to work. Din-din, perhaps?"

She'll also develop an understanding of how knuckle-busting much work traditionally assigned to males is. Additionally, she won't have to fret about whether cupcakes undercut her feminism.

I can swing a sledge. I can negotiate rapids. I can also, with great and public pride, make a lovely cake.

I'm not interested in a man who doesn't have equal range. Relationship is partnership. I don't want to partner with a specialist. I need someone who can wear as many hats as I do. If I were going into partnership with 50 people, then we could specialize. But in a partnership of a mere pair, both parties should be generalists for maximum efficacy. Otherwise, you'll end up, as my mother has, with a partner who can't even feed himself when she's not there, which is beyond pathetic. It's ridiculous.

I also feel that my point isn't popular, since most people want others to change. Change is tough. Undertaking physically difficult work for the first time is even tougher, especially if one's hands have been softened by years of letting others do the mechanical labor. You can feel that softness when you shake some women's (and men's) hands. Such fingers remind me of grubs. Those pale, glossy grubs that writhe in rotten logs.

If light and fluffy cupcakes tip your feminism cart, you need to learn how to weld. Literally.

It sounds like your wife and you complement each other without confining each other to traditional spousal roles. Well done. In your mutual ranging, you have developed considerable empathy for each other and the general expectations foisted upon men and women. That empathy is abundantly clear in your posts.

I'm setting up a wilderness trip right now. A young man that I don't know wants to go. These are the questions I asked:

Can he follow directions?

Is he soft?

Can he endure discomfort?

Does he complain?

I'd ask the same questions of a young woman (or an old woman) wanting to go. Some of the toughest people I've known have been women. And I've seen men be bombastic about how hard they are and shrivel when it's time to rise to the challenge. Okay, I'm having a little too much fun with double entendres, but the point is that one never knows how much moxie is in a (wo)man and I encourage all to gain a greater measure of moxie by doing something difficult. And then doing something else difficult. And then something else.

If the Republicans manage to reinstitute the draft for their perpetual war, your argument will grow some fangs. I'd save it for that.

Sure. That's clear. But until registration leads to possible disfigurement and death, it's a matter of filling in a few lines. My point is that your point is dull.

Don't vote for Republicans if you fear a sharpening of your point. They're the Torture Party that's manufacturing tomorrow's terrorists for eternal war.

A bunch of men just left my house, but before they did, I asked them how they felt about having their entire lives affected by Selective Service.

Here's their response: "Huh?"

So, I said, "But it's like rape! Rape! It's like being raped by rhinos!!!"

"No more booze for Bigguns," they said.

Just because histrionics begins with "his" doesn't mean it belongs to you, bud.

YOU'RE so FUNNY! I'm afraid THAT your HUMOR didn't AMUSE redshooz, BUT I think you're A hoot.

Of course, redshooz is also funny. I think redshooz wants us to be offended by "GIRLS." It made me laugh that that was his deepest thrust, with UPPER case letters, OF COURSE!

His reasoning is just...odd. So many non sequiturs.

BTW, redshooz, I think, if McCain is elected and he widens his war into Iran and gets his hundred years of bleeding, amputations, and body bags, that EVERYONE should be subjected to the draft. If you can drive a Hummer and squeeze a trigger, you should go. The draft, of course, should start with McCain voters, young and old, female and male. When all their eyes are blinded and fingers lost and hearts stilled by IEDs, then those who opposed the eternal war can be drafted. That doesn't mean, of course, that they will go.

I'm sorry you ended up with that drama queen in the bush. I ended up with one of those too. Damn, she was loathed. And she probably wondered why no one liked her and why she was never invited again.

So, I should dream that I have so many houses that I can't even count them? Each house burning fossil fuels. Each house accelerating Global Warming. Each house compressing finite topsoil. Each house adding to runoff and thus flooding. Each house contributing to deforestation. Each house increasing loss of habitat for other species.

So, that's the American Dream?

A hot, deforested planet with floods and extinct species?

Great! I'll get right on it! Fire up the bulldozers, boys! Make those chainsaws sing! Die, bunnies, die!

Cindy McCain's father was a drug dealer. Hundreds and perhaps thousands died because of his drug (PAN CEMETERIES). Children became orphans (WEEPING CHILDREN). Wives became widows (WEEPING WOMEN). Livers hardened (DYING PATIENT IN HOSPITAL) as Ms. McCain's heart hardened (LAUGHING CINDY AT COUNTRY CLUB). With all the beer-driven dyin', the only thing that was soft about Sugar Mama McCain and her kept man was easy livin' (MCCAINS BOARDING THEIR PRIVATE JET). 7 houses. Count 'em (SHOW THE SEVEN HOUSES WITH A COUNTING).