What a wonderful article. I think this guy might have actually inspired a whole new fitness movement - among aesthetically unpleasing fat people like myself who are now going to "crowd the gravel paths" if for no other purpose than to piss off disgustingly elitist snobs like Edward McClelland.

In fact, I think I'm going to go out and train for next year's Atlanta Marathon - I'll target a time of about 5 hours even. And, I might even stop off at Krispy Kreme on the way home.

Yes, Dennis Kucinich's present positions are generally positive. But, you did mention the unmitigated disaster that was his term as Cleveland's mayor. I would like to point something out about the decisions Rep. Kucinich made while in office there: He appointed a 24-year old with a grand total of 8 months' experience in finance to be Cleveland's finance director. That is the kind of questionable judgment that led to Michael Brown being named director of FEMA (and you can ask anyone in New Orleans how that worked out for them).

I simply don't trust someone with that kind of history to be President of the United States.

Start strictly enforcing the carry-on size limit. I fly 100,000+ miles a year on business, and NOTHING makes me crazier than to see people hogging the overhead compartment with stuff that quite clearly wouldn't fit into the size-checking bin at the gate. Recently I got stuck on a completely full flight from LGA to ATL having to put my rather small laptop case under the seat reducing my footspace, (a not-inconsiderable thing when you wear size 14 shoes) so as to make room for some inconsiderate moron who somehow escaped the gate agent's attention while bringing on at least three shopping bags, each of which were about the size of a max-legal-size carry-on.

Oh, speaking of the max-legal-size rollaboard carry-ons, ubiquitous among business travelers such as myself: Generally speaking, when they're "expanded", they're not carry-ons anymore, people.

Oh, and make sure there is real food available (for purchase is fine by me) on every flight longer than two hours or so. 2 weeks ago I rode on an ATL-SFO flight that had no actual food available - the best I could get was a three-dollar can of Pringles.

My wife and I have had similar experiences to the author. Five years ago, our daughter was trapped in a failing disaster of a public school. She was placed in the class of one incompetent burned-out teacher after another, and the principal was completely indifferent to what happened educationally, as long as things were orderly. There was a running joke among the parents at her school that the only way to get a meeting with the principal was to send your kid into school with instructions to punch another kid. This was only half in jest - one time, it took a registered letter with open copy to our school district's superintendent and our elected school board member to motivate the principal to return a phone call.

Finally, in utter frustration at the sheer lack of caring on display at our daughter's school, we decided that she was better off being homeschooled - we were practically homeschooling her anyway, trying to fill in the gaps left behind by her public school. Homeschooling worked well for us, and we placed our daughter back in school for High School earlier this month.

Now, we had an educational alternative - our daughter had 2 parents with the time and ability to homeschool her when her public school became too neglectful to ignore. But what of all the other kids stuck in her school who DON'T have such educational alternatives? What happens to them? Are they just screwed?

From Matthew 6:5-6 - "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Unfortunately, I just can't think of a way to reword that so as to make public displays of piety anything other than utterly hypocritical.

Last year, on a flight back to the US from Italy, a woman sitting directly across the aisle from me decided that during the meal service was the PERFECT time to change her baby's diaper. No, she did not use the changing table in the lav that was directly in front of her - she subjected everyone on the plane to the stench of her baby's poop while they were trying to eat. (The texture, flavor and aroma of airline food were not improved by this). Making it worse, she did it AGAIN during the second meal service of the 12-hour flight.

After having experienced that, my only disappointment with how this story worked out is that Southwest apologized afterwards.