Mr.Keillor writes "the woman sitting next to me got up to go see to her child, and then stopped and came back and got her purse out of the stroller and took it with her."

And he thinks it was because she didn't trust him.

Not necessarily. In a public setting like a park, a woman never knows who will come running by, or skating by, or whatever and snatch up that unattended purse and flee with it. She'd be foolish to assume the people around her would be able to stop this from happening - the whole point is that it would be fast. Faster than most people over the age of 20 could react.

Best to just carry the thing with her.

And - about that ludicrously tall, middle-aged man who brought the cute little girl - what? Is he going to abandon the child to run off with some woman's purse? Seriously?

Don't count it out.

The Republicans still control the media and its message. The media also has the serious hots for John McCain. And Republicans have had 8 years of power to work on caging, vote suppression, and putting into place laws that end up disenfranchising people who generally turn out to be Democrats. Plus, where machines (voting and/or vote counting) are used, they make, own, and control them.

Don't forget all those US Attorneys who were basically selected by Karl Rove, and who have followed his orders on prosecuting Democrats just before the election and on fabricating cases of "voter fraud."

The majority of Americans could very well hate the current version of the Republican Party. Will they be able to make their feelings felt at the ballot box?

Maybe not.

Is it true that 'You never see anyone actually using a hypodermic on TV, because they don't want people trying it. ... Also, when you see a person opening a lock with only one tool, that tool is called a "key." '?

Clearly, mr. toon, you've never watched "House." Give it a try - you'll see hypodermics pierce human skin, huge-ass specimen collection probes get hammered into torsos, houses broken into with credit cards, locked filing cabinets breached by going at them from the bottom up, and dangerous prescription narcotics gulped like skittles. People getting cut open with scalpels. Autopsies of pets and lab animals.

I realize that back in the 1960s, there was some rule against showing a hypodermic needle going into a human arm, due to American squeamishness. Now, we eat it up, and cheer on our All-American torturers, too.

Times changed.

Why not limit participation in the Olympics to adults? 18 and up, for example, or possibly even 21 and up?

"Is that what is worthy of the American people?", Senator Obama asks.

Actually it is, given

• the limited and feckless opposition to the illegal election of George Bush the first time
• his re-election (another close one), even though by then anyone should have seen what a power-hungry and incompetent individual he was, and the extent of vote suppression and mis-counting activities that went on in key states, like Ohio

However, Obama is appealing to the better angels of our nature. Will he be disappointed? We'll know by November 5th.

Andrew Bacevich will be on the Bill Moyers show tomorrow night, on PBS:

Is an imperial presidency destroying what America stands for? Bill Moyers sits down with history and international relations expert and former U.S. Army Colonel Andrew J. Bacevich, who identifies three major problems facing our democracy -- the crises of economy, government and militarism -- and calls for a redefinition of the American way of life. "Because of this preoccupation with the presidency," says Bacevich, "the president has become what we have instead of genuine politics, instead of genuine democracy."

(taken from Eric Alterman's Altercation, http://mediamatters.org/altercation/200808140002#6 )

Consult your local listings.

Much of the electorate who voted for Bush assumed that his daddy would be helping him. A frightening percentage of the electorate assumed "George W. Bush" was his daddy, "George H. W. Bush."

Apparently, a lot of Americans are in a coma.

If I understand it correctly - and I expect I'll soon find out if I'm not - any Jew, anywhere in the world, is a citizen of Israel. Therefore, any Jew in the world could theoretically vote in any Israeli election. Therefore, any American Jew is more than entitled to contribute to any Israeli politician.

If this is the case - once again, if I'm wrong, let me know - "American" contributions ought to be kosher (sorry), if they come from Jews. The evangelical Christian contributions are something else, however.

It looks as if Israel is in a situation similar to Northern Ireland many years back - expatriots thousands of miles away, with no real understanding of the situation on the ground, funding groups that, in many respects, just make things worse for the folks actually living there.

"Since the attacks, politicians have mostly tried to avoid seeming like politicians on or around Sept. 11."

Republicans haven't. Don't you remember that "George Bush" guy pushing back the Republican National Convention in 2004 so it would overlap on the sacred Nine One One National Day of Mourning and Being Afraid, and he could re-live his glory minute at Ground Zero? And this year, they're doing it again. It will become a permanent part of the Republican tradition.

I appreciate that many people have been permanently traumatized by the attacks on the World Trade Center, and can never get over it. This isn't about them. It's about the MANY politicians who are still cynically exploiting this trauma.