Rowyna wrote:

Back in the day a huge percentage of Americans were farmers (just think about how many of you can say that one of your grandparents/great-grandparents was a farmer). Now, it is an incredibly small percentage of people producing a massive amount of food.

That is what the so called "Green Revolution" has wrought: a concentration of food production (and wealth) from the many to the few. I believe that many in this country, and certainly in less industrialized nations, would return to farming if they no longer had to face the unfair competition of agribusiness, so I don't worry that we won't be able to find the labour to go back to more sustainable farming. If there is anything this world has in abundance, after all, it is people.

It is dismantling agribusiness that is going to be the big problem. This is a lucrative business with powerful political connections. We may be in a food crisis, but Monsanto, Cargill, et all are doing record business. They won't change willingly.

And, of course, there's wonderful stuff on the Internet, but go to a site like tmz.com and read any thread and you will despair.

The Internet is like a big bazaar. It's got something for everyone. So what if there are places you don't like? Avoid them then! It's up to you, which is of course what makes it so liberating.

The print media, on the other hand, is more like a Wal Mart. You get what they wish to give you, no more, no less. It is "family safe" with all their bland thingys made in China.

I'm not afraid of the bazaar. It's smells and noises are the smells and noises of real freedom. It seems to me that those who decry the wildness of the Internet are very much afraid of real democracy, which is messy at best.

During the 1999-2000 EPL season, West Ham United player Paolo Di Canio opted to stop play rather than put the ball into an empty net in a match against Everton. Everton 'keeper Paul Gerrard had been injured on the play and Di Canio had every right to continue on, but he didn't.

It is often the case that soccer players stop play if a player is injured. In this case it cost West Ham, a modest side, a sure goal against a good club.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/1682501.stm

The fact that sportsmanship is not necessarily a "girl thing" doesn't in any way diminish what the two softball players did. Sportsmanship is not a sign of lack of competitiveness. It is a sign of confidence in one's own ability to play the game.

... the "Here's some beer money to have a beer with me" plan?

Well put. What you are talking about of course is The Golden Rule. It really amazes me how many people I know preach it, yet support this war. How can one explain this? First, there is American Exceptionalism. We are somehow different, more virtuous, good; that's the attitude, anyway. Thus, we will succeed where historically all else have failed, if only those damn hippies would stop stabbing us in the back. Second, if you demonize and dehumanize the "enemy" ("islamofascists", "jihadists", "terrorists", "ragheads", etc.) then they become "different" and what applies to us, virtuous beings that we are, couldn't possibly apply to them.

Both of these attitudes blind our senses and render us vulnerable to the logical fallacy you point out and worse.

Again, your example was spot on.

What a bizarre interpretation. You also demonstration the bigotry of the Left as Lebanon is slowly but surely dismantled by Iran's allies. Iran's fingerprints are all over the problems in Iraq and Gaza.

I see. It's all Iran's fault. Hezbollah was formed from whole cloth by Iran; its formation didn't have anything to do at all with the occupation of Lebanon by Israel. Oh no! And Lebanon (a country cobbled together by France and Great Britain from Syrian parts) is not falling apart because it has repeatedly been attacked by Israel. That couldn't possibly be why. And the problems in Gaza have nothing to do with Israel's occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, and Israel's annexation of all the best parts thereof. These people would have meekly accepted the humiliating attacks on their sovereignty if only Iran would quit their meddlesome meddling!

Damn. What willful blindness. Who's the bigot here?

Kathleen Parker's OpEd is so obviously bad and contemptible that I wonder if it isn't a good thing, by making the Post's position crystal clear to the meanest understanding. There simply cannot be any claim that the Post's editors are fair and balanced, to use an abused term (or maybe they are Fair and Balanced™?)