Not denying that at all, sailor. I just wanted to draw a distinction between the two companies. As you say, it's only currently that way due to Mackie's whims.

Whole Foods is super-anti-union. However, they do pay their employees, they have good benefits (including a pretty good insurance plan), have store-level profitsharing, and other things that distinguish them from the Walmarts (and Depots and Bed Bath and Beyonds etc.) of the world.

I live in the tony suburbs of a major East Coast city, and the Wegmans here are located in the most insufferably self-important and whitebread portions of those suburbs. It's not the store or the employees; it's the customers. The Whole Foods in the area also have their share of asshole customers, but it's tempered…

Whole Foods has awesome benefits (insurance, a yearly-replenished health-care debit card in the amount of your deductible that can also be used for alternative therapies if you choose, and store-level profitsharing with its employees, which encourages employees to limit shrink and build relationships with customers),…

Whole Foods' organic produce and dairy is generally cheaper than other stores with less buying power in that market.

The Wegmans close to me is an utterly horrific hellscape, but I've heard nice things about the chain, overall. The hellscape part is more about where I live, and less about the store itself.

"I use the ongoing bipartisan commitment to surveillance and questionable - in light of the post-Katz reading of the Fourth Amendment, at least - drone and Gitmo policy to conclude that there's no difference between Barack Obama and George W. Bush, despite the nearly limitless universe of policy differences that…

Richard Sherman was second in his high-school graduating class. He wasn't a fifth-year senior at Stanford; during his last year of eligibility, he had already graduated, been accepted into the Masters program, and was doing graduate-level work.

Meanwhile, noted rapist Ben Roethlisberger is the hero of every meatheaded cracker Steelers fan. No one ever called him a "thug," even though what he did is much more like the dictionary definition of "thuggish" than talking smack after a football game is.

The portion of this article after the second block quote was particularly good. And, despite the headline's assertion, there's no way your average Whole Foods shopper sets foot in Wal-Mart, either out of snobbery or conscience.

Exactly. Start simply, and if the kids are curious, they'll ask questions and you can respond accordingly. It's not hard.

Because there's a long history of a black upper caste mocking the downtrodden white man with exaggerated white face, right?

No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the gulf between FGM and circumcision is so wide as to make the comparison facially ludicrous. If circumcision is like losing a fight in the schoolyard, FGM is like getting tortured in a Vietcong tiger cage. "Of course it's worse for the girls" does not begin…

Well, then wave your magic wand and get prostitution legalized and remove the social stigma from needle exchanges. While you're at it, get people to actually use condoms, which are available everywhere. No one's ever tried to do any of those things before, so the problems should be solved in short order, right?

Higher rates of safe sex; better-regulated prostitution; lower incidence of needle sharing.

It's certainly not empirically equivalent, if you're thinking about the total effect of vaccination in terms of contribution to herd immunity and suppression of dangerous diseases.

And in the universe of those practicing unsafe sex - which is a pretty big universe - those who are uncircumsised are more likely to pass on STIs. Your point does not affect mine.

You're more likely to pass on HIV and HPV, among other STIs, if you're uncircumsised.

And atomic bombs and firecrackers both explode, but it doesn't mean they're in the same ballpark, or even play the same sport.

Can't tell if you've got a really dry sense of humor or if you're fucking stupid.