Love great food? NEXT week's JFP is our fall food issue. It's very culinary; you'll love it!

Fun! Thanks for your hard work here, Darren! And, yes, Brian is now actually a science editor.

Stprather, I saw what you'd posted. Perhaps I didn't state my point clearly enough. I think everyone is complicit in allowing this charade of a political race strategy continue: not enough people call it out for what it is. And I think the Democratic Party -- which I'm no huge fan of, although it's sure better than it was before the party switch -- has been way too timid over the years about speaking up about progressive ideas, and let the right-wing (and corporate GOP) define it. It's doing a better job now.

I will add that it's hard to break through in the national discourse if the media won't cover you. And the corporate media have been terrified of upsetting the right for years now (thank, in no small part to Barbour's anti-"liberal media" label for anything reported that he didn't like). So it's hard to have that national dialogue. But I'm sure for having it.

And, yes, Obama faced massive political realities -- in no small part because the Blue Dog Dems were afraid to appear remotely progressive (and most of them lost, which is just as well; that includes Childers). I also think it's shortsighted and a bit naive for anyone to expect these issues will be resolved in four years, especially with the climate in Washington -- and the abject refusal of Republicans to work with Obama even on their own ideas.

I truly hope, and believe, that President Obama will be more proactive on the War on Drugs and the prison mess in his second term, and we should demand it. We know his opponent won't be.

He's also said that he wants to pursue more campaign finance reform (or whatever it's called now). If nothing but that happened in a second term, that would be something. Of course, we can see why the Kochs et all are pumping so much money into Romney's campaign. They don't want to lose their ability to buy elected officials.

Just saw this. No, the "southern strategy" is a distinct Republican strategy; that part is just fact and undisputable political history. That doesn't mean that Dems do not ever do things to appeal to people of specific races -- of course they do. But a primary difference tends to be that, for the most part, Dems are trying to *help* or ensure the rights of non-whites, while the current GOP is trying to attack and lessen the rights.

And, of course, Obama races a "racial paradox." The GOP does everything they can to paint him as an angry black man eager to spread "entitlements" to all of "his people" while undermining the gains of American colonialism (see D'Souza's mythical world). And that's without him pretty much ever mentioning race.

But so what? It's not it's up to Obama alone to get any of this done -- and at least he is trying. And of course, the ACA isn't an ideal bill. I'm sure you noticed what he went through to get it through Congress? That's not "shameful"; that's political reality. Hopefully, the bill can be improved if Romney isn't elected and sets out to appeal the whole thing on day one like he's promised.

The truth about Obama is that he has tried to bring more positive and progressive (not left-wing, especially considering how many ideas he took from Republicans, too) change to our nation than any president in recent history. I really hope we give him a chance to finish what he started rather than elect someone whose only agenda seems to be to dismantle everything that has been accomplished so far and to take us backward.

Gerald, I'm not sure who wrote the headline, but I almost changed it on the page. The reason I didn't, though, is that the headline was clearly designed to appeal to people who don't already know or understand that climate change is a very real problem; that's the reason we did the story. Thus, I decided to leave it as I found it effective for that reason.

All, I just found weird code that was causing spacing issues in the above story that apparently happened in our recent transfer to our new site. I believe I've corrected it all, but if you see more problems, let me know: [email protected] much!

Thanks for your comments, dogsmycopilot. Kathleen's master's degree at a very good journalism school after Millsaps hasn't exactly hurt her critical-thinking skills, either. ;-)

I agree with you. I don't know that M. Jane Williams is a real person; we haven't found her, yet. This easily could have been done by a small handful of usual suspects around here who really hate that these kinds of attacks, well, don't work on us. We think it's funny and predictable.

I love that a woman who signs the Ph.D after her name calls Kathleen "narcissistic." This is fabulous in just too many ways.

What's crazy, and I do use that word intentionally, to me is that the psychotherapist (if that is her real name and real job; we haven't been able to locate her) never pointed out a specific thing in Kathleen's column that she disagreed with. No attempt at discussion or refutation; just a litany of personal insults. SMH.