Maybe the local food activists and farmer's market devotees could learn something from the bodegas and corner stores as well. I live in the suburbs and have a car, and it's still hard to get fresh, local produce, unless you can shop at "the right" time of day. (There's no Whole Foods near where I live.) I've always worked one job during the week and another one on Saturdays, and good luck finding a farmer's market that's open in the evenings after work. I finally found a local co-op, but it closes at 6 and doesn't open at all on weekends! At least I have the option of buying produce from the local grocery store, but it's all imported and tastes like cardboard. But whenever I've spoken to any of my foodie friends about it, they just told me to "tell my boss that I need time off to shop at the farmer's market". I had to wonder if any of them had worked a minimum wage job.

I'm sympathetic to the concerns of local farmers and sellers, but it would help if they'd put themselves in the shoes of someone who works 2 or 3 jobs and doesn't get home until 7 pm on the weekdays and works weekends too.

I'm a scientist, although I'm involved with the practical side of science rather than the theoretical. I'm agnostic when it comes to God - I can't say one way or the other, but I think scientists should look at science without reference to God - falling back on an "intelligent designer" whenever the science gets difficult is just lazy, in my opinion.

But I think Collins is wrong if he thinks that the fundamentalist Christian movement will be satisfied by his vision of a moderate God who invented the laws of physics and occasionally pops in to resurrect someone. That the only thing the anti-evolutionists care about is whether Dawkins and a few other scientists say "there is no God", and if those pesky guys would just recant and admit to the possibility of God, everything would be just fine. They aren't going to stop there.

I must have a half dozen copies of "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. It seems to be the gateway drug of choice of the evangelical scientists that I know. But smiling and saying "he makes some interesting points" is not enough. Every one of them has come back to me, again and again and again, with ever more conservative and fundamentalist viewpoints. The only possible end point that would satisfy is conversion to their point of view - a literal reading of the Bible. No amount of moderation will satisfy someone who believes at heart that everyone must think the way that they do, and that the only truth is a literal reading of their holy book.

I'll agree that hell is other people. I'm happy most of the time with my own company, and I think quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to friendship. But life without any human contact can be pretty cold, even for a loner like me. I think it's getting harder and harder to find friends, especially if you don't have a spouse or close family, especially when combined with the relocations that seem to be mandatory in so many job fields. Contact on the internet is great, but not the same.

I'm in my late 30's and not married. But most of the people that I meet are married with kids, and their lives seem to revolve around nothing but kid-related activities. I know life is more hectic now, and I think it's great that parents are involved with their children, but I remember my parents being involved in activities and community groups with other adults, not just soccer games and PTA meetings. Those things seemed to enrich their lives, and they still managed to be good parents. I've found those kinds of community activities harder to find now, especially if you're not into God or sports. I join clubs and take classes and do all those things you're "supposed" to do, and I mostly meet retired people.

I graduated from high school in 1988, and even in my conservative state, we weren't stuck with "abstinence education". Our 1980's textbooks covered birth control and sex ed. I'd rather have those "out of date" textbooks than the new "abstinence only" textbooks used at my former high school today.

Darooha, most of these shows won't start until mid-September, when the new TV season kicks off. Check your Tivo in a few weeks.

I knew a few "corporate wives" that were friends of my mothers. They certainly weren't dumb - they considered it their "job" to enhance their husband's career, and they worked hard at it. There weren't a lot of career options for women at the time they were growing up, and so smart, savvy women of that time might have made the choice to be "corporate wives" rather than having careers of their own.

This division of labor worked out well unless the marriage ended for some reason. Working to enhance your husband's career doesn't get very far in a divorce settlement, or at a job interview when you're trying to get your first job in 40 years. (I think divorce courts now take this into account to some extent, but they didn't back then.) The Forbes article talks about the "benefits" for a man of having a "non-career wife" but it doesn't mention the risks for the wife, if she forgoes a career of her own. She'd better have a very good pre-nup. It's no wonder that most women today don't want to risk it.

q