When the new Salon layout first appeared on my screen, the first thing I noticed is that it can get no narrower than 800 pixels. In these days of the Web on tablets, PDAs, and mobile phones, many people will see Salon on smaller screens. I'm very disappointed that the redesign didn't see fit to take these readers into account. A constant need for horizontal scrolling is a quick way to drive off visitors to a site.

I also miss the attractive customized front page for each section, now replaced by a boring list of articles that can seemingly get no wider than a few hundred pixels. How can I further my reading by browsing the most interesting or classic items in a section if the layout gives no clue as to what they might be?

A redesign should not promote inflexibility and reduce feature availability. I love Salon's content, but having to access it in this new inflexible and unhelpful format makes me much less inclined to explore it.

If you support their right to wear hijab in Egypt in accordance with Egypt's laws -- well, we have such laws here as well and wearing hijab at work is already allowed, because what we wear IS a personal choice in the US. If head-covering religious attire is worn daily it does not even have to be removed for passport photos, let alone for work.

You say we should take a page from the Europeans' book and ride bikes or use electric cars, rather than tax gasoline. But the Europeans also tax gas heavily. The British gas tax is 70% of the fuel cost. Gas is extremely expensive there compared to here. They laugh at us when we complain about expensive gas here.

Yes, we should walk or bike. (I do.) But we should also set up our cities and our gas prices so that this is more feasible, which the Europeans already do. We can't just start acting like them without the necessary infrastructure changes. And we can't get those without money -- something a gas tax could provide.

To whoever said that at least the houses need less heating and cooling: less heating, yes. Less cooling? Nope, temperatures in the Central Valley in the summer are in the 90s-100s often. Not all of the Bay Area is coastal.

Why are you, a Broadsheet writer, asking if America is ready for her? The idea that we need to figure out if America is "ready" for various things -- a black president, a female president, a strong, competitive First Lady -- is totally irrelevant. Either the people are well-suited for the positions or not, either they will win or not. If they don't win, maybe it'll be because they weren't well-suited, or maybe because people couldn't even get to asking that question. But you don't have to participate in that by asking the pre-question "Are we ready?" instead of the real question.

It is obvious from consulting reputable sources (many of which have already been quoted in previous letters) that Nina Planck bases her opinions on "facts" that are not facts, and presents her opinion as fact. The prosecutor in the case stated quite clearly: the problem was starvation, not veganism. To blame veganism is to go too far. A corresponding case would never blame "omnivory". Soy milk states on the package that it is not a formula substitute and should not be fed to infants. These parents had to be utter idiots to ignore this.

A reasonable person could examine facts in this case and conclude that feeding a child a vegan diet requires commitment and knowledge and should not be undertaken lightly. But it's clear that Planck has gone way beyond that in her delight for promoting her position. It is simply false that veganism cannot be healthy for infants and children. The examples may be anecdotal, but Real Vegan Kids (http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/realveganchildren) makes this clear.

There are many questions to ask about this issue, among them "Why are people so willing to believe scaremongering about veganism?" Yours is not one of them. Nina Planck was way out of the limits of appropriate.

You are merely repeating Mrs. Planck's falsehoods to support your own prejudices, which appear to be identical to hers. You may think a vegan diet is not suitable for infants but the American Dietetic Association and American Academy of Pediatrics disagree.

You also show a complete misunderstanding of veganism in putting forth your straw-man position regarding "milk from a human animal". Vegans know that breast milk is the ideal food for a baby. It's even more obvious than that soymilk is not any kind of food for a baby.

Mrs. Planck could have used her real-foods knowledge and position to make the argument that all parents should feed their children real foods, introduced in the appropriate timescale, but instead she went on a screed against veganism. And you followed her. Next time, you should both check your sources and your prejudices before writing.

Rhapsodizing about a miracle food that costs $56 per pound and at the same time admitting you should probably just be eating more tofu and broccoli somehow doesn't make for a very newsworthy article.

What is wrong with all the (mostly) men here who are worried about whether they'll be able to tell if someone is too incapacitated to consent, or whether or not they have consented, so they MIGHT end up being accused of rape if the person regrets the sex and feels vindictive?

If you're in doubt, get her number and call her tomorrow. If she still wants to sleep with you, or even see your face ever again, you'll find out then. If she doesn't, it was never meant to be anyway.

It's really not that tough to figure out.