"Doormat" was never my style. These ladies both need to figure out who they are, what they want, why they settle for less, and then devise a plan to go out and get what they want. The wife needs to end the marriage in a manner that maintains as much stability and security for her children as possible. Hope she has some inheritance left.

Beautifully said. Liz Smith is an outstanding woman and an example to all. Am so glad she’ll be writing for Parade. And even if it hurts a smidgen to be gone from The Post…I hope she can see it as a hoot.

How many women are beautiful, productive and working at 86, getting the Pink Slip one day and on to another adventure the next. She is completely amazing! She will have a much greater audience at Parada and can set a terrific example for the entire US with her hard work, can-co, forward going attitude. What a gal!

Phyllis, Many thanks for the Susan Sontag quote that I’d forgotten. A horror show is right. The Family Values party is inhuman and insane…and have delivered us all into a castastrophe that I’d also predicted in 2001 when they deregulated derivatives. Which may still plunge us into things we could never have conceived. How can any person with a brain in their heads think that to go from $9T in derivatives—which have no value and are just made-up bets—to over $700T when the world economy is $60T or so can’t see that they built a house of cards economy over quicksand.

The GOP of the last 8years and of today is not a party, it’s an organized psychosis.

-I’m proud to have an intelligent, articulate President as the face of America instead of the criminal-idiot regieme the world suffered for 8-horrific, soul shattering years. And that our Constitution is respected by President Obama.

-It was wonderful to see Congress last night with so many women and people of color filling up the ranks of our lawmakers. And a cabinet and a first 30-days that gives confidence.

-I would love to see a Best Seller perhaps with a companion piece on PBS and study groups in schools, that condensed Thomas Paine’s "Age of Reason" "Common Sense" and "Rights of Man", Emeron’s "Self Reliance", Pico della Mirandolla’s "Oration on the Dignty of Man", Rousseau’s "Social Contract" and Plato’s "Republic."

-I hope that: 1) the Fairness Doctrine is reinstated so that news outlets have a responsibility to the public good. At present the only intelligent news program is Jim Leher’s News Hour. 2) More funding for the National Endowment of the Arts; their annual funding is akin to the price of one fighter jet. 3) Immediate re-regulation of Wall Street and derivatives. 4) people fleeing banks and going to Credit Unions that are strong  and don’t have the obscene pay at the top like banks. 5) Investigations of Wall Street and the Bush  Admin with people held accountable for their crimes. 

-I pray for the return of honor so that insane reprehensibles like Coulter/Rush/Savage etc go by the way of McCarthy and similiar plagues on intelligent society.

-I’d recommend "What Would Google Do?" for all of WDC, and state Govs and business owners. 

- And for pete’s sake get Congressional lawmakers Tweet Deck……none of the them  are working as have become mass addicted to Twitter. And The Olds, AKA the GOP, need to start reading Mashable.com and join the 21st century. Their Dark Ages schtick [as per Chaz Palmentari’s line in "Bullets Over Broadway" stinks like s*it on f**ing  hot ice.] Or even better for them was Diane Weiss’s oft repeated line in the film "Don’t Speak."

Since I live in Carmel…the weather is mostly good year around….the rain we’ve had is welcome and creates it’s own excitement on the coast when it roars in. I go out walking regardless, and indoors have client projects to work on so the sound of the rain is pleasant accompaniment. If I’m out and it’s raining I get two coffees and stop at my friend’s shop on the way back. It has a fairy-tale quality esp in the rain, like a separate world. She has excellent taste, and I love her tales about her father who was a very attractive and much decorated admiral, and her beautiful mother. Photos of them have the kind of magic that can’t be ignored.

The biggest storm danger here in the Del Monte Forest are falling trees, and on the rocks being swept off by rogue waves. Some are concerned about being out and running into the local mountain lion nicknamed "Nice Kitty" that he might be more ornery when uncomfortably wet.  Today….about ten deer were coming out from behind a fence and darting one by one across a twisty blind curve so I stood in the middle and stopped traffic till they were all safely across. That was the big excitement in the un-City…and that the butcher still had roasted rosemary-garlic-lemon chicken left.

Re #1: I was engaged to a man, ring and all, and we’d built a lake house that I’d designed. When the house was finished, I chickened out, and we broke it off. He quickly married a religious nut who lived in one of his apartment buildings and went to Hawaii for the wedding trip to discover she was a real snooze in bed. He called me—from Hawaii—and begged me to consider "Tapper-off sex." I still laugh about that one.

#2. The mother was waaaay out of line, and clearly neither she nor Dark Ages Granny are clear on a little concept called personal boundaries. I’d call a locksmith, put a lock on my door, and leave the Aged One a Hallmark card….on the order of ‘sorry you don’t like it that I’m a Lez, but I refuse to be ashamed of my biology, hope you come around. I love you regardless.’

 On the plus side, even though her mother was wrong, clearly she is accepting and of the ‘Deal with it, Ma’ philosophy that probably came from dealing with the stiff for decades. So I’d try to focus on that affirmative aspect….because it’s kind of impossible to be overtly rude to your Grandma….that’s like a guaranteed stay in Dante’s 3rd Ring of Hell.

I’m not angry, Marjorie. More like cold hard fury in Lily of the Valley’s last post when she demanded for the third time that Wow close out her registration, and with it removed all of her posts from the last 7 or so months. One of the most intelligent, decent, kind, insightful women gone from here. Why? She said she felt betrayed with Joni’s tactic of bringing on her (former?) client, Ann Coulter, and the other rightwing nutjobs like Monica Crowley and Liz Peek. Where are the analogues?? Because that would mean Michael Moore "Stupid White Men" "Farenehite 911" etc. Or Rachel Maddow, Graydon Carter, Al Franken, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert,  Keith Olbermmannl ie give someone on the far Left with national weight and following equal time here. Do you see that?

Apparently Joni doesn’t appreciate my calling her out on her lack of integrity….which is what baiting the nutters with Coulter is, esp when there is no counterweight Michael Moore, etc.

Coulter was a cheerleader for an illegal war that caused over 1 M deaths and 2.4M displaced and along with other GOP thug tactics has bankrupted this country. Where is the responsible heavy-weight national political counterweight to her [Monica Crawley/Liz Peek’s] views?

This week was the 7 month anniversary of my brother’s suicide. He was a completely decent, ultra responsible, quiet, steady as they come, graceful human being. I doubt he ever paid a bill late or utter a swear word out loud. All he cared about was being a provider which meant a beautiful lakefront home with a sail and ski boat, taking the boys and his dog out, and running a multi-million dollar business out of his home so he was always there for his boys. From a kid he was always a money maker, always careful with money, never flashy, always totally self-reliant. More than any other factor he, like the French aristocrat who killed himself over losing all his money and in his client’s in the Madoff scam, are victim’s of the GOP ‘policies’ that caused this melt-down, the same evil policies that the lunatic rightwing types like Coulter have championed.  SHE is responsible like Limbaugh and the others for dumbing down the US populace so that those kinds of scams can go on. Apparently Joni doesn’t approve of my questioning anyone’s integrity who’d be first an agent to that diabolical, evil piece of work for one; and then as the chief of a site for women, not having the counterweight to her views if she wants to bring that garbage here. The kind of garbage that ran Lily of the Valley and other decent women like her off this site.

As far as I am concerned, those lunatics from the right, the ones that even Senator Chuck Hagel (R) detests, are the ones that created the conditions that led to my brother’s suicide. If the market hadn’t been gamed and the floor dropped below him he’d be alive today. He didn’t want to do it. He was ashamed of it, and apologized. But he had given his word on obligations and the way to take care of them on time was his multi-million dollar insurance policy. Obviously a very poor decision in a lifetime of good ones. But as he said in his note, it wasn’t in his nature to fail on his obligations. He was a very witty graceful person who loved life, he even said in his note he’d been a happy person. He even went somewhere alone so noone would be distrubed. He even left a note of apology for the police at the site for making them come out and take care of what he had done, he left them an envelope with all of his papers, and his prepaid cremation information. The evil GOP policies that wrecked the economy—foremost the total deregulation of derivatives—is the #1 reason my brother is dead. If Joni wants to give a platform for the pure evil that is Coulter—-then she should have the editorial integrity to balance that with a nationally recognized figure from the other side.