GK the thrice-married laments the proliferation of serial monogamy?? What's the point of this column, exactly?

I think Garrison Keillor ... one of my favorite authors, is having trouble accepting reality. Yes, I think back in the day people were to grow up and have children, it's what they did. I'm not sure if anyone really questioned it, it was social responsibility, you grew up, you voted, you had children. Marriage and children were the end be all be all justification for existance. And honestly, I would have to say we were sucsessful. We have almost 8 billion people on the planet and climbing. So we have smaller families and gradually the focus becomes more shifted on ourselves, and honestly, why not? We can not live for our children. Hell, as a chemist listening to people crunch the numbers on how screwed we are on our natural resources, you start to realize we already have too many damn people, how can we justify living for children. Sometimes I'm starting to think that people moreso these days are having children for THEIR benifit and not the childs. It's dissected to the experience of being a parent, and less the experience of being a child. The children are there to amuse them, love them back, give them unconditional love that they may or may not get from their partner ... at least for 18 years ... or beyond for those parents that REALLY can't let go. All those crappy rushed relationships to get children, all those older single women who become quite desperate to conceive regardless off whoever is in the picture. Some extreme forcing men to be fathers when they either never really wanted to be in the first place, OR were not ready at this stage of their lives. Who benefits from all this madness ... in some strage sort of way the parents.

he's going to get his feelings hurt. really, do you think posting his email address and talking about his personal marital failures was fair? i can only HOPE that this was some sort of email chain letter thing saying, "flame this guy!". please think again. it's enough. from my own experience, not all possible people, just the people i've known, 1) children are the center of the lives of people who have them. 2) No One can comprehend the loves of others, that goes for nascar, tulips, children, specific mates, strawberry ice cream, whatever. 3) sterotypes hurt if they are directed at the group you belong to; they are nothing much to the people who give them. hardly ever are they meant truly maliciously. you *should* tell them that it is unfair and hurtful but, 4) flame wars can escalate to the point where communication becomes impossible. you can make mistakes. i did. early on i saw a sensible post, one i liked. then i looked down to see it signed, ktwdawg. we had a flame war and each of us said unforgiveable things. if you read this, ktw, let's forget it. ok?

And GK could have brought it around with one more paragraph or so. But he didn't, and Salon's editors didn't make him, and the whole thing comes off as a slapdash unfunny homo- and xeno- questionable mess.

Given Salon's penchant in the past for editing after appearance, why don't Salon and GK just fix the article, apologize for being hasty or sloppy or whatever, and let everyone move on? I can't imagine that GK's intent was to piss people off, but he did. So fix it already, OK?

GK, what's your point? Some of the letter writers here say it is a joke or satire. It sure didn't come across that way, and I'm not about to read your article a second time.

I wasn't sure whether your column was written by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly or Jerry Falwell.

Keillor states that the world would be better served without parents who operate as a stereotypical gay male, and precludes this stereotype with another on how he sees a typical gay male:

"The country has come to accept stereotypical gay men -- sardonic fellows with fussy hair who live in over-decorated apartments with a striped sofa and a small weird dog and who worship campy performers and go in for flamboyance now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as couples and daddies, however, the flamboyance may have to be brought under control. Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear chartreuse pants and black polka-dot shirts. That's for the kids. It's their show."

Now there are some who have commented that Keillor is operating within the permissable bounds of satire within this article, but I find that very hard to believe. This is an opinion piece, and an ugly one at that. I am not even going into how he told a group of elementary school students (who were first generation immigrants) that "back in the day, we were cowboys and rode horses." That would be a bit too easy. But, for argument's sake let me just say in an overly, effeminate fashion, "Talk about wrong colors and standing in the background!"

I do believe Keillor made an effective argument for the frivolous use of U. S. funds, but to believe his statements on homosexuality and how "we all used to be cowboys" reflects an unseen, sideways humor would be "to look, like a fish, for a hole in the net," as the Somoan proverb goes. Of course, my proverb comes off a bit more colorful, without the requisite "whoopi-ti-yi-yo" or "clip-clops and whinnies" of my Cowboy ancestors. What can I say? Our writer from Lake Wobegon, has simply run his river dry to this American.

If you, or anyone you know, has a question about how "off the mark" Keiller's statements are, then send them my way. I have a copy of Huckleberry Finn on the floor - a work by a true American satirist, and one who would reply to Keillor with a bit more sass than I.

In my opinion, I believe Keiller's Lake Wobegon tales are fixed upon the Reaganomics of his time. Fortunately, like the Cold War, the wall has come down, and slights of government policy simply don't cut the mustard in contemporary American humor, which has moved beyond the dull knives of Small Town, America to the razor blades and machetes of Flarfists, Eminem, and yours truly.