Well, if you have the view that Christmas is all about glitter and spending money, I guess you might think New York is the place, but the romantic American Christmas we see portrayed in the movies is in some small snow-covered town, in Vermont maybe, or even Minnesota. And we New Yorkers (I grew up there so I retain the title) have always felt we're missing something, despite that big tree over the skating rink.

So much for the anti-sex feminists in the 70s going around saying that pornography was at best evil men exploiting women desperate for money to put food on the table and at worst rape. The internet has shown us that most pornography is done by willing people, usually not for money but for their own pleasure.

The best joke is not the obvious one, it is when it takes a few seconds (or even a few hours) to percolate in your head until you bust out laughing. Some SNL skits are like this, unfortunately the Paterson skit was a one note joke and taken at the literal level it was saying blind people are incompetent, which is kind of offensive. I say there are no sacred cows in comedy, but comedy directed towards a large audience can't make insulting a whole class of people the only point of the joke.

I'm frankly appauled at the response of Salon readers to this story. It is one thing for a disturbed individual to commit a vicious crime against someone. It is quite another thing for a state to assert deliberately that it has the right to maim someone for life. And it certianly is our concern, maybe not so much as a nation, but as individuals what goes on in other countries.

Having Warren give the invocation falls esentially into the category of words, it's a symbolic thing, it doesn't affect anybody unless you read some kind of meaning into it. I will judge Obama's commitment to LBGT people based on what he accomplishes.

If 2% of the population is gay, I think they were all at the last March on Washington I went to. And if 1% are gay men, I think I've already had sex with most of them.

The most striking difference between humans and other animals is language. This enables humans to interact and form a "collective mind" which we call culture. Language developed with the dawn of man.

Some 5,000 years ago, with the dawn of civilization humans made another great leap forward with writing. Now you could learn directly from people who you never even met, advancing knowledge tremendously.

The next great leap came with the invention of printing and the growth of literacy. Now this collective knowledge became available to ordinary people.

The Internet is truly the next great leap in collective knowledge. The fact there is something lost with each leap is simply the cost of progress. The fact that certain people don't use this in a proper way, that is an unfortunate reality.

That line about homophobia coming out of repressed desires is one that always bothered me because it is an easy answer, something gay people would like to believe and second because in a way it blames the victims (at least repressed ones). But here is the thing, I have never heard even the most liberal heterosexual admit to sexual desires towards a member of their own sex. Although women do occasionally, I have never heard a straight male refer to another male as sexy, except in the most detached manner.

So many people are looking at Obama's election as the end to a struggle. It is not. It is the beginning, the first step and we have a long way to go.

Seems only a few short years ago when a woman was pregnant she would rush out and marry the man, especially if they were planning it anyway, so the child would not be born illegitimate. I think it interesting that Palin and her ilk claim that marriage hasn't changed in the last 5,000 years, when indeed they choose to live by the 21st century mores that are convenient to them, while clinging to the "traditional family values" that suit them.

When a man does something feminine, it lowers his status, or makes him the object of giggling. When a women does something masculine it raises her status, even makes her appear more sexy. Think Marlene Dietrich dressed like a man, vs. Milton Burle in a dress. But, feminists, admit that this is not so much about how society oppresses women, as how society oppresses men.

If this is tokenism, so be it. I am glad to see Obama appeasing the left for a change, instead of the right. All the more reason Obama supporters shouldn't hesitate to disagree with him publicly.

On the positive side, she restated what Obama said in his speech. On the negative side, Obama said it better, and more poetically.

Look at it this way. Yes, this is a bit absurd, but the reason it is done is that it is the ultimately the law that rules this country and all, including the president, must conform to the law. Unfortunately the last administration didn't quite understand this.

I've found that the Sarah Palins of the world hold nothing back on their contempt for intellectuals, in fact, anti-intellectualism is its own form of elitism. On the other hand, intellectuals, and I've known a few, rarely harbor any animosity toward the "common man". They may prefer not to socialize with them, but don't particularly feel threatened and therefore hostile.