Not everything will grow the first time and there are many variables--soil, sunshine, and water among them. I am always surprised when people rediscover gardens that are more than ornamental. My parents came of age in the depression and bought a house at the onset of WWII. Our largely post-WWII Cleveland suburb filled out with white ethnic families. Needlessly to say, I grew-up with composting, berry bushes, fruit trees and a predictable abundance of tomatoes and beans. No one could replicate my mother's skill with raspberries, whereas she never had much luck with peaches. Raccoons took out our neighbors corn and we could never predict if we'd see currants or rhubarb. There were always plums, tomatoes and other treats to share and trade. When I lived in Atlanta, almost no one had gardens that were anything other than ornamental (and surprisingly few of those), just one aspect of a place that's mostly for show and short on substance. Although I am condo-bound without a garden, I wouldn't dream of going through a summer without fresh produce and am happy to find it in abundance at farmer's markets in the city and pick your own places around DC.

The Uighurs never really haven't gotten the media attention given, say, to the Tibetan Buddhists. The Tibetans have a charismatic leader who has drawn celebrities toward him. The han Chinese religion oddly is never mentioned--it's a mix of Animism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. There is a lack of consideration of the diversity of religion all around. I used to hear critiques of the Catholics in Northern ireland which neglected that the protestants in Northern ireland were theologically just as conservative (if not more so) and that they were politically more conservative than rank-and-file Catholics and that both the IRA and Protestant paramilitaries were heavily tied to organized crime.

More informed people should blame the Rostow brothers (Walt & Eugene) who were unrepentant defenders of everything we did until their deaths.

I figured Froomkin would wind up someplace like Huffington Post. I've never been a regular reader of that blog although I often follow links to to it, but Froomkin will change this. My guess is that he will increase the range and number of regular readers. It's just too bad he won't have a column everyday.

Somersby is slightly off base. Robinson has criticized the WaPo editorial page group (of which he is part). Dionne is another matter. He very quickly became a beltway creature once he started subbing for Mark Shields on the PBS nNews. You could see him becoming neutered over the course of just a few appearences. His columns were particularly awful in this election cycle as he had succummed to a nasty mancrush on John McCain, along with his fellow pundits. Dionne seems well on his way to becoming Richard Cohen.

the rates have changed from year to year and most of the gains occurred in the 1990s. It's unclear whether the recent changes represent a trend. CDC presents the data in a relatively deadpan way to avoid giving the impression of something more than what appears in the data. I'm sick of reading journalistic accounts written by people who slept through the lecture (usually pdone in every intro social science course and many upper devision ones) where trends in data are explained fiarly concretely to avert the kind of hysteria provided here.

Politico's print advertising seems to come mostly from lobbyists, law firms that are essentially lobbyists and large corporations that spend a fortune on lobbying (and take out lobbyist-style ads in Politico).

Christopher1988 may be a bit strident, but O'Heir really kisses up in this column and there really was no need to allude to the gay rumors. If anything people should complain about that rather than a comment about those rumors. Although we know far too much about the personal lives of celebrities, I never really cared about Spacey he started being coy and taking his Mother to the Oscars. Ironically, my favorite Spacey performances include one where he is perceived as gay (and secretly desired by a man) in "American Beauty" and is clearly gay if not bi ("Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"), which suggest a whole lot about his willingness to cultivate gay rumors, as well as his ability to play in a gay context. In contrast, "big film" about Bobby Darin lies flat like a flounder and he easily became tiresome in his attempt at being a tough guy ("Swimming with the Sharks"). Perhaps, he's better on stage and perhaps his personal life would be less of an issue if he didn't make it so easy for people to guess what actually seems pretty obvious.

Glad to see Glenn mention who started Politico. basically it's a publication owned by a Bush crony whose print advertising comes from lobbyists and boyist law firms. Every article that quotes or paraphrases Politico should not these feastures, much as people will talk about The Nation being left-wing or National Review being conservative.

This is a guy who recently tried to runs someone over in his Corvette. One can only hope that a stake gets driven into his heart (if he has one) to make sure the bastard is dead.

No data, just blathering built around an anecdote designed to gross out a certain number of readers. Given the range of stuff on the net, it's remarkable that this is all Clark-Flory could find to write about which probably says something about how little effect it really has.