Our endless fascination with body hair is no doubt bound up with our social environment, but also with our naked primate instincts. How we do it and what we do with it and how it communicates is as natural as being startled by snakes or attacted to ripe fruit. We all do to varying degrees and that variability helps to insure we all don't compete for the very same thing, which would be boring and the difference enhances our survival advantage which is confered upon us by our diversity. Cheers to that and cheers to variety. Keeping me wondering is almost as good as keeping me surprised and delighted.

I wonder what constitutes "real deal" for Joe. If he means "she's not a country club politician trying to pull one over on the electorate like McCain" then I suppose he's right. But if he means "she's a genuine leader and qualified candidate for president" I really have to question his judgement...and his personal life record suggests we should. If he means "she's totally swept up in the euphoria of a populist movement just like me" then he's right, but another think they have in common is a very shallow understanding of what populist movements in history have brought to reality...and that's instablility and some pretty scarey social movements. So Joe, you might be right but you are SO wrong.

You begin this piece with "By now we all know what's in store for us if we continue on our emissions-happy path:"...and since I had a feeling you weren't going to conclude that statement with something plausible like; "the earth's plants will produce abundantly and a possible devastating ice age will be averted" so then I guess I'd have to say "no, we don't all know what's in store for us if we continue...blah blah blah." Certainly geologists are certainly right about the existence of methane hydrate depostits and there is evidence that some of these deposits have erupted in the not too distant past...and yet somehow the planet avoided the predicted inferno of greenhouse caused warming. Why aren't we finding out more about that? How about an indepth investigation of the climate's complexity instead of the junior high school level power point presentation on the most rudimentary effect of what have erroneously called "greenhouse gases".

Really? Did he think Obama was going to mandate that everyone eat locally and order some draconian measures as if he was the president of Zimbabwe, so a few foreward visionaries would feel better even if the entire house of card collapses?

I'm all for the de-industrialization of our agriculture and a new direction for our culture's eating habits, but I doubt they'd match Pollan's. Regardless of who's way is the best or the one I like best, the best way to approach it is by educating ourselves from a variety of sources and make decisions that affect us in practical ways. I shudder to think of an administration tinkering with a system that while it may need a lot of improvement is actually providng food and services to our over-populated world. Leadership often reaches for the brass ring but let's hope it's not attached to our noses.

People do this all the time but with Obama it's particularly noteworthy; seeing in him what we oh so want to see. He's been consistently a central-position bridge builder, which I like but he wasn't my first choice. So I compromised and I'm not unhappy even though he's not in line with what I'd like to see in the way of priorities or on his stated position regarding a wide swath of issues. What did his gay supporters (or his anti-war, or anti-big busines, or his environmental, ant-nuke, feminist supporters for that matter) really think they were going to get? Everyone is so opposed to labelling people and stereotyping them,but it sure seems like his dissappointed supporters were doing exactly that; "oh,he's a black urban professional with credentials such that..blah, blah, blah."

Well the process of changing the country's mind takes something the adamant have a hard time accepting: patience. Change can be a bitter pill and those who thought Obama's winning would be oh so sweet should get read for a stream of ideology breaking decisions. Be happy at least that the captain of the ship of state is at least attempting to take our nation to a destination where there's a chance for the the changes we hope to see, even when the seas get a little rough.

I do like watching it, though even Di Laurentis' magnificent sensual mane and Ray's unbridled exhuberance can be a bit distracting from time to time, but it's probably cuz I was brought up watching old Julia Child in static-rich black and white on public TV...arrrrr, talk about man hands. Ah, remember those days? Gosh, McLuhan might have been on to something.