I for one am terribly pleased that the bailout bill failed. The oversight was hardly window-dressing: this is an industry that barely survived the atrocious management, marketing and engineering paths they chose to follow after the crisis of the 70's, learned nothing from that crisis, and made the same mistakes on steroids for the past 20 years! If it weren't for the financial sector, the healthcare industry, big oil and industrialized agriculture, the auto industry in this nation would definitely be the poster-child for what's wrong with American, free-market capitalism.

I couldn't be happier: they deserve to stand or fall on their own merits (as did the banks...oh well). Only a true, deep, catastrophic collapse of the American marketplace will allow for the sorts of reform and rebuilding that are necessary for a more sustainable, more equitable social framework (it's WAY more than just the economy that we're dealing with--it's beliefs, people; folks don't give those up so easily. Have you noticed?)

But, how heinous that the means to this correct outcome was the wailing and gnashing of the cynical, anti-labor, dinosaur-Republican hicks suckling at the tit of the Japanese, Korean and German auto industries down south!

Of course the previously mentioned collapse is probably the only thing other than attrition that can get those jokers out of office. Beliefs, you know...

Earl Blumenauer for transportation secratary!

King, I have been an avid follower and regular letter writer (and emailer before that) from your first day at Salon and I saw the headline and my heart sank! But, as I think about it my anticipation of a less frequent, but lengthier article increases steadily.

I'd begun thinking that the new blog format was less suited to your strengths, so I hope you'll be able to stretch out and really do what you do in your new capacity.

I'm wishing you success in your endeavors old and new!

All the best,

Brian H.

All in all I think that Ratatouille is probably the best Pixar film, although I love The Incredibles.

That said, WALL-E was the only Pixar film--and the first of any film in many years--that caused me to say to myself the second the credits ended, "I HAVE to see that again!".

The fact is that the silent first half of the film is flat-out one of the most beautiful, moving things I've ever seen on screen. The gorgeous agony of WALL-E's tedious daily grind, the beauty he recognizes in discarded objects dutifully added to his beloved 'shrine o' stuff, the endless repeats of Hello Dolly... JesusChrist! I was completely obliterated by that film within the film.

But then the ending happens. Oh well. Still, the impact of the beginning has never left me, and I hold no grudges for the safe close. Pixar rules!

Oh, my 7 and 10 year old loved it just fine.

All in all I think that Ratatouille is probably the best Pixar film, although I love The Incredibles.

That said, WALL-E was the only Pixar film--and the first of any film in many years--that caused me to say to myself the second the credits ended, "I HAVE to see that again!".

The fact is that the silent first half of the film is flat-out one of the most beautiful, moving things I've ever seen on screen. The gorgeous agony of WALL-E's tedious daily grind, the beauty he recognizes in discarded objects dutifully added to his beloved 'shrine o' stuff, the endless repeats of Hello Dolly... JesusChrist! I was completely obliterated by that film within the film.

But then the ending happens. Oh well. Still, the impact of the beginning has never left me, and I hold no grudges for the safe close. Pixar rules!

Oh, my 7 and 10 year old loved it just fine.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Malaria is every bit as much a part of God as anything else! That's exactly it. The "ceaseless creativity" of Kauffman's "God" is just that: ceaselessly creative. It never stops evolving and subsequently new things, unpredictable things, emerge. Sometimes the things are viruses, and sometimes the things are cuddly, stuffed animals, but "God" doesn't give a shit because "God" isn't some being with a will--as is the God you won't let go of--"God", in Kauffman's estimation (and mine), is ever-present, ever-emerging, ever-ultimately-unknowable nature; the totality of the source and substance of the universe!

My mind just reels! at the thought that someone fighting the materialist battle hasn't ever had an experience where they felt dissolved into the beauty and vastness and simple/complexity of the universe in a way that caused them to know that they were greater than themselves. I just don't believe it! Most people feel that in some way at some point in time. It reels! more! that someone having had that experience would be so violently afraid of a symbol that could point to that experience.

Like it or not, that experience, when experienced as a religious person OR as a non-religious person, is the same essential experience. My laugh is essentially the same as your laugh, when I take a shit I am essentially having the same experience as when you take a shit. When I hear a baby laugh, I experience essentially the same thing that you do when you hear a baby laugh. When we feel at peace with our natural surroundings we're having the same essential experience.

Religious people see this through a lens of mythology. That mythology is not "God". Atheists see this through a lens of anti-mythology. That anti-mythology is not not-"God".

If the symbol is pointing to something different and new--it carries new, or shall we say 'evolved' meaning. To continue to use an old-fashioned Abrahamic interpretation of the word 'God' is not even arguing with Kauffman (or any of these letter writers), it is simply missing the point.