Please, please, please just shut up. Anyone who writes about herself "bursting" on the national scene does not deserve an audience bigger than a select group of indulgent friends.

we will always live in a world where air conditioning is cheap and available! I'd hate to think humanity would be so short-sighted as to construct whole cities in places where the old, the infirm, the spoiled, and the faint of heart could not survive without oil-fired mechanical assistance.

And I liked Broudy's sentiments, too.

cell phones haven't improved peoples' lives so much as they've altered and distorted them in ways that aren't much good at all. The degradation of public spaces, the further erosion of privacy, and the even-greater swelling of the coffers (and the political clout) of the telecom industry don't strike me as unalloyed positives. So why would I want a $600-one-of-those?

Hey! I got an idea! How about Salon initiating an automotive section? I hear Mickey Kaus is available. He and Camille could do a he-said/she-said column about the latest and hottest cars. It'd be cute!

there's no compelling reason to regularly read any writer who ticks you off as much as some commenters here appear to be by Garrison Keillor. You could just, like, ignore him if you wanted.

Where else can readers turn for this kind of analysis? Oh, right. Anywhere.

By george, your critic sounds like the kind of can-do fella who'll somehow manage to prosper when the whole capitalist edifice collapses around us.

Kindly send me his email address so that, come the day, I might swap big pieces of our retirement fund for something equally useful, like shoes or dried beans. Thank you!

I can only assume Ms. Walsh is out to lunch and that she'll remedy this when she gets back.

in the way of follow-up questions from Grist. Any of the Republican candidates would sound cheery and green, too, if they were allowed to mouth the platitudes Richardson does here without being subject to actual scrutiny.

Maybe we can get Jim Kunstler to do the next round.

If Shapiro isn't careful, he'll wake up one morning and he'll have turned into Jake Tapper. Campaign misstatements are not the same as actual voter disenfranchisement, and I know Shapiro didn't mean to suggest he believed they are, but every campaign reporter on the planet eventually begins to trade in precisely that kind of cheap, ill-considered cynicism.

Maybe he needs a break, and should report on some real people for a while.

— aka, the source of, and the solution to, all our problems — when the power plants become too expensive to operate?

Better buy a bike and make friends with some farmers.

and therefore do not have to fly, ever. A lot of people who remember when flying was fun also remember when it was something only rich people could afford to do with any regularity. Me, I expect I'll never get to see Little Rock, what with the price of fuel and all, so it's nice to hear about the waffle house they have there.

The Celtics have demonstrated they can beat all of the teams favored to take them in the post-season, including every one of the vaunted Western Conference juggernauts. The surprises have come from teams like the Wizards (two losses in three days) or Orlando, who have snuck up on them and suckerpunched the Celtics with athleticism and refusal to acknowledge that they're not supposed to win. I have little confidence Mr. Kaufman watched more than the highlight reels of any of the first six games of this series, but the truth is, the Hawks played very, very well in all of their at-home games, and would have notched wins against just about anyone. If we knew who was going to win every contest based on statistics and odds, it wouldn't be much of game, would it?

it could all the trace pharmaceuticals in our water, could it? Or the antidepressants that keep so many middle-aged adults of both sexes from slitting their wrists. Or all the processed foods we ate in bed in our younger days, or the pthalates emitted by the plastic liner in our post-coital showers. Or the cell phone signals. Or the soul-sucking nature of so much of contemporary life.

Paul Fussell's "Class" examined most of these issues through a leftist economic prism years ago, minus all the bullshit about "branding." It's still apt and guaranteed to make every reader cringe with self-recognition.