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I thought that you were in the pic with your kids. They are too cute! I love this photo.

Yep, I own a house in the city and if you are lucky enough to afford a house then everything else is much, much cheaper. A friend of mine sold her house and moved to a small town because she thought that she would enjoy clean air and a slower pace of life. She is now car-dependent and all her groceries cost much, much more. I think she pays more for property taxes and utilities but I am not sure. She is also kind of lonely because pretty well everybody out there is married and has a family. There isn't any cafe-life. People stay at home. She's been trying to talk us into moving up there but I have always lived downtown and am used to this way of life. And I like to shop.

I don't think that it works that way; I think the drunk driver gets charged with a double death. Afterall, if a man shoots and kills a man who has just jumped off a building in order to commit suicide before the guy hits the ground the shooter can be charged with homicide. At least I think that is what somebody said on Law & Order....

Thanks for posting this picture. You are too cute!

I walk or take public transit. This is easy for me because I live in the centre of a large city.

Alex, I believe that I am deeply in love with you and I regret that I already have a mate. You are a wonderful man. I will go along with almost anything you suggest.:rolleyes You just have to name it, baby.

Well, I feel that the rights of the individual who is already alive and fully sentient trump those of the "pre-born" as you folks like to say.

I love R&R. This is where we get to debate the important topics and ideally learn something new while doing so. I find this to be intellectually very stimulating and I doubt that I would be visiting WLS near as much if this arena wasn't here.

Yep, I am suffering from some kind of weirdness. I cannot access any posts from my email anymore. I click, wait and then I am told that this page cannot be displayed. Because of some kind of error or whatever.............?

I vet all my calls because of the telemarketers. I agree that they are annoying and up here in Canada we do not have the option of Do Not Call, alas! You tell 'em you are not interested thank you very much and they simply persist in trying to flog whatever it is that they are trying to sell. Have they never heard that No means No!?! Telemarketers! Ugh!!

Falwell was a gasbag.

I still fail to see the point which you are attempting to make. Why should these women who have ended up with unintended pregnancies be forced to follow through with them instead of having the option of an early abortion?

Well, if this is true then what is your complaint about these individuals resorting to abortions? As you must know, more and more women who shouldn't have children are opting to keep them once they are born. This is because society is much more relaxed about unwed mothers - a good thing, I figure - and because there are some women who feel that society expects that they must keep their kiddies.

Two comments on this: one, your info, Gadget, is usually culled from Right to Life sites and thus will show a certain bias; two, it is the less sexually sophisticated individual who is more likely to be trapped in an unwanted and potentially disasterous pregnancy. I have always been under the understanding that it is those women who are inclined to feel a certain degree of guilt about recognising that they are choosing to be sexually active who are most likely to be careless about taking care of birth control business. The notion of these grrls seems to be that if they simply allow themselves to be carried away by the passion of the moment then they cannot be considered to fall into the category of sluts. Of course they are playing a game of sexual Russian roulette. All of this makes sense if you have been taught that sex is taboo and yet you find yourself, by virtue of your hard-wiring feeling, feeling kinda lusty. To ensure that you are protected from pregnancy is to acknowledge that you are indeed a dirty grrl and that you plan to involve yourself in forbidden activities. Individuals who are not prepared to acknowledge that they are have sexual desires figure that by avoiding taking responsibility for themselves with respect for birth control they will not appear to be complicit in this dirty act - either to themselves or to their sexual partners. This is a game of self-delusion and it is born out of guilt.

Yippee!!! That was one nasty brat!

It seems to me that a child may sometimes have to be disciplined in public. If a child is acting out in public then something must be done in order to make the child stop her unpleasant behaviour ASAP. Of course this can usually be done by removing the kid from the premises where she is misbehaving and then administering some sort of discipline or punishment. I tend to think that the best punishments are the ones that fit the crime. If for instance the kid is ruining a movie or a family meal, one of the parents can remove the kid and take him home. The kid then learns that if he doesn't behave he doesn't get to see the end of the movie or finish his dinner. This may be a drag for the parent on the short term but the parent will win on the long term for she will have a well-behaved kid who doesn't act out or make scenes. This is teaching the kid all about cause and effect, a useful rule of life. Sometimes a child may have to be disciplined in public. She will suffer humiliation, of course, but this will be part of the punishment. And I can understand why a parent might swat a very young child on the butt for a serious offense. I suspect that with a very tiny child this may be the only way to get its attention after all other means have failed. But understand this: a swat on the butt is a long, long way from falling into the category of a beating. Although I don't have kids I have watched a lot of people raise theirs and one thing that I have noted is that kids seem to require order, consistency, and rules. They will complain about the rules and will try to bend or break them but they do seem to need the discipline and the order. Spoiled, indulged kids don't do all that well on the long term. My friends who have spoiled and indulged their children are people who have wanted their children to love them and to regard them as their best friends, not as parents. Of course the truth is that this ain't going to happen, and nor should it happen. We are of different generations and we have, moreover, in this delicate parental-child thing, different roles to play. Lines must be drawn and respected, I think. The nicest and happiest kids that I know are the ones who are raised by parents who are both loving but who also set rules and are consistent in applying these. These are the kids which will thrive in adult society.

Omigawd! Canada is the best part of the site, eh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:faint:

Write her a cheque and tell her to figure it out. That's my advice.

Read his manifesto and loved it. I even bookmarked it. Thanks, Derrick.

Abortion is generally used as a last resort for women who have found themselves pregnant.

Monday sucks. Tuesday might be better.

:welcomeB: Uh, yes, it does.... So that's where you guys get your fancy bananas from! Well, I'll be a:deadhorse: (I was looking for a horse's behind but couldn't find one. )

Thanks, Mark, those are splendid words and I will pass them on to my niece. And you and Laurend are right. I really shouldn't feel sorry for these men. They must be prepared shoulder the responsibility for their fun; afterall, we women have to.

Yep, I tend to agree with you, Laurend, in theory. This business does become somewhat trickier with respect to human relationships when your partner insists that she is on the Pill. I am of another generation. When I was young women did seem to be more inclined to take care of sexual business. None of us wanted the stigma or the hassle of an unwanted pregnancy and the pill was available. We all had sex and we were all on the Pill. There does, however, seem to be a different culture out there. Young women, often ones who haven't even finished highschool, seem to want to have babies. That they are often still living at home, don't have jobs or are working at minimum wage, and aren't in stable relationships doesn't seem to bother them at all. My own niece did everything back to front. She got pregnant and had her child while she was in her early 20s. She has since gone back to university in order to be able to teach. This has been tough for her because she is a single mother. She is now finishing off her university work at the age of 31. She is now overweight and she has a child. She is worrying about finding a teaching job, about her child who has been diagnosed with severe dyslexia, and about ever meeting a man. Her sister and her brother went to university, got degrees in engineering, found mates, married, have careers and own property. One of them has just had a daughter. They are both younger than she is. Their lives have progressed much more smoothly than hers has. This makes me sad on her behalf for I am enormously fond of her.

As for the guy thing, I still strongly believe that women must have the final say for, afterall, it is the woman who carries the burden of the pregnancy and who may be left alone to raise her child. But I do feel that when a man has been trapped into fathering an unwanted child he should have some protection. Until I retired I worked mostly with men. I was shocked at how many of the young ones were paying child support to former girlfriends and how often they told me the same story which runs along the following lines: he would be going out with a girl for a few months, have unprotected sex with her because he had been assured that she was taking care of business only to have her announce that she was pregnant. My niece went out with a guy. He ejaculated at the mouth of her vagina. She found herself pregnant, and decided to keep the baby. When the child was two the father began to visit her from time to time up until the day he got married. His new wife then insisted that he cut off relations with his child. He never told his family about his child; they were a traditional Italian family and would disapprove, he said. When my niece decided that she would phone his parents in order to tell them about their granddaughter they told her they wanted nothing to do with the child. My niece tells me that my great niece, now 7, is dejected that she doesn't see her father. He is good about paying his child support. This is where I find myself in a bit of a quandary. I love my niece and her daughter and yet I do feel sorry for this guy. He had lousy sex and now he is on the hook financially for many years to come.