After doing 10 years of gyms here in Chicago, I have to say the best policy was that of the first ine I went to, affiliated with a university. They had listed times of when they would be playing certain music in three hour blocks, shifted the rotations every six weeks, and stuck to it.

As I shifted from neighborhood to neighborhood, I experienced the silence of a local Y (you could here the elderly's joints crack), the Thuggin Love soundtrack of a Bally's where they allowed the tykes to play Grand Theft Auto in the playroom, and a gym downtown where it was primarily Cher themed techno. To be honest, I can see why they do the techno...it is for the most part inoffensive, upbeat, and can be tuned out pretty easy when lifting. Now I workout here in hidden suburbia, where people like the classic rock as they sit at the juice bar that serves Doritios, and you can watch others work out.

For the record, the best music to work out to is Bad Religion, NOFX, et. al for cardio, Tool, Sunny Day Real Estate while lifting.

I would like to think Berkley Breathed came back to stripping because the idiocy of this political environment and all the vitriol pulled him back in.

The guy's comic strips have to address this in a roundabout way. I would love to hear how Mr. Owen would use a comic strip to address all the injustice going on in the world. Maybe Hagar the Horrible should start getting into it more with the Moors, and then learn a valuable lesson. Perhaps Dagwood Bumstead should get an Arab neighbor that he eventually warms up to. Maybe they will finally ship Beetle Bailey off to the Sunni Triangle. How does he get to stay on base while eveyrone else has the tours of duty extended?

Bloom county/Outland/Opus were the bain of many small town paper's editors, and still is. The right wing of this country write in every week, and no doubt will this week, railing about how blaspheming God should not be right next to Garfield and influencing the nation's impressionable youth....well, at least the 8% of them that pick up any part of a Sunday paper.

Opus is a different beast then its predecessors, and shows a guy whose world view has probably changed some with the passage of time, and having kids. I would like it there to possibly influence/subvert another generation of youth, just as Bloom County did when I was a kid.

....and for 90% of the poor, it is a choice. The concept of a "food desert" is a valid one for inner city poor who don't have ready access to a market that carries fruit. As small Latin supermercados have sprung up, the problem has become better, but it is still an issue.

However, a vast amount of poor people live outside your stereotypical ghetto belt. The Aldi has vegetables, as does the Food-4-Less, as does the Super Wal-Mart.

We've got no Whole Foods or Wild Oats here in the part of the Hoosier state where we reside. We grow some of our own vegetables, and laugh when we do go to the store, how much better selection we had then when we were young.(Both my wife and I grew up rural poor).

Sometimes, people make bad choices by their own volition, and it ain't The Man's fault.

...and its surpisingly quick moving army of large people and those that love them are up in arms over this one. I have to laugh that I need to accept a group taht for 90-95% of them, their corpulaence is a lifestyle choice(or lack thereof). I have to accept their waddling three abreast down a city sidewalk, blocking egress. I laugh that I should accept that they may need handicapped stickers for their cars.

Most of all, I laugh at this cartoon, and about how we are only now getting disgruntled about giving up our personal liberties to go from Point A to Point B, because we refuse to implement effective and common sense security measures.

Skippy has been trying for a while to be the next Internet sensation. This is just attempt #x- flummox Kerry (not that hard to do by the way).

He has his own little camera crew (who, by the way, had their choice to edit this as they please befor releasing it to the media.) I wouldn't exactly file this under protest, political discourse, or anything that noble. This looks more like an awkward attempt to crash a party, and draw attention to himself.

That said, the cops over-reacted. A TASER is not necessary in this situation. Skippy needs his pressure points manipulated, maybe hog-tied if he won't go quietly, and given a campus ticket for civic disobedience.

If this was such an Orwellian, disturbing police state, you would not be seeing that tape, and Skippy would be in jail, and you would know none the difference.