DEAR MISS MANNERS: At the risk of sounding political, and that is the furthest thing I wish to do -- is protest mutually exclusive from etiquette?

This dilemma has come up many times during the past few years, and it has caused some heated discussions with my friends.

My position, I could be very wrong, is that I don't mind protesting. Sometimes, I truly do not like the manner in which people choose to protest. For instance, with large graphic pictures and swearing; however, living in a free society, I've learned to accept this.

What I do have trouble with, and this is where my friends and I disagree, is how some protesters engage with the public. For example, giving children graphic pamphlets, telling children they have bad or abusive parents, calling individuals names, commenting on people's apparel, barring people from entering a facility and grabbing at people. I've seen all of these.

My friends say there is no room for etiquette in protest. I think when dealing with people in public one should at least try not to be rude to them. Who is correct?

GENTLE READER: Of course protest, like every other human activity, requires etiquette. Have your friends never heard of civil disobedience?

The saddest thing about using rude tactics is that they damage the causes for which they are used. Rather than the targets thinking that they are being shown a way in which the world would be improved, they focus on the immediate way in which they are being mistreated. These people may claim to want to make the world better, their victims conclude, but are actively making it worse.

Miss Manners would think it obvious that in order to persuade people about an issue of justice they had not considered, you must open their minds to your arguments. People who are humiliated shut down and turn defensive.

But when they see orderly picket lines or sit-ins, or hear speeches or read leaflets and articles by people who seem to be well-intentioned and reasonable, they just might stop to think.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My wife and I were recently invited to a birthday party for a relative. The event was to be black-tie optional. One week prior to the event and after we had responded to the first invitation, we received a second invitation to the same event. The second invitation specified that the dress for the occasion was now casual and the event now had a different theme. Also, the second invitation specifically said no black tie.

Isn't this a breach of etiquette to switch the dress for an event so close to the date and after the date invitees were supposed to respond?

GENTLE READER: Because now you are committed to something that sounds like less fun?

Miss Manners' guess is that the invitees did respond, and rudely at that. She is guessing that they were carrying on about what wonderfully casual people they are and how much they hate to get dressed up until the host gave up and agreed to dumb down what was to have been a festive occasion.

While that is a shame, canceling would suggest that it was dressing up, and not celebrating your relative's birthday, that originally led you to accept.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is there anything short of homicide that I can do to stave off pro-sports fever and its yapping fans?

I am besieged to "pray for" our local sports team, reschedule social events or cancel them outright, stay up all night and listen to 24/7 coverage from the news media, co-workers and a drunk who sidled up to me at a bar.

Last weekend was the final straw. We attended a lovely birthday dinner. At the stroke of 8 p.m., the guests leapt up from the table and stampeded into the living room to watch "THE GAME," leaving the host, who is disabled, and a few stragglers behind at the table.

During commercials, these jerks stampeded back for cake. I was furious and spoke my mind, but soon realized I was making no impression, and I put my cake hole to better use.

Can anything get through to these bores? I take the stance that I am allowed to pay as much attention to pro-sports teams as they pay to me, which is none. Yet people insist on blathering on endlessly about them. Stop the lunacy. I want to get off.

GENTLE READER: It is not hard to discourage people from including you in sports talk. Just inquire politely what sport is played by the team for which they ask you to pray. If that doesn't work, then ask them to explain the rules of the game.

But if your social events are being interrupted and canceled by those who believe that sports events trump all obligations and duties, you need to develop a set of friends who not only practice better manners but share your own interests. You might start with your dinner host and those guests whom you described as stragglers. What were you and they talking about when the others left the room? And why (since Miss Manners presumes that you were not in the midst of telling your host how rude you found his absent guests) did you stop?

You cannot prevent others from having their own interests. But you can eat their cake while they are absent from the room.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: The other day, I was in a bathroom at a restaurant, and to find out whether a stall was occupied, I knocked on the door. The response was a muffled "'Scuse me," which made me look around to see whether I was in someone's way.

What is the proper response to a knock on a bathroom door? My feeling is that the woman had every right to be in that stall, so there should have been no need to excuse herself. My mother taught me to say the very obvious "Someone's in here."

Also, what are your thoughts on looking under the stall door? A little peek at the feet can't be bad, can it?

GENTLE READER: No peeking. People have gotten into serious trouble that way.

Miss Manners is afraid that you believe that apologies necessarily indicate blame. But while the occupant of the stall is obviously blameless, there is no doubt that anyone else who wants to use the stall is being inconvenienced. It is therefore polite to say, "Sorry, I'll be out soon."

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: An old friend of mine was recently incarcerated and, assuming he would like visitors, I will be going to see him in the coming months. This friend lives far away, and under different circumstances we would have met for coffee and updated each other on our lives.

I'm a bit at a loss as how to go about that, or any other sort of polite conversation in this situation.

I realize that his life has gone from bad to worse in recent months, so asking "How have you been?" seems insensitive. It also seems rude to talk about my own life, which I'm happy with.

What are the appropriate questions to ask someone who's a resident of the state? "How's the food?"

GENTLE READER: Ah, no. Not a good one. Neither is "How are they treating you?"

The rule in dealing with sad situations is to let those in them decide whether or how much they want to discuss it. Thus you open with a sympathetic but neutral observation, such as "I've been worried about you" and let your friend direct the conversation.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I recently got married and treated our 250 guests to a five-course dinner, drinks and dancing. We also hosted an after-party, which offered more food, drinks and dancing. We basically threw a party for our family and friends that lasted seven hours.

My career background has always been in the nonprofit sector, and as a result, I believed that my husband and I should have a charity registry for our wedding. We expected that some guests might feel more comfortable giving us a personal gift, and that's fine, but we wanted the focus to be on supporting causes that matter most to us.

The wedding was wonderful and pretty much everyone stayed until the end and had a great time.

It has been a month now since the wedding and nearly half of my guests not only didn't donate to our charities, but they opted to give us nothing at all. The registry was listed on our wedding Web site (as well as our RSVP), so there is really no way they could have missed it. We feel like they just took advantage of the situation and thought we wouldn't notice.

It's not about the gift itself; it's the principle. We really want to write something, but we don't want to be tacky about it. What should we do?

GENTLE READER: Send them a bill for the dinner and drinks?

Chastise them for reneging on a charitable commitment that you so generously made for them without their consent?

This is about the gift, not the principle, Miss Manners must inform you. No principle allows you to charge people for attending your wedding. Wedding presents may be customary, but they are still given voluntarily, at the discretion of the guests.

Your wanting to collect their money for a good cause does not whitewash the situation. You still cannot complain that they owe you for having attended your wedding.

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