there was some truth to this column. It seems the hard truth of what is actually occurring and what we know to be right and what we want to happen grow further and further apart day by day to the point that they seem irreconcilable. I can't watch the daily show anymore or read the news. If only a hot bath could fix it all.

Suspicions confirmed.

Loosey-goosey beats uptight and furious every time.

In the "sorting years" (8ish - 14ish) when kids are preening and bullying and trying out for different groups of friends, it's so darn hard on the parents. And we find ourselves all of a sudden sort of understanding those cliched, news making mothers who do bodily harm to adolescents in the name of their kids. Because when our kids feel hurt or left out, it just kills us and we get really angry at the whole stinking family two doors down who have raised and are endorsing such wickedness right under their noses. Do their eyes not see?

Then we take a walk in the neighborhood ("for exercise") with the other mother. And we see her worries about her kid from her perspective. And our own perspective changes. We feel a lot less heated. We feel something akin to empathy. Humility, community, a little bit of the golden rule...these are civilizing things.

Basically, when you get down to it, we are all equals. Take our clothes away, take our money away, take anything that differentiate us from one another, and we will find that we are all in the same. We all bleed when we are cut. We all feel pain when we are hurt. Japanese baths or any other baths won't cure our problems. We have to realize that what we want for our children and ourselves, our neighbors want them as well. Why deny them the opportunity for the simple reason to amass more for ourselves.

Liberals, and I am proud liberal, are always looking out for the other guy. This administration and the McCain administration (God forbid that should happen)is looking out for the corporation and the rich, and that's where their evilness is apparent.

...They never would let anybody else look at their tiny "Humannesses." They do not even show them to their wives.

They all feel great until the stroke happens.

--Your Lady of Hypertension You Fucking Moron You!

I guess I'm either not a liberal at all, or else ultra-so... probably the former. I can't see why GK will eat a poor fish while judging our society on the way it treats the powerless...and I don't have compassion for the weak humans among us, unless they are right in front of me. Then, it's impossible not to care. But the fish he's enjoying is no less (nor more) deserving of a break than the poor multitudes, although perhaps it would be wiser to care more for the fish, as the oceans are being depleted, while we humans just breed and breed.

Don't discount it before you do it. I'm an old naturist and I remember how much real communication happens at the club in the outdoors hot tub, under the stars, late at night. People are just people there, and they talk to you like you really matter, even though you're nothing like them otherwise.

I also know how much massage stimulates more than just my body, but also my positive attitude. I'd have one weekly if I could afford it. It changes things in your mind, for the better.

These things are very special, and they're not easily understood experiences by people who haven't been there and done them; they're actually pretty profound, and I believe if practiced by enough people, these physical practices really might have some beneficial effect on the overall world situation, as silly and trivial as they sound when read about on a computer screen.

I always wondered about Garrison.

Does he have AIDS yet?

That kind of communality is what berlet98 would like to enforce, and it would have the same result. In his case, it would not be a bath, but a communal shower, similar to those in Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. That, too, broke down the all the barriers, and also the delusions that stupid little Anne Frank girl had about people being basically good.

While this statement is partially aimed at a gay-basher, it also is intended to target Keillor's naive solution to restoring American civility and sense of community. The rich, powerful and contemptuous believe they have nothing in common with the poor and weak. In the 1920's, all were brought down by the Great Depression. For about thirty years their era's equivalent of the Trumps, Gates, Murdochs and Bushes learned that their power was tied to the health and welfare of the poor and working.

The wealthy class will learn that lesson again in the coming economic collapse of the United States, but sadly, many of us underlings will die in the process. And the Chinese, who are the world's new top dogs, won't allow any kind of recovery. While I suspect that most of us will be starves or worked to death for our new masters, people like Keillor (and probably berlet98) will get a firing squad death as enemies of the proletariat.

Hear hear! Sounds like you discovered something in that spa. I agree completely. We are all so mired in unimportant bullshit that we often miss out on being human. So obsessed with homo-this and moral-that that we cannot just enjoy each other's company, even if we are naked... and if we are so what? If we had communal baths like you mention we'd be a damn sight nicer as a civilization and a LOT more confident too.

Bravo. Excellent article.

"My nakedness did not interest her. I suppose that repeated exposure to the male form will do that, just as plucking chickens might make you a vegan."

Perfectly stated! The association between an anonymous massage and chicken-plucking is particularly apt (and icky!).

For this and your other columns. Your takes on our current administration, presidential campaign, aged candidate, etc, are unique, to say the least, and hit the target. Someone I know sent your column on age and McCain to his 94 year old father who has been through McCain's age and past it. He thought the column was wonderful.