I clicked the link to the interview with Joanne Borgella because I wanted to see a fat beauty. I wanted to believe. OK, she is nice looking, though I've known women who were fatter AND more beautiful. What got me was her size: 16! Mamma mia, I'm a 16 who also wears 18 and I'm not fat. I'm nearly 6 feet tall, so I'm just larger in all dimensions proportionally. It's all in the proportions, baby.

--J.Hy

who supports the concept of beauty for all large women, whether fat or tall or just large all around.

I read Stephanie Zacharek's review hoping to know how the movie portrayed Mark Bingham, but no mention of Mark.

"Now you cannot change this

And you can't erase this

You can't pretend this is not the truth"

It sounds as though humans haven't really evolved on gender issues in our lifetimes. We have changed laws to enshrine gender equality, gotten women elected around the globe, rewritten textbooks, and celebrated Women's History Month every March. Doesn't seem to have made a dent in the age-old bias in favor of the masculine.

Margaret Thatcher maintained a grip on power for 11 years by being tougher than any man since Oliver Cromwell. No woman has ever come close to being president of the USA. Only Geraldine Ferraro has gotten within shouting distance. I question why machismo remains so dominant within the USA. This country does not lack strong, smart, capable women. I think what it lacks is human evolution. Several other countries around the world are more advanced than us when it comes to trusting women as leaders.

I'll say one thing for Ms. Straight and her carnivorous clan who have stepped out of the pages of Jean Auel: Another reminder of why I like being vegetarian. Straight's verbal deconstruction of fast food is some hard-hitting prose. She just made me realize I never go near any of that stuff, how many culinary bullets I have dodged this way. What I've been missing.

I'm a feminist who has always cringed at misogynist humor-- but this looks different. Maddox openly admits the jig is up for machismo, and that's the reason for making fun with it--to make it easier for guys to say goodbye to it. That's it's so far gone, they might as well have fun with the memory as it recedes into the past.

Maddox sounds sanguine that his readers are all in on the joke as he laughs his way to the bank. Well, I sure hope so. It's better to laugh it off in retrospect than go all fascist about it. This all reminds me of nothing so much as Twisted Sister: mild-mannered guys pretending to be way scarier than they are.