I have to commend Rob Anderson's selection of War & Peace. There can't be any doubt that this is a work of colossal merit--one of the greatest literary achievements ever (and a damned good read for any head of state contemplating war in a foreign country. Oops--too late!).

If even one War & Peace were among the hundred thousand or so books published annually in the English language, Anderson might have a real argument. True classics are of course, much more rare, and there are any number of marvelous graphic novels, manga, comics and bande dessinees that compare favourably with the usual fare put out every year.

That Anderson doesn't know about them pretty much dooms his argument right from the get-go.

But why do comparisons have to be made? This debate is like fighting about which is better, Missy Elliott or Pavarotti. Nobody cares--good is good, and as Grandma said, it takes all kinds to make a world.

Glad to see the graphic novels making a splash. And it doesn't matter what they are called, either.

Before it became a book title, "don't sweat the small stuff" was just a useful guide, and it still is.

One of life's most important lessons is being able to tell the difference between an irritating inconvenience and a problem.

If you think this is a problem, just wait til you are planning your wedding.

Does it need to be said that people who really have maternal, caring feelings for messed up teenage girls do not try to arrange sado-masochistic group sex with them?

It's called abuse.

LW, have you been abused? Because you are about to turn into an abuser and repeat the cycle. What you are contemplating is an emotionally dishonest and deeply hostile act.

Dear LW/Mother Hen,

Your recent letter says, " my husband is NOT trying to have a relationship beyond friendship with this girl."

Then why does your first letter say, " Part of me wants to tell my husband to broach the subject of a dominant/submissive relationship with her, because he feels pretty strongly that if he did, she would do what he told her to do."

? ? ?

Where does the "feels pretty strongly" part come in, if your husband truly finds this young woman obnoxious?

Either he is playing you, or YOU have a totally screwed up idea about what being maternal means, or both. Because if it's true that your husband has absolutely zero interest in this hot 19 year old girl who is sexually besotted with him (though he "feels pretty strongly" that a dominant/submissive relationship might help her), then what the hell are YOU doing suggesting that the answer to this is for him to enter into a BDSM relationship with her?

You say in your second letter that you were just looking at possible options for trying to help her straighten her life out. You can't be serious.

Because if you are, here's a really good option for helping this girl straighten her life out: you and your lying husband should stay the hell away from her.

Mother Hen indeed.

LW, I am a mother of a grown child who does not like to visit me. As the master himself wrote, "so it goes."

My daughter has a thousand excuses and each of them, taken one at a time, seem pretty good. But it's clear that if she wanted to see me she would. I have had to learn to let go with all the grace I can find (sometimes it is not so graceful, believe me) and hope that one day things will get better. For the first time in my life I understand the parable of the Prodigal Son--which never made the slightest sense when I was a child, or even a young mother with children who always wanted as much of me as they could get. It's different, now that it is me who waits.

Please go and read the words of Danny Boy, every one of them. She is your mother and you are her child, so she will forgive you if you do not go to her. But that doesn't mean she does not yearn for your touch, or your footfall, with all her heart, even if she is in a coma, or in her grave.

Go to her. She hasn't forgotten-she is waiting. This is your last chance.

I never got the ball gag thing. What is supposed to be fun about it?

Meanwhile, the whole dolphin thing sounds pretty fishy.

Also, would a dolphin put a ball gag in its mouth or over its blow-hole?

Dear LW,

You didn't teach your son to walk.

He had to do this himself--and you had to let go. Time to do it again.

I don't understand Cary's advice--that LW has to move because the alternative is kicking out a new mom and baby. LW didn't suggest this--he has offered to let them stay.

Which is more than I would have done.

LW should just stay put and let the new "family" take the next step--like paying expensive legal fees to try to force him out, for instance. My guess is that if they have to undertake an expensive and time-consuming legal action to move their room-mate out (which probably won't be successful), they will cut their losses and look for a new place.

Regardless of any debate over typewriters, the ink is already dry on history's judgment of the Bush years.

What remains is the autopsy of that rotting cadaver curled up in the corner--what we used to call "the press".