The Best Thing I've Read All Year Published on May 04, 2000 Sunday, April 30, 2000 By SHARON UNDERWOOD For the Valley News (White River Junction, VT) Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I've taken enough from you good people. I'm tired of your foolish rhetoric about the "homosexual agenda" and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny. My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay. He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called "fag" incessantly, starting when he was 6. In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn't bear to continue living any longer, that he didn't want to be gay and that he couldn't face a life without dignity. You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don't know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn't put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it's about time you started doing that. At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won't get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don't know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn. If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I'm puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that's not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can? To continue reading, click here: http://www.pop.is/le2e

More on the outcome of yesterday's election: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/us/politics/04elect.html

1. Being honest with myself and my dearest friends 2. New babies in our extended family 3. My sweet sweet momma:)

I'm wondering are you following the Treyvon Martin case? Or lack thereof?

Hi there, I am a mother of a 4yo girl, work part time sometimes full, busy life like a lot of us! I have been wanting to go back to school and get my bachelors for a long time ( I am 29). I have the opportunity to do so now, online, and the motivation to do as well. However I often wonder if employers do hire women who graduate from a bachelors in their thirties? This thought often puts me down and was wondering what others thought or have experienced? Thanks a lot! I am going for a Bachelors in Communications with Marketing, want to get into special events coordinators field!!!

Many of these mistakes are my pet peeves!!! ____ 7 Spelling and Grammar Errors that Make You Look Dumb Don’t let these easy-to-fix spelling and grammar mistakes make you look unprofessional. By: Leslie Ayres, The Real Job Search Guru Many brilliant people have some communication weak spots. Unfortunately, the reality is that written communication is a big part of business, and how you write reflects on you. Poor spelling and grammar can destroy a professional image in an instant. Even if your job doesn't require much business writing, you'll still have emails to send and notes to write. And if you're looking for a job, your cover letters and resumes will likely mean the difference between getting the interview or not. Bad grammar and spelling make a bad impression. Don't let yourself lose an opportunity over a simple spelling or grammar mistake. Here are seven simple grammatical errors that I see consistently in emails, cover letters and resumes. Tip: Make yourself a little card cheat sheet and keep it in your wallet for easy reference. You're / Your The apostrophe means it's a contraction of two words; "you're" is the short version of "you are" (the "a" is dropped), so if your sentence makes sense if you say "you are," then you're good to use you're. "Your" means it belongs to you, it's yours. * You're = if you mean "you are" then use the apostrophe * Your = belonging to you You're going to love your new job! It's / Its This one is confusing, because generally, in addition to being used in contractions, an apostrophe indicates ownership, as in "Dad's new car." But, "it's" is actually the short version of "it is" or "it has." "Its" with no apostrophe means belonging to it. * It's = it is * Its = belonging to it It's important to remember to bring your telephone and its extra battery. They're / Their / There "They're" is a contraction of "they are." "Their" means belonging to them. "There" refers to a place (notice that the word "here" is part of it, which is also a place – so if it says here and there, it's a place). There = a place * They're = they are * Their = belonging to them They're going to miss their teachers when they leave there. Loose / Lose These spellings really don't make much sense, so you just have to remember them. "Loose" is the opposite of tight, and rhymes with goose. "Lose" is the opposite of win, and rhymes with booze. (To show how unpredictable English is, compare another pair of words, "choose" and "chose," which are spelled the same except the initial sound, but pronounced differently. No wonder so many people get it wrong!) * Loose = it's not tight, it's loosey goosey * Lose= "don't lose the hose for the rose" is a way to remember the same spelling but a different pronunciation I never thought I could lose so much weight; now my pants are all loose! Lead / Led Another common but glaring error. "Lead" means you're doing it in the present, and rhymes with deed. "Led" is the past tense of lead, and rhymes with sled. So you can "lead" your current organization, but you "led" the people in your previous job. * Lead = present tense, rhymes with deed * Led = past tense, rhymes with sled My goal is to lead this team to success, just as I led my past teams into winning award after award. A lot / Alot / Allot First the bad news: there is no such word as "alot." "A lot" refers to quantity, and "allot" means to distribute or parcel out. There is a lot of confusion about this one, so I'm going to allot ten minutes to review these rules of grammar. Between you and I This one is widely misused, even by TV news anchors who should know better. In English, we use a different pronoun depending on whether it's the subject or the object of the sentence: I/me, she/her, he/him, they/them. This becomes second nature for us and we rarely make mistakes with the glaring exception of when we have to choose between "you and I" or "you and me." Grammar Girl does a far better job of explaining this than I, but suffice to say that "between you and I" is never correct, and although it is becoming more common, it's kind of like saying "him did a great job." It is glaringly incorrect. The easy rule of thumb is to replace the "you and I" or "you and me" with either "we" or "us" and you'll quickly see which form is right. If "us" works, then use "you and me" and if "we" works, then use "you and I." Between you and me (us), here are the secrets to how you and I (we) can learn to write better. Master these common errors and you'll remove some of the mistakes and red flags that make you look like you have no idea how to speak. Read the article: http://work.lifegoesstrong.com/7-spelling-and-grammar-errors-make-you-look-dumb?utm_source=OB_work&obref=obnetwork