Ritalin is methylphenidate, not methamphetamine. If taken as directed, which I have for years for ADHD, it doesn't produce anything like a high. It only enables me to focus. In fact I can sleep after taking it if I want.

Please stop trying to slander people using a medication that helps them. ADHD has serious ramifications for education, social skills, and job productivity. If a medication helps and is taken as directed by a physician, then leave patients alone to try to work with what can be a very disheartening illness.

Speaking of being glad not to have kids (me too), why doesn't Salon with all its parenting articles in the Life section write about how having kids now is looking more and more like cruelty? Bringing kids into an armageddon-like over heated world. Why?

I don't like Mormonism or Scientology, but not because my practice is Zen Buddhism. I don't think that Buddhism is the best religion, it's just best for me personally. What I don't like about Mormonism or Scientology is that they have the cult trait of taking members' money without putting out an annual audited financial statement for the organization.

My little 80 member zen center in Minnesota puts out an annual audited financial statement of all money in and out and the surplus kept in savings. The LDS church never tells their members where the money goes even though they demand 15% of income from each member. Most churches do not demand tithing in order to be a member, they just suggest it.

Thx for the suggested reading Parson Jim. My hometown is mentioned in it. I'm glad. Hiding history is wrong.

I can confirm from growing up there that Edina had policies against Jews and Blacks buying houses. Not during my lifetime that I know of, but I was told as a kid that the city was redlined by real estate agents "in the past". Surprisingly the book excerpt above doesn't mention the role of real estate agents._

When I was a kid we had 1 black family that I know of. They had a kid much younger than I. All black kids in my schools through the years were either adopted or brought in from Cincinnati in a program (A Better Chance, that was the name of it!) to give them a better education. Why they had to move so far for a decent high school is beyond me.

Just for reference, I graduated high school there in 1987.

--Kieran

Not that Wikipedia is infallible, but apparently there isn't consensus about the Holocene. From Wik...

However, the current global warming may result in the Earth becoming warmer than the Eemian Interglacial, which peaked at roughly 125,000 years ago and was warmer than the Holocene.

My HMO pays for trans surgery and therapy. Many company plans will if you are lucky enough to work for a large company. So, whether you agree with it or not, it is already being paid for sometimes in a non-private way.

Also, there are only 1 or 2 trans people per 1000 in the population, although it's difficult to count trans people given the huge societal stigma associated with being trans.

So the medical costs may be smaller than people are imagining.

And, for what it's worth, I'm one of those 5% of the trans population (F to M for me) who doesn't transition. In my case it's purely because I don't want to. I'm not satisfied with the results or the health risks of taking hormones.

I fail to understand why people want to run 26 miles on hard asphalt. There's no health reason to push yourself 26 miles on foot. It's purely an ego thing. Like climbing Mt. Everest, which I don't understand either. Although at least there you get a cool view, if you live.

I agree overpopulation is the main problem and I don't have kids and won't be having them. However, I have seen up close how impossible it will be to get people to voluntarily have zero or one kid. We would have to make it a law, like China, and that brings up civil rights issues.

My brother and his wife have both worked for years as environmental lawyers. He worked on the Exxon Valdez case , wolf habitat, old growth forests, etc. She has been working on getting judges to rule against new coal fired electric plants. She works full-time for a non-profit enviromental law firm. They own a prius and a hybrid SUV.

So they have one 3 year old girl and what do they do? Adopt? no Foster? no She's pregnant again. And this is a couple who didn't enjoy the first pregnancy or the whole infant period very much and had said they probably wouldn't have another kid.

It reminds me of my work 15 years ago with my local Sierra Club chapter. The overpopulation committee chair was a guy with 8 kids. Apparently he saw the light a little too late.

Kind of a metaphor for humanity.

--Kieran

I never like Cary's answers. I'm a very straightforward person, and he's not. I always skip to the readers' input which tends to be logical and concise. Thank-you readers.

Everytime a new hybrid, miny, or electric car becomes available I seriously look into it. However I can still haul my groceries and my dog with just as good or better mileage by buying a Prius, a Corolla or a VW Golf. And the Toyotas will give me outstanding reliability over 200,000 miles.

True the overall green rating of these cars may be worse because of the factories they are built in and the amount of materials in them, but I can't get my dog into a smartcar because having him in the front seat won't work.

And what is it with these NEVs that only do 25 mph? You can't drive around Minneapolis doing 25 unless you want to be rear-ended.

My kingdom for a 65mph, 40 mile range, 4 star safety rating electric car with a back seat and trunk, under $30,000. Is that asking too much?