Understand that underlying a significant part of the animosity towards Mormon’s (I am LDS) is that pastors of other faiths rely directly on the donations from their congregations to support themselves. When someone converts to the LDS faith, it takes food right off the table of the pastor of these other churches. Follow the money. In the LDS faith, no one is paid, not the pastor, not the bishop, not the missionaries, it is all voluntary and self-funded. If an LDS member chooses to join another faith, there is no animosity, because it doesn’t affect the bottom line of any individual leader. I think the media need to understand how money plays a role in this animosity. They did an inadequate job of reporting the underlying cause of the bigotry toward Mitt.

I remember when the government reassured us that if each US citizen was assigned a social security number, identity theft would not become a problem of epic proportions, as cynics envisioned. They scoffed at those of us who questioned the judgment of such an overly intrusive approach. Now here we are.

I’m not surprised that Meg was supportive of Mitt: he is a financial genius, who graduated valedictorian of his college class, and magna cum laude from Harvard with a double JD/MBA in three years. And his character is impeccable without skeletons, which seems a commodity in very short supply today among politicians.

Sex is the lowest common denominator, but intimacy is different, and that is harder to find. I married as a young virgin at 23, due to religious reasons, and had a magnificent honeymoon. We were friends first, and that has been a constant in our relationship even during the rocky times. We’ve been married for 25 years, and so we’ve had great sex, bad sex, boring sex, charity sex, utilitarian sex, delightful sex, make-up sex, ‘trust me you need this’ sex, no sex, and ‘hurry-the children-are-fighting-downstairs’ sex. I’m finishing my degree in counseling and my mentor and friend is a marriage and sex therapist trained by Dr. David Schnarch, author of Resurrecting Sex. It really does get better as you get older, and that’s what he has found in his research. However, ultimately, it is the intimacy skills, not developed through affairs, that provides the real kick to amazing sex. Seven children later, we are still in love, and have figured out a few things - sex is one of them.

The aspect of truthfulness that is most difficult is candor - telling others what you think they would want to know without being directly asked. This new revelation about Gov. David Patterson saying that he never used taxpayer money to pay for sex, evades the question that the average person would like to know…”did he ever pay for sex?” His lack of candor is evidence of dishonesty. As an ethics educator “candor” is of particular interest to me, and an important component of personal integrity. The exception is having candor with the press, and the government, and anyone else who does not have our best interest at heart.

Landscape painter Robert Carver (1730-1791)

I have a visceral response every time I see the video of Bill Clinton waging his finger in my face and scolding me to believe his lies that he did not have sex with “that woman.” I can feel myself spontaneously flushing with anger and disgust at his deliberate manipulations. But as a mother, I am not as lie-detection savvy as I had hoped I would be. Occasionally, the 9 year old smokes me in a lie, and then, boy, is he in trouble. It’s the angelic face that reels me in. I guess I’m just a sucker for a baby face.

Mr. Spitzer doesn’t just have sexual issues - he’s not narcissistic personality issues. What are the odds that good ol’ Elliott, that no one likes, neither Republican nor Democrat, and I’m talking personally likes, was this big turn on to his wife. Chances are he was a self-righteous jerk at home as well. The advantage for Silda was to have a busy husband who maybe she didn’t have to interact with as much as a woman whose man walks in the door every day at 6 pm. The busyness of their lives most likely allowed there to be a natural distance and separateness that probably worked well for Silda. If he wasn’t around, he wasn’t micro-managing her life, like he has been accused of doing in his professional life. This affair was predictable based on his character trait of exhibiting such contempt for other people. Bill Clinton also exhibits this toxic type of contempt for others, and it leads to self-indulgence and laziness in relationships.

I’m the night owl. I feel amazing from about 10pm until 3-4 am. I work on my books that I’m writing, finish my masters degree on line, and enjoy the quiet house. I crash from about 4m until 11 am or noon, then am up until dinner time, but then have to take a power nap after dinner. It is a crazy schedule, but my body and mind seem to work best this way.

Mrs. Spitzer, appearing at his side, LOOKS, (maybe not “is”) like an an enabler. She looked guilty by association and the natural questions are: Did she drive him too it? She should not have appeared by his side for that reason.

Shirley Temple Black

Yes, I gave up by sanity, and had children, even though I knew I was not cut out to be a mother. i am too high strung, too neurotic, too ambitious, too adventurous, too cerebral to stay home and raise children. So I followed my faith, to be open to the blessing of children (yes, i used birth control and my faith is not against that) and now I have 7 -SEVEN- wonderful children. I did the right thing. I feel like I did and have lost my sanity at times - its was too much both physically (I have a bad back - not good for laundry) and emotionally, but I would have to do it again because of the phenomenal people I have created - funny, smart, tender, creative, exuberant…exhausting. God laughed at my plans to be a lawyer, instead I just finished my masters degree in counseling, online, at home.

I wake up for se, or should I say, I stay up for sex. i am the ultimate night-owl, my husband is up at 6am, and asleep by 10:30 pm. So our biological clocks intersect at about 3:30am - 4am. it’s quite. No one is knocking on our bedroom door. It took us years to figure this out, and now it’s been 25 years, so I think it’s working.

We know someone who published, what we believe to be multiple fake memoirs. The way we figured it out was that his last book was collaborative with my husband. My husband made significant corrections to the text to accurately reflect the sequence of events that he witnessed. When the book was published, the changes had not been made. When he questioned the author, the author replied - It makes a better story this way. My husband was horrified. This man publishes one of the few series of books that are still published after 20 years. It is an astounding record and we suspect many of the stories are pure fabrications. Publishers don’t really want to know the truth if the books sell well. I’m sure they are afraid that the truth is out there lurking somewhere.

The array of sexual diseases alone should be reason enough to say no to legalization. The Bunny Ranch in Nevada says they test their girls once a week. How does that keep help the guys who have sex right after the infected person? The natural design of a sexual encounter: messy, sticky, sloppy, invasive, seems to indicate that “safety” is difficult to impossible. Even Elliott Spitzer desired to have “unsafe” sex. When you factor in “risk homeostasis” that suggests that when people consider that an additional “safety” component like anti-lock brakes, or condoms. that actually increase the risk because people are willing to take on more risk, assuming the activity is now safer, then it is a downward health spiral. If Elliot Spitzer wanted a truly erotic experience, he should have bought himself a book on karma sutra, and then worked to make the experience erotic with his wife. All the money and attention paid to prostitutes would best be used within the family, if for nothing else than IRA’s or children’s college funds. For the super wealthy, then an orphanage in Guatemala would be much better served with the funds. Kirsten could have taken out student loans like the rest of us and put herself through school. She took a toxic route.