I only discovered "More" last year, when I spotted Joan Allen on the cover in a mesmerizing dress, looking absolutely gorgeous... and 47. That's what struck me. They didn't airbrush her into a 25-year-old, they simply allowed her to look 47. As if it wasn't a crime against beauty. And that made me want to open the magazine. I subscribed that night.

But while I don't have nearly the chutzpah and get-up-and-go of 98% of the women in that magazine, that's not the point. It's that being in my 40s should not STOP me from being gorgeous and gutsy and chock-full of chutzpah... and that life is not the exclusive domain of 25-year-olds. I may not do all those things, but I could. For whatever reasons I don't, my age is one of the lesser ones.

That's the real point of "More." That looking 47 should not disqualify a woman from being thought of as beautiful, nor should it stop her from starting a new career or doing anything else that other similar magazines have always reserved for the young.

"Flying the boob-hating skies"? I also don't want to see a man whip out his penis in public... does that make me "penis-hating"? No one hates either boobs or breastfeeding.

Breastmilk is best, absolutely. But in public, there's no reason not to administer said breastmilk from a bottle, if nutrition really is your only concern. We all learn to adapt our behaviors--even the normal, natural, healthy ones--to our surroundings. It's part of being an adult. And not everything we do is appropriate to do in front of people. Doesn't make the activity itself wrong (which is the part you're all not getting), just the context in which it's being done. Just like you don't talk frankly about last night's whoopie-making in front of grandma or your kids... not because whoopie is wrong, but because it's wrong in that context.

Urinating, having sex and changing my feminine products are all normal, natural and healthy activities. That doesn't make it appropriate to do them anywhere, anytime. Some normal, natural, healthy activities--like the ones that involve exposing any body part generally accepted as inappropriate to be exposed in public--should be done in private. That's just common sense, and simple respect for those around you. You might have the right do something (you have the "right" to have sex, for example), but that doesn't mean you also have the right to do it everywhere.

That's really the point. Not that boobs or breastfeeding are offensive and wrong. Both are terrific... where appropriate. A little decorum, people. No one else really needs or wants to experience your bodily functions, "natural and beautiful" (just like sex!!) or not.

No Wesley Clark?! Good GOD, people!!!! He's got it ALL goin' on!!!

And props to those who noticed the criminal absence of Keith Olbermann on Salon's list. I'd like to add Tim Robbins as well. Susan, if you're reading this... should you ever tire of that man, send him my way.

(Oh, and of course Bill Clinton.)

I can't see how a photographer exhibiting works portraying personal issues differs from a writer, poet, musician or painter doing the same. Should we admonish those artists as well, and suggest that, say, Sylvia Plath should have kept her personal feelings to herself, keeping her notebooks full of poetry hidden in a shoebox under the bed? Should we be telling writers it's unseemly to expose the details of their lives in autobiographies, and musicians that we'd prefer to hear lyrics that are not so personal? Of course I'm not saying that *everything* is suitable for public viewing, but that artists shouldn't be discouraged from tasteful expression simply because the subject is personal.

Rest assured that there were photos that Ms Leibovitz DID choose to keep inside the shoebox, and that as a rational, thinking adult, she carefully selected those which did not cross the boundaries of good taste and respect for their subjects. I'm sure she knew Susan Sontag a little better than we did, and thus knew how far she could go; where art would cross the line into disrespect and exploitation.

I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt.

What kind of police state has this country become, where not showing ID upon request is cause for being beaten and electrocuted?! And people nod their heads in agreement?

And I would have screamed my a** off too if four bullies had attacked and electrocuted me simply because I couldn't prove who I was.

Then again, being white, I wouldn't even have been asked.

I can't decide which moronic thought was actually swimming around in that cesspool of a mind before spewing from his mouth. Was it:

a) "Had we stayed in Vietnam longer instead of quitting, we would have succeeded";

or

b) "As long as we don't quit, we'll succeed... just like we did in Vietnam!!"?

I wouldn't put either past him, given his Napoleonic stubbornness AND shameful ignorance of world history.

He still frightens the living daylights--and clearly much of my sanity--out of me.

My actual vote (I figured he was too obscure to mention, but having read more letters about fairly unknown guys, I thought, why not?) goes to Spanish singer/songwriter/musician/producer/activist/painter Alejandro Sanz. Without question the sexiest man God ever created, and with a voice that makes you think of... you know (blush). This guy combines looks, talent, brains, social responsibility and maddening sensuality in a way that...

I need to stop. MARYHADALITTLELAMBLITTLELAMBLITTLELAMB... HitlerchildabuseDerekJeterGeorgeBushAnnCoulter...

Whew. That was close.