I only had one thing to say about the speech last night. I caught this line near the end:

"We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger, or playing on anyone's fears..."

Whether this applies to gay marriage, the war on terror, whatever - we should quote this line again and again as the elections draw near. Somehow I don't think this spirit of uniting the country will last very long.

Whilst reading this article, from my mouth spewed forth $3.26 worth of my 72% Venezuelen single-origin chocolate. I had been swirling it around my mouth for some minutes, *this* close to identifying the 398th flavor therein, when the article so uproused me.

You dare mention the tagline of M+M in an article about real chocolate? Real chocolate should melt in your hand, and when you neglect to suck every bit of chocolate goodness off your hand and adjust your shirt, that shirt should be ruined. Forever. In fact, I've used M+Ms and Hershey Kisses to remove tough grass stains from my shirt, such an imposter is that chocolate.

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But seriously: I consider dark chocolate to be one of the finest pleasures in life. A single square enjoyed slowly can brighten my whole day. Percentage of cacao, the snap, the shine, the label - none of it matters, just the taste. The only requirement I have is that I moan helplessly when the chocolate starts to melt.

(Actually, the labels, often poorly translated, are part of the fun. One bar's copy starts off: "Deep in the heart of a magic valley, that you can only reach by sea..."_)

I'd highly recommend chocosphere.com to anyone who wants to explore dark chocolate, and I'd doubly recommend trying chocolate with chili in it while you're at it. It's not spicy hot - you won't be reaching for milk/bread - but your mouth heats up, and if you don't feel like reaching for the nearest mouth and ravaging it, you have no soul.

What a frightening dispatch this was.

Someone mentioned here in these letters that they remembered this from television; Frontline did a story on this clinic last year and you can watch it all online.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/clinic/view/

- Jason