Of course it is about the women. The government couldn’t enforce this if women didn’t comply. What are they going to do, put every woman with more than one child in prison? The social pressure from other women on these women to practice infanticide is enormous. Women often hate themselves and pass that hate right on to their daughters whether they raise them or drown them in a bucket. And they don’t care if their sons don’t marry, they want the sons to support them. If they want more children, they can have them. But they will find that just as in the U.S. and other nations, one’s standard of living, unless you are very wealthy, decreases with each child.

As for Senator Clinton helping a constituent, people, get a civics lesson. That is exactly what every member of Congress would do. And the constituent gave a check to the Clinton Foundation—well, he couldn’t give that much to her in the form of a campaign contribution but constituents do give campaign contributions, too. It is called access. And that it how this and any previous member of Congress does business. She did nothing wrong. Your understanding of the system as it really is is wrong. If you don’t like it, get your Congress member to pass legislation banning campaign contributions and a law that specifically prevents a spouse in public life or politics from benefiting from a member of Congress’ actions.

A true Texan would have made Blair House available. A “hick” would share his own home. Bush’s rudeness is just his inability to relate to the needs of other people. Please don’t confuse this with being a Texan.

One of the most important ways to help any woman have control over her own body is to talk about what happens to women’s bodies. This has got to get more coverage. I wonder how many American emergency rooms see this situation. Are they required to report it as the child abuse that it is? Sure it violates federal law but what are the practical implications of enforcement? It usually isn’t in the network newscasts, is it? Why not a weekly update/special report every night on the network news—why not make an issue of it? How many federal foreign aid dollars go to countries that practice this torture? Secretary Clinton will certainly have it on her radar.

Hillary did not lose the vote, she lost the caucuses. That was an organizational problem, the staff’s problem. The management’s problem. It was going to be difficult to get Clinton supporters and voters to attend caucuses if they were not organized to do so. The problem is the staff that could not get the caucus votes out. The candidate got the initial voters out. If I were the candidate and my staff didn’t have a plan for this, I would have fired them, too. They didn’t do their job and even if they were friends, they weren’t clear about what the job was all about.

Well, the world isn’t separated. Teach the kids and quit fooling around with education. The brain is the brain and if you get into this “different” ways of learning it is marching us right down the road to we don’t have to teach them anything because they are girls crap.

Cheated? What an odd word. I think male editors have really got to get a new angle on this—we aren’t talking Eliot Spitzer and “stand by your man,” are we? Elizabeth is ill. Couldn’t he have waited? In the middle of a presidential campaign? She knew. She had to have known. What a mediocre person. The mainstream media? What does that mean anymore? This will be on everyone’s lips during the convention. It will overshadow the whole silly staged affair. Idiotic protestors protesting the party isn’t liberal enough while it is so liberal as to have one of its candidates who should be speaking about poverty talking about the poverty of his character screwing around on his cancer ravaged, dead child grieving wife while he has a baby with a healthier, physically healthier woman. What an ego maniac. How can he be taken seriously? She may be gravely ill and dying in public while he seeks immortality in the arms of a woman of less substance and a little baby no less. Poor Elizabeth. She is a class act and the compelling politician. Him? He is so perfectly average.

Liz Smith is correct—the nation is going to hell on a sled and Obama can only talk about himself. However, the New Yorker would not carry Cindy McCain with pills. That isn’t satire. That is mean. Betty Ford and pills is mean. Pat Nixon and pills is mean. Roselyn Carter and depression is mean. Satire is a form of humor that isn’t the cheap shot—it is making fun of those who are so stupid as to really think that radicals would run for president. Obama and Michelle are about as radical as desert before dinner, cocktails for dessert. The real irony is the people doing the screaming about the cover probably never read the New Yorker. It is fairly obvious that Obama never had. And the people who do are probably voting for him. They are amused by the Obama as radical cover. The irony is all those yelling “boo” never defended the Clintons when they were the butt of New Yorker jokes. But Bill and Hill just don’t pout like Obamas. Of course the thin skinned Obama would think I was talking trash about his lips rather than is obvious lack of a sense of humor where it does the most good. We should all have a sense of humor about ourselves. His comment that it offended Muslims was really idiotic. It was making fun of people who thought that something was dangerous about Obama having Muslim relatives or ties. Who cares. Does anyone really think that Southern Baptist still support slavery? Keep writing. It matters. Unless of course you offend Obama’s “fans” (“supporters” won’t do) then they will want you to stop using your freedom of expression. Jaye Ramsey Sutter

When we political scientists are writing about this campaign, we should write about the sexism and misogyny and considerable “old boyism” by the press, the Democratic and Republican parties. It was ugly. And Senator Clinton would have been the nominee had the press not hated her so much they would buy Senator Obama’s lie that the Clintons played the race card. President Clinton’s office is in Harlem. Senator Kennedy was more concerned that Senator Clinton somehow, in his mind, was disrespectful of President Kennedy by stating factually that it took President Johnson to pass the Civil Rights Act. The press didn’t know any better or care to look at the reality of the situation. Senator Obama said in Oregon that he had visited 57 states. If he is tired, what is he doing to do when he is president and tired? What is he going to do to pass a legislative agenda as president when he never was the point man for legislation as a Senator. The media believes that racism is evil but uses sexism at ever opportunity. Racism is evil, but pointing out that someone is not experienced has nothing to do with racism.

J.S. Mill’s On Liberty did it for me. I knew I wanted to teach political thought after reading Mill. The romance of trying on ideas and discussing what was written then and what it means now is still thrilling 25 years later.

My husband had the surgery in San Francisco last year. It saved his life. He lost 170 pounds this passed year. No more diabetes. No more sleep apnea. He is happier, healthier, more alive. Our insurance company did not pay for it but would pay for all the medication he needed while overweight. They would pay for the heart attack he was working toward. But they wouldn’t help us save his life.

I marched against Reagan and nuclear weapons while I was in college. Everyone should do something like that when they are young, or old, or passionate. I vote, I write, I speak-out today. I teach at a college so I can discuss ideas and books and writing with people. Active still and more effective than marching.