Thanks Salon for having Mr. Romm on your letterhead. His articles are terrific - positive, informative, committed. I breath a sigh of relief every time I read one, that minds like his are tuned to this most essential problem. And a very big yes to the layering of techniques. Population can be addressed, cars can be retooled, energy transmission enhanced, space for technology can be found. It's not one-size-fits-all.

Now if you could just put Mr. Romm next to La Paglia at the coffee pot and turn on the tape, you'd do this world a great, great service.

"How are we to proceed without Theory?" cries the world's oldest living Bolshevik in Tony Kushner's "Angels in America." "And what have you to offer now, children of this Theory? What have you to offer in its place?"

Well, for starters we could go back to, "Government of the people, by the people and for the people".

Instead of Reagan's,".....of rich people, by rich people and for rich people."

Theory isn't dead. There's a grand old theory at the heart of this country, and "Morning in America" wasn't a part of it. Time to dust off the real thing.

It's called indentured servitude. We fell behind our parents 20-30 years ago. The banks own an increasingly large part of homes which are priced astronomically beyond any possible value. Mega-corporations rake in the rest. Value is an artificial construct, and if it's stretched beyond reason, it starts to lose its appearance of inevitability.

How can houses made of cheaper and cheaper materials skyrocket in price? How can a CEO's daily worth be 100 times that of the average worker? When does the quest for the good life become a lifetime of usury?

(Or, at what point do the Top 1% wonder about the exact value of 20% of paper?)

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

Guess which character is the Republican.

Perhaps the greatest fire wall that the White Man's claim to power has is the insidious and idiotic "one drop" rule. I for one see Obama very clearly as a mix of two races, and that, coupled with his intellect and compassion, makes me feel profoundly included. His message matches his DNA, and it fits the future - in the long run, we will all be mutts. It's a difficult thing to wrap our genes around, but every time we acknowledge a person of mixed heritage as the sum of - or greater than - their parts, we exercise our brains and, by extension, our hearts.

If Barack Obama is the unassailable capital B-Black candidate:

- Are Derek Jeter, Tiger Woods and The Rock total soul brothers?

- Is Sean Lennon solely Japanese, Keanu Reeves Chinese, Rob Schneider Filipino (!) and Ben Kingsley Indian?

- How about Chinese sexpot Jennifer Tilly and Cuban tamale Cameron Diaz.

- And beautiful Ebony-Black Jennifer Beals, Thandie Newton, Lisa Bonet, Maya Rudolph and Halle Berry, not to mention The Crying Game's Jaye Davidson (who brings a whole new spin to the matter).

It's an interesting world.

If a white person can feel included in the message of a half-black man - if that is the functioning window into his soul - it's only one step to feeling connected to all black men. I think that is one of the key ingredients of Obamania - jaw-dropping inclusion. We have a built-in knowledge that we are stronger as a nation precisely because of the strange polyglot Euro-African-Hispanic-Asian-American olio we've come to. It may be one of our truest gifts to the world.

BTW, I would have been very happy for Hillary to be elected too. She's a woman who clearly transcends the limitations claimed for her.

No. Any era defined by Jeff Koon is a bad era. He is a cynical, light-sucking manipulator. The Michael Jackson/Bubbles work is his tell-tale heart. Not one of his "witty, oversize installations" hasn't been done better and with more substance and humanity, by Claes Oldenburg, and long ago.

As for the BHC's - how can it be said any better than "Adam Reacts to Trailor for Beverly Hills Chihuahua"?

Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEbWo3Cxlnw

Said Alice, drowsily, with an absent-minded sort of air. She was just drifting off to a cozy nap, when she spied a white rabbit with pink nose, running through the underbrush.

"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!", said the rabbit, as it pulled out a pocket watch from its vest pocket.

Even though this wasn't so unusual, Alice realized with a start that the rabbit might be some sort of enormous and sanguine metaphor acting upon her own life. What if it were true, she thought, solidly and squarely, although a bit emptily. "And what on earth am I going to write about when Dear Little Hillary moves away?", she cried to her cat.

(With apologies to the divine LC).

that cocksucker George Carlin goes and dies right when we need his piss-and-vinegar attitude more than ever, to rout out the arrogant motherfuckers who've got this cuntry by the tits and balls, and drive them into the fucking ocean.

Double dang. Goodbye old soul.

The slightly sensational title suggested this might be another trumped-up, contrary article about the Dalai Lama, like Louis Bayard's recent one.

It is not. It's a concise and eloquent statement on the non-negotiable value of non-violence. How remarkable to remember that option as the only one in the world that never, never need be off the table.

Thank you.