I can tell you that Warren *is* considered very liberal by my friends/family who attend a non-denominatal church. Actually, they don't attend the church, they run it. My uncle's ex-wife (who raised me *after* their divorce, and is an example of everything I like about Christianity - the part about love and really doing well unto others), who is a missionary in Africa, comes from a family of pastors. Anyway, I bring it up because though Warren has made some asinine and hateful comparisons about abortion and homosexuality, he's widely regarded as "liberal" because of his stance on global environmental issues and his work against the spreading of AIDS.

I'm an avowed Atheist, and I was honored to serve as Best Person when my cousin Buffy married her wife over Labor Day. I would rather not have the Inauguration (or court proceedings or my money) mention god at all but I realize that most Americans do not feel that way.

We were talking about Neti pots here, right? I just tried one, and it did make my sinuses feel a whole lot better, but I also kept getting some of the salt water dripping down into the back of my throat. Any way to prevent this? I was also getting some (gross font) bloody stuff coming out, but since part of the reason I started using it was that I was getting nosebleeds, I figure that's maybe to be expected.

re: the whitefont, Hil, it's probably traces of previous events.

I'm reading that HBO didn't choose to cut Bishop Robinson's prayer- they were told by the Obama team to cut it. I'm looking for more solid evidence to support this, so far I'm only finding it on blogs. I haven't watched this yet since I'm at work but it should be video of the prayer.

Hil, it took a couple of tries for me to get the neti pot breathing right. If you keep on breathing in and out through your mouth while pouring the water from the pot through your nasal passages, you can pretty much keep the water from going down your throat. It's when I breath in and stop before breathing out (or out, stop, and in) that the water tends to take unwanted paths.

pouring the water from the pot through your nasal passages, you can pretty much keep the water from going down your throat.

Where is it supposed to go?

Also, gah! I'm afraid a neti pot is not in my future.

Hil, you have to get the right angle to hold your head, which is not just to the side, but also sort of -- slightly -- forward, which also avoids getting water in your throat.

It's icky if you get it in your throat, but you can just spit it out. Apparently there's an "advanced" neti pot technique that involves this very thing.

Where is it supposed to go?

Through your sinuses and out the other nostril.

I was pretty resistant, because of the "ew," but two straight weeks of sinus pain and a few days of nosebleeds convinced me to give it a shot.

Through your sinuses and out the other nostril.

t picturing the logistics, imagining something involving headstands and advanced yoga techniques.

I sense Googling in my future to figure out how this should work.

Despite resistence to everything hippie, I'm a total Neti pot convert. It's disgusting but effective.