When I wrote that it's good to talk to your baby, to give it something to do with its mind, this does not mean constantly! There is no need to yammer away 24/7 at your bundle of joy, or keep its mind in a state of constant stimulation -- for a baby there is plenty new to see and hear just by going on a trip to the supermarket, or just crawling around the house looking at things.

But at the same time it's not so great to let your baby stare into space on its back in the crib for hours at a time, either. The first 2-4 years of life are extremely formative, even physiologically in terms of making connections in the brain.

Yet one more thing that's terribly important for good development -- and very rarely mentioned since it just isn't really the custom in North America -- is for a young baby to have a great deal of being held by a parent -- or carried in a Snuggli-type front carrier -- so the baby will experience the input that it is apparently wired to expect. (This is inferred from the fact that it is virtually universal among primitive societies for a parent to carry the baby against her skin for at minimum the baby's first 6 months.)

(Years ago I knew an incredibly smart 4-year-old whose parents (the mother especially) used to browbeat and harangue him to learn all kinds of things, in order to develop his potential as a genius. (It was said that at the age of 6 months, he described a dream to his parents as being like television.) Although his genius was unstoppable, the parents' strategy seemed rather counterproductive, since it was essentially tons of negative feedback associated with the activities the parents wanted him to perform. And sure enough, that is largely confirmed by one of the letters posted to this article.)

I share others' extreme suspicion of the marketers of the Baby Einstein-type videos, since developing mental abilities mainly happens when the baby's mind is being used *actively*.

But that doesn't mean to drop all attempts to keep your baby or toddler often stimulated with some kind of activity -- these are good for development.

I've similarly enjoyed and admired Bob Herbert's columns immensely (with perhaps the occasional exception).

But I could hardly disagree more with his conclusion to -- apparently -- hyper-criminalize prostitution. This will surely drive all the ills Herbert fairly documents underground, making them all the more difficult to remedy.

I don't question Herbert's good points, that there exist serious abuses in the prostitution industry and that these should be targeted for elimination. But prostitution per se is not the problem any more than marriage per se is the problem when there is spousal abuse.

It seems to me that Herbert has lost touch with reality on this issue.

Mr. Keillor writes:

A man who was a friend of a victim said he was still recovering from the horror and trying to deal with his sense of loss, but he said not one word about his friend who died and a great deal about his own feelings. After a couple minutes of this, I wanted to break his arms. . . . A memorial service is Not About You.

Normally I would agree: A memorial service for someone else is Not About You. And normally I'm a big fan of Mr. Keillor's columns.

But in this case, I don't think Mr. Keillor has properly reckoned the trauma that many of those whom he mockingly calls the "quote-survivors-unquote" have gone through, with a double-double-double-double-double murder happening right under their eyes to ones they knew and loved.

I suggest Mr. Keillor experience this particular kind of trauma himself before self-righteously presuming to instruct others how they ought to behave under the circumstances.

Part of this review reads:

. . . her new and very naked neighbor, the doctor she'll ultimately set her cap for.

We don't need to know how the plot turns out, and many of us would really prefer not to be told.

Ms. Zacharek, you are an excellent writer, and you have plenty to say without any need to spill the beans about plot twists.

So, in the future, please don't. Thanks.

I am still a serious Obama fan despite wondering when he might fulfill his great early promise.

For all I know, he's doing as well as anyone in his position could do, given the compromises needed to accomplish anything in U.S. politics.

One certainly can't blame him for being awarded the Nobel, and his reaction to it (acccepting it and displaying appropriate humility) was unimpeachable.

But it is preposterous to say that up to now he has come anywhere close to earning the Nobel Peace Prize.

(As many have pointed out, his nomination came less than two weeks after his inauguration. He has not yet accomplished anything concrete in the way of peace, even if he is on the right track. And although he is obviously blameless for the mess that George W. Bush left for him, it is not irrelevant to the Peace Prize that the U.S. is still conducting two wars. Some say the award was given to Obama for not being George W. Bush; some say it was an award for the people of the U.S. for electing him. Sorry, but neither of these stands up as a serious reason for the Nobel peace prize.)

Sadly, undeserved awards like this devalue the Nobel Prize in general, both past and future.

The fact that many Republicans are spouting utter knee-jerk nonsense about this prize does not change ther accuracy of the above sentence.

The fact that Joan Walsh is also spouting utter knee-jerk nonsense about this prize is disappointing, but not in the least surprising given her past opinions published in this venue. But the fact that she is editor-in-chief of Salon makes this all the more disappointing.