Thanks. Out of the grey with you!

Thanks! Unfortunately zzyzzxs doesn't feel the same and has been deleting all of my subsequent comments! It's funny, I thought I once heard someone say,

I don't know you, but I assume you're a participant in these boards because you're a relatively open-minded person interested in furthering your understanding about yourself and the world through informed debate.

I'm sorry if my use of personal anecdotes detracted from the level of rhetoric (I must have gotten that idea from some commenter above talking about their cousin's unusual name! My bad!). It was my intention to illustrate that a name that seems "controversial" or "limits future prospects" in one environment might…

I'm sorry if my use of personal anecdote has distracted from the issue at hand or diminished the debate. I did not intend to insinuate racism on your part (you'll notice that I was referring to the judge in the case), but rather that we ALL harbor biases, and when we have a knee-jerk reaction to, say, a name, it's…

Yup. Incidentally, I have a friend with knee-length, super healthy, "virgin," blond hair, which is apparently worth about $5k should she ever decide to sell it. She considers it her emergency fund.

I used our personal situation to indicate that what is common and acceptable in one place is uncommon and unacceptable in other places. Where you live, there may not be many people named "Messiah." But in other places, there are plenty of them. If it's a name that makes you uncomfortable, maybe you should ask…

I don't understand why your kids would have problems if they moved to a Muslim country, by the way, so I would relax. And I see no reason why they'd have problems in the Midwest. We're dealing with a different level of weird here.

My kids have Indian names, two of which have religious connotations though we are not religious. They might choose to move to a predominantly Muslim country and face a lot of prejudice. They might move to the Midwest and face a lot of prejudice. But we thought it was more important to choose names that we loved and…

I worked with a woman whose name was Malassia (pronounced and intended to be "Mellissa"). Her mother was a nearly illiterate teenager when she was born. A potential employer COULD dismiss her resume with the assumption that she herself was uneducated and unfit to work (and I'm sure some did). Or they could…

There is legal precedent for changing names deemed abusive. But this is a fairly common name (more common than my kids' names in this country); what this judge did was a violation of the family's rights.

There is legal precedent for changing names deemed abusive. But changing a name (which is actually a fairly common one, more common than my kids' names) because of religious bias is a violation of the family's rights.

Dude. My sister has that stomach and does no work at all. And she's had two kids and eats constantly. It isn't fairrrrrrrrr.

After traveling to India and getting used to using water to wash my bum, I could never go back to scraping my sensitive bootay with a dry piece of tissue. I mean - if you got poo on your leg, would you just wipe it off with some tp and be done with it (please say no)?! We keep a cup handy in the bathroom - in an…

larger eyes, bigger heads, fatter stumpier limbs

I think the shape is pretty (especially the back), but the free-floating lace on the booty is a little weird.

• Animal farming has a pretty high carbon footprint, even when you're not eating the animals (ie, dairy farms, laying chickens, etc.). A plant-based diet is much more sustainable on so many levels, including land and water use, energy intensity, etc.

I cringed at this thread too. I have three kids and private school (for which the going rate around here is 35-50K/year) is cost-prohibitive for me, and I'm committed to public education and to fixing the system from inside as much as possible. But if one of my kids was having issues or not being served and all my…

I wear the Aerie bras and I like them (I need the foam for hiding post-nursing nipples that can put an eye out. Through a sweater.) - I don't need much in the way of support as a small A, but they're pretty comfortable. They have a good strapless too.

Try an Indian jewelry shop if you have one near you. I see a lot of designs like this in Indian jewelry, and though lots of it is super-blingy real stuff, you can also usually fine some pretty well-made fakes.