How much of my understanding of contemporary American culture suffers by my refusal to watch Glenn Beck or read anything about him?

It would be illiberal of me to pass judgment before reading, but this strikes me as ominous:

"African-American writer Ishmael Reed proffers a rowdy, score-settling weigh-in on 'Huckleberry Finn'

Would that be like feminist writer Andrea Dworkin proffers a rowdy, score-settling weigh-in on Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon?

Or conservative theorist Sean Hannity proffers a rowdy, score-settling weigh-in on The New Deal?

The confusion expressed in the public opinion polls is exactly what one should expect from the temporizing, equivocating, mollifying governing approach Obama has taken since assuming office. Okay, so they read the polls that folks were tired of the constant political wars in Washington and the focus groups who told them how much they loved bipartisanship, and they nobly decided to move forward and bring as many elements of the country with them as possible--the military, Wall Street, the Republicans, the independents, the CIA, the progressives, the gun nuts, the Jesus freaks, the home gardeners and the meat-eaters. Great. Nice try. But it isn't working. It's burning up valuable time corralling cats. Eight years of rogue capitalism, constitutional abuses, military miscalculations, intelligence failures, and political game-playing should have been enough, but the president needed another eight months to see for himself. Hopefully he's seen enough, and from here on out we'll see him tap into the growing national rage against military and corporate adventurism and begin to channel it toward a creating a more responsive and accountable government...kinda like the one he promised as a candidate.

This is O'Reilly doing Colbert's Formidable Opponent bit

Joan, if you get called on cable to discuss this this week (and I'm guessing the call has already come in), and some inside the beltway tool (oh like Tina Brown or Bob Woodward) jumps in (as they did on Morning Joe today) to breathe more life into the meme that this virulence comes from both the right and the left, would please call a time out and ask whoever is there on the panel with you to name just one legitimately leftwing attack (legitimate meaning identifiable with elected liberal politicians and commentators rather than ANSWER or Code PInk) that rises to the level (rather sinks to the level) of the Vince Foster murder movement or the birther/death panel conspiracies.

Funny, well written letter...and I know whereof you speak because I lived in one of those idyllic little New Hampshire towns for about 10 years. But you undercut your own case because yes you do live in a pretty homogenous town of 301 and you do spend a lot of your time in the wholesome activities of raising children and raking leaves. But here's the thing, because your life is so effing remote from the lives of all the people you denigrate for their experience with and activism against racism means you don't have a frickin' clue about what they're talking about. And access to the Internet, talk radio, and FOX news doesn't make it otherwise.

Re: Ariel Levy wondered in her book "Female Chauvinist Pigs" how Hefner "reconciled the work she does for women's advancement with her job as head of a company that uses women as decorative inducements to masturbate."

Seriously? Playboy "induces" men to masturbate? Is this Ariel Levy some kind of backwards day genius? No, dear, men want to masturbate, so they buy Playboy. No inducement necessary. And if Playboy wasn't available, a Botticelli or Reubens would do. Even a French postcard. And for the Ray Charleses of my gender, there's always the deep, dark pit of imagination. Though it seems to be the case, maybe Ariel Levy isn't actually against males masturbating; she's just against us masturbating with women in mind. Fair enough. Next time I'll fantasize sheep.

Re: "It's easy being a Republican. It's easy being a conservative. All you have to do is hate government, dismantle as much of it as you can, make it as ineffective and irrelevant as you possible can, handcuff it as much as you possibly can, and then run on its impotence and inability to effect positive change."

I agree, but don't you think the Dems would have just as easy a job--nay, easier, if they ran as outright populists? It's the lowest hanging fruit in the jungle, but check out Joan's ambivalence to Rep. Grayson's Huey Long turn to see how uncomfortable liberals are with that approach...therein lies the elitism...not the failure to feel the pain of the underclass, but the failure to voice the outrage of the underclass in the voice of the underclass (and I'm talking that 95% of the population underclass that's being screwed by rampant corporatism every single day...not the Republican-preferred underclass of the homeless, minorities and illegals). No clearer example exists than the health care debate where the battle should and could be won by legitimately framing it as a have's against the have not's debate, but the Dems have been so cowed by the accusation of engaging in class warfare that they have completely abandoned attacking the rich as a strategy--which is really too bad because it's not just a strategy, it's the war itself...and an easily winnable one if you have the leadership for it. That would not be Clinton, who the RS excerpts show was more about feeling his own pain than anybody else's, and that would not (at this date anyway) be Obama, who's got way too much Hawaii in him and not enough Chicago ("they bring a knife to the fight, we'll bring a gun." Yeah, if only...).