Nature is about continuation of the species -- in other words, children. Nature does not care about the emotional well-being of older people.

I recommend anyone agreeing with the above statement reads more (begins reading?) about primatology and evolution more broadly. Frans de Waal is a good researcher and author.

Maybe Keillor was joking (it's much harder to tell in writing than spoken on the radio) but he mentions a popular myth that loosly fits with "Social Darwinism" (a misnomer for beliefs Darwin contested) and even Eugenics. Both wrongheaded misunderstandings of Nature, evolution, and humanity's place in it. A place that, I assure you, is entirely moral and empathetic, caring quite a lot about old people.

Keillor is correct Nature doesn't care about the quality of life, young or old, for truly unintelligent creatures like alligators. For that matter Nature doesn't consider morality, honesty, or other such niceties for alligators either.

People have long noticed this difference between themselves and alligators hence the term "alligator tears" which about sums it up.

However, for humans and other intelligent primates among other some other intelligent social species, who rely on empathy and instinctual morality, social bonding/alliance, and socially transmitted knowledge, Nature does care about the quality of life for older critters, quite a lot.

The people trying to defend this as some kind of Swiftian satire might have a point IF Keillor didn't have a history of homophobic comments:

I favor marriage between people whose body parts are not similar. I’m sorry, but same-sex marriage seems timid, an attempt to save on wardrobe and accessories. Marrying somebody from your team.

and his gay baiting of Norm Coleman. If it's supposed to be satire, it's a pretty poor attempt. Stephen Colbert this is not.

I think the majority of people commenting on Keillor's article are overreacting to what is actually written. Some people who love his writing and his PHC radio show are ready to boycott him because of it? Please! If every time someone said something you don't agree with, you decided to stop having anything to do with them, you'd be living a very lonely life, I think. And if everyone who disagreed with your one or two of your opinions about life stopped speaking to you, I imagine you'd lose a lot of friends and associates out of your life.

Loosen up, folks, and be reasonable. People are entitled to express themselves. We don't all think the same way, and to expect everyone to hold the same opinions is unrealistic. This shouting down of people whenever they dare utter something not politically correct seems ridiculous and dangerous to personal freedom.

Listening to Keillor's show has been one of the high points of entertainment of my adult life. He has a grace and understanding of human beings, flaws and all, and a gentle sense of humor that pokes fun at them in a way that is inclusive, not destructive. At least that's how I hear him.

This 'Stating the Obvious' article seems unfinished and is not his best work, but it certainly does not merit the hateful comments that I'm reading here (and I read all 24 pages so far). Don't we have better things to do with our outrage, like directing it against true injustice and discrimination?

I get that this is probably satire, what with the "everyone had a yard, garage, etc." bit (I know several people who grew up dirt poor, without a yard, or a garage, or electricity), or at least it's about how narrow a child's experiences are, that children will presume that everyone lives the same way (although you know for a fact that most of your own kids don't have monogamous parents)... and how old fogeys forget that their childhood memories were created by the small brains and limited lives of children. Is that why you're going on with such limited views of gay people?

Keillor, you've got a lot of gay fans who read this and think that you were implying that kids of gay parents are, obviously, worse off than kids of hetero parents, and that gay marriage is bad for kids (when it is so crucial for providing kids of gay parents with protections like health insurance, etc.).

Please clarify.

Thanks Garrison. Feel free to call every gay person and gay parent in the country a "f*ggot" to make your worthless and hypocritical point. It's all the rage these days.

...then why is Garrison Keillor so worried. If Garrison Keillor wants to change the culture that children are growing up in today, then he should go for it. I am tired of straight people mentioning all the dumb things that straight people do these days, and then going for the gay jugular. I don't want nature to care about gays, I don't want straight people to care about gays, I want to live my gay life and have everyone else go about their own business. I do want to eventually be able to make a lasting, legal commitment to a guy, and gosh, that has nothing to do with making straight people's children miserable. Straight people vastly outnumber gay people, so if you want to positively affect the maximum number of children's lives, then go help straight people increase the stability of their relationships and life choices.

And negro marriages produce whole strings of hyphenated relatives too! In addition to the ex-stepson and ex-in-laws, there now will be ShaQuean's third baby daddy and Jemima's mammy and TreShawn's crack ho babymaker, and I suppose we'll get used to it.

The country has come to accept stereotypical black men -- violent fellows with nappy hair and gold front teeth who live in prisons or rat infested crackhouses with pitbulls and who worship gangsta rappers and go in for a drive-by now and then themselves. If they want to be accepted as daddies, however, the ghetto culture may have to be brought under control. Parents are supposed to stand in back and not wear purple fur coats and gang color bandannas....

Now what is the difference between this and what Keillor spewed? NOTHING. He is using outdated stereotypes to cut down an entire class of people. I would like to see the assholes telling us to "have a sense of humor!" or "learn reading comprehension!" to try an defend a similar rant against a group of folks it's not acceptable to rail on.

Up to this past week, I listened to PHC religiously. I now have time to get out and take a nice walk or bike ride on a lazy Sunday. And Salon won't get any more of my ad-clicks and NPR won't get any of my listening time until somebody pubishes a formal apology or gets rid of this washed up, hypocritical piece of garbage. 3/14/07: The date when Garrison Keillor jumped the shark.