Mr. Keillor, America is a Judeo-Christian nation. When did you start sounding like Bill O'Reilly? What arrogant peevishness, to humorlessly slug non-Christian Americans with the black boot of the tyrannical majority on top of all the other reminders from Wal-Mart, Fox News, Clear Channel and every major department store in the land.

I happen to love certain aspects of the Christmas tradition, but my heart sinks when one of the best things about this country — the vaunted yet patronized melting pot — is annually shoved aside for a thick, oppressive slab of tacky white dough sprinkled with the mandated red and green until after the New Year.

Mr. Keillor, you remind me of that certain breed of Republican we've been subjected to lately, who, having it all, have not yet gotten out of the habit of complaining about the slights heaped upon them. Go ahead and make your little ginger cookies and sing for the children, comforted by your Santa and your creché. Just be aware that it's you who need that stuff, not I, nor do many millions of citizens who'll be happy to celebrate family and generosity and light and the hope of a new year in their own ways.

So far, this is perhaps the crabbiest holiday season I've ever lived through.

Maybe we're ready to be done with all this crap. I hope I get an orange in my stocking this year.

And you must be an idiot because you can't capitalize.

You're just jealous. :-)

We already have Dooce. Stick to Lake Wobegon.

Debra has funded a career on Salon denigrating "her people" without offering suggestions on how to lift them out. As long as the paychecks from the man keep flowing in...

-- Anonymous

Why is it up to Debra to offer a solution? So we can't describe the way things really are without supplying the means for saving the world?

Why don't YOU offer a solution, Anonymous? But then, if you had a solution instead of just potshots at someone who is at least trying to talk about the problem, you wouldn't likely be anonymous, would you?

It should more accurately have read:

"Dawn Eden, author of a new memoir about chastity, gets frank about why she thinks forsaking sex will make you a better Christian, a better lover and a better friend."

As a decidedly straight woman I never imagined saying something like this, but I would rather go all the way with Rosie than get within spitting distance of Donald Trump's anus-like lips and that pet on his head.

If this is a contest of who has more sex appeal, I'll take the big, healthy, funny, lively Rosie over the bitter, decrepit, Viagra-popping blowhard Trump any day.

Beyond that, if the Donald had any class at all, he would have let Rosie's original comments pass. When you put yourself up as larger than life, you ought to be able to handle a few rotten tomatoes thrown your way. And admit it, she had a point. I love that she has the balls to take him on.

Obesity causes diabetes and cancer. Have fun with that.

-- NYChick

So does bitterness and meanness. You might want to get your colon checked.

...to learn how to spell "Madam."

bilogical roots of beauty/fertility

The evolved biological functions of male/female beauty/fertility are well established and shouldn't be a mystery to anyone. The female hourglass figure goes back to prehistoric times even to privative fertility figurines. Greek goddesses were hourglass shaped. Many of the same proportioning rules apply to men.

[more irrelevant blathering]

-- healthy skeptic

If this is so, smarty-pants, why did fat people (or for that matter, big-hipped men) not die out long, long ago? Please. Enlighten me.