One, I agree absolutely that spanking is counter-productive and brutal. It makes no sense. Of all the people I know, the ones who were spanked have the most emotional problems, least of all with authority.

But making a law about it, and even worse, attempting to enforce it, is the dumbest idea I have ever come across. Well, no, invading Iraq was the dumbest idea, but this is right up there.

Cast your mind back to the days when the majority of the population smoked. That was really stupid, but it was an idea that needed a lot of information to be absorbed for the social consensus to change. After a minority of the population smoked, and the horrible effects of tobacco were well understood, then some laws, like banning smoking in restaurants, and taxing cigarettes to pay for medical care and so on, became viable ways to further reduce the smoking rate in the population, while still keeping the majority in favor of such laws, and capable of being enforced by the non-smokers, essentially. If someone lit up in a non-smoking section, non-smokers would complain, and the owner would have no realistic choice but to ask the smoker to butt out.

For spanking, I think that the education itself hasn't happened. Isn't it odd that we have popular books and TV experts on animals, where the peaceful approach is lauded, the sort of "alpha leader" who is a "horse whisperer," is immediately understood by the general public, yet the foolish idea that you can "discipline" a child by causing him pain and humiliation continues to be popular.

So, start with some education programs. Figure out a way to help people to understand that not spanking does not mean permissivenesss, that "child-whispering" and being an "alpha male or female" with your children is the ONLY real way you get human beings at the end of an upbringing.

(Yeah, exceptions are probably okay. Everybody I know has at least paddled their kids if they've done something really stupid, like run out on the street. The anger and disapproval, and the alarm in your look, are probably what actually works, but a swat isn't going to be misinterpreted, the way a continual reliance on the paddle, the belt or the hand is, inevitably.)

I saw the commercial when it aired, and thought the usual thing: back when the ads on the Superbowl were a new phenomenon, a found cultural object, they were worth watching because they were surprising. Now they don't surprise anymore. Now they all use predictable tricks to sell to its young male jock audience.

Now, when I saw it, I didn't instantly find it objectionable. It actually did make fun of the macho reaction to the "accidental kiss," though it seemed awfully labored. No straight guy would do a stunt like biting into the other end of a candy bar unless Charlize Theron was on the other end. So the initial gag was, you can't resist the Snickers -- even at the risk of gay -- aah! Any accidental contact with another guy's lips will necessitate a cleansing ritual involving self-inflicted pain.

And my initial reaction to the objections to the ad were, "Oh, come on. it was just a stupid ad." But then I visited the web site, now taken down. Seen in its totality, it becomes painfully clear that the whole macho football culture was engaged in this. They're the people that find it funny, because it makes them react the same way the football players did. For them, it's funny in the same way that horror movies are funny. You react instinctively and violently, and then you laugh to reestablish your cool.

I'm losing the thread of the advertising here: do they not want gays to eat Snickers bars? Do they want their market to be strictly gay-phobic athletics fans? I think that's what Masterfoods -- what a creepy name -- realized, belatedly. This kind of strategy elected W twice by appealing to a base and then isolating and ridiculing anybody who objected, but it's no way to sell chocolate bars.

And alternately, there's no way I'm taking my social thinking from what sells sickeningly-sweet, gooey brown things.

Right? He fired two bloggers because they SWORE. On the basis of the research of a woman who wants Muslims to be put in concentration camps.

What a dope Edwards is. This caving is just what Hillary is being accused of on the war vote.

Except for the dumb use of the loaded word "uppity" in the HEADLINE, not the article, it was an interesting look at a politician's growth. He got wiped out in the primary on the South Side because he wasn't being authentic, and because his race against Bobby Rush didn't have a theme except his ambition. But he has an inner well of creativity, and in the next years, he found it.

I think there's a lot of interesting moments of growth sketched out here. Obama is black, but he's not a race man. He's not hiding his race, and he's certainly not ashamed of it. I think that's the reason he's attracting a wide range of support, including a lot of white and fairly conservative support for a liberal politician, is because he points to a day when race will finally stop being the elephant in the room of American politics. In that way, in his effect on people, he's very akin to Tiger Woods.

Paglia induces insanity, obviously, because she is fundamentally so confused and iditotic. Camille, meet William Donohue, head of the Catholic League.

I will not fall for the bait. This is my last letter here, as what you will say is only food for trolls.

I'm getting surer and surer I'm not renewing my sub to Salon, as it seems to be getting the Slate disease.