Mr. Shields; If you have ever gotten to first base with a girl you realize they are different. They are in fact, more human. If we are living in a world of sports metaphores it is also the world of the past. By this I mean that the world no longer depends upon strength, skill, strategy, and team work. Computers make each of us as powerful and as relevant as the next person. There is no need for heroes, but for people who can show up and get the job done. I worked Iron for thirty years, and we had a few fine sister Ironworkers; but to be honest, they would usually do what a man could do while the men did jobs they could not do. I met one young woman whose body was wrecked by weakness and shivers from molybdenum poisoning from welding fumes. Welding saved my back and destroyed he body. The danger is the same for women or men, but a job that requires a man with a sixteen inch collar and a size three hat is going to be done by the boys while the girls hold the roll. And nothing is going to change that. There will always be some cave man with a club to hammer it into place while there will always be a woman telling him where to put it. We can see from the last election that women are as cursed by ambition as men, and just as prone to running off at the mouth with international threats. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that on a small world, all we do gets back to us. And if that means thermo nuclear weapons, then we can all suffer, and all die. We should recognize that from the standpoint of affirmative action there have only been one group of winners, and it has been white females. Are they oppressed, and underpaid? Well, yes; but not so bad as in the third world where the desire to keep their children fed makes absolute slaves of the women while men desert them wholesale. It is children that drive down the price of women's wages. It is women in the work force that drive down the price of men's wages. In my father's generation it was rare for a woman to work out of the home, and now, no home can survive without the wages of women. So where is the benefit across the board? You see; I understand that women are equal and as deserving of creative outlet as men. I understand that that the computer has made women the virtual equal of men. I understand that the concerns of women are human concerns, and valid. But I think jobs paying half as much being done by twice the people while the kids sit home raised by video games and the internet -is really some kind of retrograde progress. Now; with two daughters and a wife, you might say I live in a matriarchy. I sit home worn out and retired while my wife carries the mail. Her organizational skills far surpass my own, and she would have my vote for president any day. But to put reality in some perspective, I teach my daughters that all men are Aholes, myself included, with some of the chunks wore off. It is to help them understand that youth, beauty and testosterone drive this world, and that the difference between the sexes is one which they will always have to negotiate if they do not expect to be used, dismissed, and driven over.

Well, Mark, I guess we all need a little trivia break now and then. Just the same, one of the legitimate criticisms so called conservatives have of us liberal types is our tendency to get hung up on words. ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................
I do think, for the sake of basic educational principles, that a grown man like our president who graduated from Yale ought at least to pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly. Even if he didn't really qualify to get in he should at least have enough gratitude and respect to represent the institution properly after he skated out of there. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Why should anybody with a life need to waste time finding fault with the language used to get across a point, sports-shorthand, gender-influenced or not, if it doesn't model bad pronunciation or grammar for our kids, it is not intended to harm the innocent, it does deliver a coherent message, and the point is well-taken?