Like most others here, I was dismayed to read HH's sympathetic "he was asking for it" commentary on the televised assault on Top Chef.

I recall a strong letter from a woman to a Bravo executive describing how upset and anxious for Marcel's safety her 8 year old got as he watched this unfold on the screen. I am very far from 8 years old, but this was upsetting and off-putting even to me. Marcel wasn't "asking for" anything, leave alone assault, least of all from a set of despicable characters much more inferior to him in every way but size.

I am not much of a TV watcher but I accidently discovered TC this Season. As this drama unfolded over the last two weeks, I was baffled/engaged enough to follow some reactions online in various forum/fora (especially TWoP). As an immigrant to the U.S., I was truly gratified to witness Americans' deep-seated revulsion to bullying manifest itself, even when such bullyting comes from the "popular/macho" kids whom the audience had vociferously declared their favorite and oohed and aahed over (am I generalizing too much?). Opinion about Marcel changed overnight - from being perceived as annoying, a majority of the viewers (it seemed) switched sides when the "cool kids" displayed their mean-spirited and crass bullying.

I am glad that "Lord of the Flies" makes such a deep impression and shapes the reactions of so many in such a wonderful way. (The book was referenced many many times in different Marcel vs. lan/Cliff/Sam/Betty discussions in different places.) Clearly HH didn't even bother to read the Cliff notes.

Indira Gandhi was elected Prime Minister in the late 1960's and held that post for nearly 20 years. Being a parliamentary system of government, the Prime Minister, and not the President, is the head of government. President in India is mostly a ceremonial position, with little or no political power.

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all had female heads of governments over several years in the past. It means/says little to nothing at all for the position of women in these societies. All of these women came to power as the daughters/wives/relatives of powerful men and due to some accident of fate. Often, all they (especially Gandhi) did was play a puppet to the men who had "allowed" them to assume the political position while they pulled the strings from behind the screen. Of course, over time IG outgrew this dependence, came into her own and learnt to exercise power through means fair and foul.

Did IG (or even Margaret Thatcher) ever make a statement or a policy that specifically targeted the plight of women? Perhaps because she was of the generation before feminism, but she did not address her female constituents as a woman ever.

I don't agree with this President's policies and I am not a huge fan of this administration BUT I feel like coming to the President's (partial) defense in this case. If you read the full article, it sounds like he made an off-the-cuff remark (I am not saying that it was appropriate) but when he realized the little girl's distress, he did his best to cheer her up. I found the description of his subsequent efforts (described more fully in the original website) to comfort the girl quite sweet.

When there are so many substantive issues to pick upon, lets not dilute the message by picking on anyone - even GWB - unfairly and trivially.

I enjoy your columns a lot but was slightly dismayed by the implicit message (re population decline) of the latest one.

A few weeks back I attended a series of immensely interesting and informative lectures by Professor Joel Cohen delivered at Boston University. The lectures were based on a life-time of work in the area of demography. His conclusions were NOT similar to yours, at least where the foreseeable decline in world population is concerned.

You state: "The message of those figures is that, in the foreseeable future, global population totals will begin to decline."

The term "foreseeable future" is vague enough but suggests greater imminence than what Dr. Cohen led me to believe. According to his data, things are bleak (even though we in the western world largely live in ignorance of the scale of bleakness and depravation that a majority of the world population faces on a daily basis) and will get much bleaker before we see the population stabilizing, leave alone declining.

Here is Professor Cohen's website. Even skimming through his presentation slides (if he makes them available) will offer many a sobering pause.

http://www.rockefeller.edu/research/abstract.php?id=23