BROAD CAST 15 AUGUST 2007

My favorite online response to the Democratic rollover on the FISA regulations (cartoon by This Modern World
-- this is at Salon so you may have to click through the ad to get to this)

And while we're plugging brilliant comics: Lola Granola and Bill the Cat returns (check out the background on the opening panel, and the Opus side-story).

QUIT COMPLAINING -- IT MAY MAKE YOU FEEL WORSE (NOT)
Of course, the headline of this article distorts the findings of a recent study with teenage girls. It's not that sharing your feelings with friends is necessarily "unhelpful and unhealthy", it's all about how the sharing is done. Going over and over negative experiences without having your feelings about it (i.e., intellectualizing), without problem-solving, and without any contradiction by your listener (i.e., sharing with someone who agrees with your pessimism) will not help you to "get over it". But doing the opposite does greatly enhance the healing process. So don't just shut up and take it -- don't "be more like a boy", as the article pointlessly states. Instead, let yourself grieve or be scared, brainstorm solutions or alternative viewpoints, and bond with a friend in the process.

And -- I was asked to submit my photo and URL to a huge listing of : Writers' Websites . Go here and see me on a page with James Joyce.