Now this is one reason I read Salon. Bravo!

It's hard not to like Oprah (she's now on a first name bases), but there's some element to her "cult" that really makes my skin crawl. The first indicaion I received was Oprah's response to Jonathan Franzen's thumbing his nose at her. Heh,heh - in retrospect, it certainly looks like Mr. Franzen was right to to so.

Thanks Salon

Thank you Hillary Frey

Conor Ryan

Oh sigh... Yes, I think it is important to respect and be sensitive to other peoples belief systems. That said, as an atheist, I've encountered discrimination too; some of it really, really strange. Like, I'm wihout deity, therefore I'm in league with Satan - I mean for crying out loud! I don't believe in that either for "heavens" sake. One co-worker is so filled with fear of me because of my atheism, this co-worker has subjected me to some pretty un-christian behavior. Go figure that one out.

When you look at so many issues today, most of them have religion at its base and this is profoundly tragic; because tomorrow the real issue is going to be access to potable water and gobal warming; and all this stuff going on today is going to look pretty small by comparison. It's like my favorite bumper sticker: "I'm a militant agnostic. I don't know and neither do you."

Sick 'n tired of religion...

Conor Ryan

Dang Salon! How do you do it. Now your reading my mind.

I was walking around Cole Valley this very afternoon doing errands 'n things here in good ole' Frisco. Of course, I've noticed the last couple of years there is a baby boom going on right in this neigbhorhood. Then it dawned on me! Babies are the new fashion accessory. SUVs, beamers and Volvos just aren't cutting it anymore. Nope. Now, you gotta have a little humanoid pooper to impress your friends with your economic status.

Shoot, It's a shame Thorstein Velblen isn't around to see this.

Conor

Gore Vidal quoted Tennesse Williams in his book Palimpsest: " An artist dies two deaths, their creative one and then their real one". Sometimes, somewhere that reservoir of pain that enables one to laugh at the sheer absurdity of life somehow just dries up. Maybe it has something to do with becoming successful and then complacent. Or, maybe once the joke has been said once or twice it just no longer flies. But it sure seems comedians don't have a very long shelf life.

Well, then... There you go! You, Mr Mangoo, have answered your own question. I was always a pretty good newspaper reader but pretty much stuck to my San Francisco local rag - (heh,heh) what we used to call the Craminer/Exonicle. But now, with the internet, I'm reading The Guardian, The Independent, The Washington Post, The New York Times - and the list keeps growing. Hey Salon! It was you that recently turned me on the the english version of Der Spiegle, and now I'm reading that too. No doubt it's worrisome that newpapers are having difficulties bringing in the bucks; and hopefully there will be a reasonble resolution. But, dang! The internet has really opened me up to an incredible array of reading material, and has broadened me tremendously. Time to trash the paper - no?

Gawd! my spelling sucks!

My goodness, I hope you're right! The way medicine is practiced in the U.S. is nothing less than iatric extortion. In essence: your health and life or ALL your hard earned money, suckers. It is definately adding insult to injury in the trueist sense - shame on America! Maybe this will be the RX to voter apathy.

Well, of course I'm going to rush out and buy this book. But I must say, reading the thred for this review has been pretty interesting in and of itself. Lot of great input and ideas out there.

I've come to believe that this place we call the universe must somehow resemble a mobius strip, or better yet, a Klein bottle. And all we hominids and fellow life forms are just a bunch of little corpuscle actors swimming around a strange and murky stew.

The only thing we are is actors that do nothing but act; and nothing else... We either act or don't act. And by choosing not to act, we are acting still. Yes, indeed - as the Laura Miller stated at the beginning - we are (heh,heh) DOOMED!!

If I were Anne Lamott's sullen son Sam, I'd be a sullen Sam too.

Aaah! This little posting was so funny! On this Wednesday, I needed this. Thank you.

Just kidding... But actually - except for my herniated disk, aches and pains and accelerating decrepitude - I'm just not as angry and frustrated anymore. I continue to be sad and upset about so many things, but it doesn't clobber me the way it did when I was younger. I have more empathy and compassion. I get over things faster. I don't hold grudges the way I used to. I'm mentally stronger and have a better BS meter. I know how to go away from people that are bad for me; even family members. All that and more...

You lose stuff; you gain stuff; lose stuff and gain more stuff - and not in the material sense either. Everything us just better.

Like most intractable issues, we're dealing here with a witches brew of complexities.

Back in the late nineties, when Clinton was in the Whitehouse, we had relative prosperity that was touching everybody; that, I think, is no longer true. Although the economy is still good for the rich (isn't that always the case), for the rest of us - students, single mothers, families struggling to make ends meet, etc. - things are now beginning to look bleak. Mix in a hot summer, rising energy prices and an indifferent and clueless Bush administration, and you have a recipe for a lot of pent-up rage to begin to overflow.