If we are not to judge an entire group by the obnoxious behavior of some in the group (and I agree we should not do so), exactly how do you justify your title, Mr. Lind? And the thesis of your--well, I can't really call it an article--propaganda piece?

I have told this story before, and there are plenty of other people on this thread countering your assertions. Nevertheless.

I am a white male born and raised in Mississippi. I am a NATIVE, got that? And I grew up during the Civil Rights movement. Until the newspapers starting printing the obvious lies of the Citizens' Councils (even the name was a lie) and encouraging murder, I loved my state.

I attended a small Baptist college in Clinton, Mississippi, for a while called, simply enough, Mississippi College. It was primarily a staging ground for young preachers. Old and New Testament were required courses.

I was a student there when JFK was assassinated. Some have pointed out that he was not the most powerful white influence on Civil Rights, accurately enough, but he and his brother Bobby sent the troops in to enforce the desegregation of the University of Mississippi, and white racists hated him.

On the day of his assassination, I wandered across the campus in shock. No doubt there were others as horrified as I was. But what I overheard, everywhere I went, was jubilation and glee. The president of the U. S. had been murdered, and these supposed Christians were celebrating the murder.

These were the young men who were to become pastors of churches, and in that sexist time, the young women who were to be their wives.

Yes, there are good people in the south. There were then. But the good people do not control the politics, and have not been successful in stopping the lies, hatred, and nastiness.

This is just more bait and switch. Yah, yah, you guys are just as bad as we are, nah nah nah nah.

I am happy to call myself a liberal, not because I am under the illusion that there is any group of people without its share of the violent and insane, but because so far the "liberals" do not institutionalize the violence and the insanity and call it policy and evenhanded discussion.

Don't you dare lecture me about the decent people in the South, good buddy. I was there. I remember.

Let me propose another reason for the general obliviousness to philosophy in babies: stupid cultural assumptions.

This stupid cultural assumption is that "philosophy" is abstract stuff which has nothing to do with how things actually work. Admittedly, quite a few modern pseudo-philosophers are responsible for propagating the stupid assumption. But in fact, philosophy is PRECISELY the attempt to figure out how things work. As such, it is the most practical intellectual enterprise going. Just how the hell do we think babies DO figure out the world they're born into? Just what the hell do we think their brains are FOR?

A great deal of what passes for scientific study--intending no disrespect to the researchers--is necessarily the invalidation of stupid cultural assumptions. If one has not made the assumptions in the first place, as I and many others did not make the assumption about babies, then the "results" of the study will have been obvious for quite some time.

I don't get it. Is "Glock"--revelatory name, huh?--trying to point out that Jackson Lee's questioner was so loony-toons she didn't know the difference between Mars and the Moon? (It all happened on her tv, so I guess it all happened in the same place.)

Or is there some ironic subtext I'm missing?

Agree with the sentiment. However, the word is "apropos." Phonetically you are correct. The final "s" is not pronounced, since the word originates from a French phrase.

The nutballs are up early today. I don't have much to add to your observations, other than to note the incredibly condescending "joke" by one of your correspondents that the lines for digital tv converters are longer than the lines for health-care at the free clinic.

What a convincing evocation of empathy. Reminds me of the way bigots used to slur blacks in Mississippi in the 60s. Wonder if there's any connection?

Anyway, just couldn't bear to let the letters thread be all hatred and attacks, though I am sure others like me will be posting soon.

Every person who gets ripped off by the current medical system is a vote against it. If the system is fair, the rightwingers don't have a thing to worry about. If it isn't, sooner or later, the profiteers will destroy themselves, and all the lies and ranting in the world won't be able to do a thing about it.

Fictional crazy can be diverting. Real crazy is boring as hell.

Suspect the popularity of fictional crazy is because the culture has maintained the spurious identification of craziness with imagination so long few can tell the difference any more.

Reason and imagination are not opposites, but complements.

Real crazy is not imaginative, but repetitive. Monotonous. Says the same damn things over and over. Real crazy is not infrequently the mind fleeing from imagination as well as from reason.

On tv, you can drink all night and stay slender and attractive and functional. The results are not the same in actual life.

For the record, I agree with you completely about Blood Simple. A few of us have grown up familiar with the nature of violence, greed, and death (not, I will add, entirely a desirable way to grow up), and we do not need the smirking reminders of those who bring us disgusting bloodiness, as if they themselves have personally discovered this awesome thing, like children proudly offering a fistful of feces.