No, I am not going to pursue this argument since the wall I am trying to penetrate is dense and rock hard. Your quote from Descartes is misplaced and silly. Here’s a quote from FDR that corresponds:

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." 

Mr. Wow is in sync with Anthony Lane in finding this film less than admirable, although he finds moments rich in satisfaction watching actors "as nimble as Bridges, Clooney, and Spacey clashing wits as if they were lightsabers , precisely the kind of fun––grownup fun, delivered by men, not kids, and lit not by special effects but by a serious love of the joust I demand from Hollywood and for the most part, no longer get." He also feels that the movie lets Clooney down. He gives it his everything, but gets little in return. 

Belinda says we all lust after Clooney. I don’t. I do, however, find him absolutely wonderful and interesting and wish he would make more intelligent movies on his own as he has been by playing in less than really good films in order to get the money to make the films he wants. His bent for comedy is perfect as was displayed in that film where three guys escape from prison and form a singing group.

As far as Spacey is concerned I find his acting skillful and believable. I don’t want to know about his private life. An actor is playing a role and it’s that performance that I evaluate. Good lord, one of the reasons old Hollywood protected their stars like precious gems.

Mr.Wow mentions Bridges who is one of the best.  Against All Odds, a Taylor Hackford film, is  wonderful ––love the soundtrack––but Bridge’s performance in The Jagged Edge with Glen Close was riveting. 

Mr.Wow laments the demise of the magic of the black and white films of yore where stars like the marvelous Norma Shearer casts spells and lets us wallow in that glow. We need that kind of light nowadays, don’t you think? 

" The administration and Democrats in Congress have put themselves in a tight box, bound up in strands of costly and unpopular legislation. By undertaking to expand federal health coverage in the midst of a truly harrowing recession, Obama and his pals in Congress have spent great political capital – and have lost important financial flexibility." so says Liz Peek:

Evidently Peek doesn’t realize the complexities of this "unpopular legislation" since she has lumped all Democrats  together. The fact is that the Democratic blue-dog congressional party has become far more ideologically diverse than the Republican one.  It means that Democrats can’t simply act with the kind of unanimity one sees among Republicans. There is too much disagreement within the caucus. And what Peek doesn’t seem to understand is that when thousands of people are suffering because of poor health care––can’t afford the premiums, etc., this all connects to joblessness and devastation. It would be great if we already had decent health care for ALL, and could concentrate on the myriad other problems, but we don’t. Obama and "his pals" are trying to get this health care reform up and running in spite of all the road blocks that get in the way. And part of those road blocks have to do with aforementioned Blue Dogs. Their resistance, for instance to the public option, had at its core a contradiction. Their great concern is cost containment, but the robust public option delivers just that. The Blue Dog group, for the most part, tends to represent districts that are poorer, where more people could really benefit from a public option. So––here’s a case where concerns have frankly come across as less substantive than political or electoral. When a President is up against these kinds of inhibiting factors in his own party–––AND this is only on health care, then what is lost is not so much political capital as Representatives that are honest brokers.

I think Ruth’s point is that most––not all, as she added––women seem to judge, not by statistical methods, but by quality. I liked how she tied this in when she told her sons she didn’t have favorites, giving them the clear message that she loved them both equally. When my sons were small they, too, had all sorts of stats––they would quiz me on baseball, football, cars, etc. I even learned to recognize the helmets from all the football teams. This kind of thing brings order–-makes sense––easy listing––one thing over the other, no question! It’s a way to simplify. It’s their way of controlling a little of  their young world.  Ruth asks the question if we women are so complicated that stats alone can’t tell the story? Of course. We learn this early since girls have to deal with so much more of life’s complications. 

Ruth’s reluctant defining of herself as a small molecule is the same as realizing you are a tiny blip in the big scheme of things––I often think how my little life is just one of billions of little lives. But we humans have been given the audacity of personal chutzpah so that as many times as we go down the small molecule path we always emerge feeling important and necessary. Ruth’s article is one of examining and asking some very good questions.