Diets look a little like religion because they often serve as way for people to avoid distasteful ideas and embrace comforting ones of dubious validity. It is unpleasant to believe that the universe is ordered chaos, that much of the hardship we go through is meaningless noise, that our lives have no more meaning that…

It’s definitely not just the title.

Just no.

Men are surrounded by object lessons in how they can still be successful and powerful, no matter how they look. Women have . . . the opposite experience.

You get -100 points for claiming that Amy Schumer and Louis CK are somewhere on the same spectrum of body types.

I think it’s more for the mold and mildew that was the subject of last week’s missive.

Traveling in the mideast, I discovered that high class restrooms have basically a gooseneck, like you might wash your dishes with, affixed to the toilet. I was too timid to try it for fear of ending up walking through the Dubai airport with soaked pants, but I could see how that would be a pretty awesome fix. I’d want…

Is Tina Fey her Obi-Wan?

Yes, the lesson of their story is definitely to be rich and have good taste.

That’s not the point of the comment. Regardless of whether she is or isn’t an asshole, she’s pretty certainly not a sexist.

A lot of people who have pretty good feminist cred in the music industry REALLY don’t like her (Tori Amos’s “Professional Widow” is as brutal a musical takedown as they come).

If you think back to the sketches, part of the joke was definitely that Pat’s ambiguity caused such extreme discomfort in the people around her. The other characters became obsessed with figuring out Pat’s gender. Other people couldn’t just live with the uncertainty.

I thought the same thing. This is a great visual, but a large military aircraft crashing in the middle of Stonehenge would be BFD.

How well does this work in practice, and how often do personal firearms get used against women?

I don’t think it is as simple as saying, “hey, don’t do this,” but I do think there are ways of teaching abusers to defuse the regular rationalizations and denial that overlay aggressive and abusive behaviors. Some people are probably unreachable, but I think the majority of abusive behaviors could be deterred or…

Implicit in this comment is the idea that we can treat 1 billion Muslims or their faith as a monolith, that there’s some core up-or-down question of whether you’re pro- or anti-Islam. I condemn people who shoot up rallies, bomb marathons, and blow up planes. I don’t view these guys’ acts as requiring my input on…

Worse, I’m pretty sure it says “Homo Sex is a Threat to National Security.” That’s the lingo among the extreme protestors.

All this text and not a word about bail?

I didn’t check anything. I don’t recall them happening, and I think I would have. I’m not the one asserting that any of these things happened, and there’s no easy way to prove a negative. If you have examples of where citizen taping of police caused the firebombing, drive-bys, or car bombs you’re alleging, feel free…

“Edited to add”