Sure, it takes less effort to apply super-fertilizer to half-decent soil, but you have to keep doing it because you make the soil worse and worse with every crop. Organic matter builds soil rather than depleting it. My question is, what happens to this model when this fact is accounted for? Before we even GET to the inherent problems of monocultural, factory-style production.

And whoa there, aveutter. That's a really fat question you're begging about Republicans being better for small businesses. They've been about as good for small business as they have been for small government. A lot of mouth work leading up to election day, followed by complete sabotage of what they claim to stand for.

KCB, exactly what evidence do you have that your sex will come out in droves to vote for Hillary based on this Maya Angelou ad? First of all, there is nothing wrong with the ad (except did Angelou just call Hillary "the breast president"?!). It is completely fair, truthful, cloying schmaltz. Just like everything Maya Angelou ever wrote. Obviously, she is not a favorite of mine, but if you already like her and you already like Hillary, this ad will make you feel really good. It's great PR, but I don't think it will convince a single person to vote a different way.

Why do you? Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Full disclosure: As an Ohio-raised, middle-class, middle-aged mother, I am by rights a Hillary voter, but I'm not one. Because I don't think I can sit through another long Maya Angelou poem during the inauguration. Give me Toni Morrison anyday! (But please, I beg you, not Oprah.)

This is not about the ethics of reproductive choice. The issue here is that by exercising individual choice based on systemic restrictive circumstances, families are helping create a massive systemic imbalance.

Regardless of your politics, I'm sure you can see that a population imbalance of this scale could cause major problems for a society and a government - but making a speech about how shameful it is for families to act in their own self-interest does not change the systemic restrictive circumstances to which people are reacting, and of which this "shame" is merely a natural side-effect.

Of course, I am assuming you are posting this rhetorical gem in good faith, but I am sure you will correct me if I'm wrong.

Maybe there's a transitional hybrid solution. The Prius of agriculture? And surely if you're not destroying the soil with every crop, you're going to need less fertilizer, right? Maybe the basic model is flawed, by not accounting for this fact, but I'm not smart enough to see whether it is or not.

The thing that strikes me most is that modeling like this views the whole thing as a system, but in reality it doesn't really function like one. Not an efficient, well-thought-out one anyway. I wonder what happens if the model is re-worked to create several diversified food microsystems instead of devoting huge swaths of land to growing wheat for the world. I agree; I'd like to hear from more experts about how to make this work - and soon.

to figure out that $25 to $30 for the whole summer "holiday" is practically nothing. Wow, if you have two kids, you might be able to drive your family to the MacDonald's drive-thru - and get a milkshake for every single person! - with all that extra cashola. What an awesome vacation THAT would be!

It really doesn't take much thinking to see how stupid this idea is, and I think it is going to backfire on Clinton.

I cannot even tell you how f word sick I am of people who have never been pregnant (or who have, and managed to avoid some of the more unpleasant side effects) telling me what is and is not real. I've never seen a dogmanned sitcom about pregnancy cravings, but let me tell you, if you ever actually HAVE ONE, you will be sorry you opened your piehole about how it's all in our cute little heads. Some of these cravings are truly scary. The story of driving half an hour for a particular banana split is frighteningly familiar.

The midwife for my first pregnancy had never had children, and was a Seventh-Day Adventist raw-food vegan. She thought morning sickness was caused by poor nutrition. I love her dearly to this day, but that is just wrong. YOU try eating a carrot while you're barfing and see how you like it! I tried, believe me. I tried desperately to eat those fresh veggies. Unfortunately, many of the "nutrients" everyone wanted me to eat are actually, you know, natural pesticides. You might not think heavily salted french fries are an adequate substitute for steamed baby spinach, but it's not as though I had a choice in the matter. In case you're not aware of this, vomiting several times a day is not actually good for a person.

And there is absolutely nothing novel or cute about pregnancy cravings. There are medieval Jewish prayers including petitions that pregnant wives will not crave anything that is non-kosher.

Or is it just that the people who think this is important are actually still IN kindergarten, emotionally speaking?