But that interview speaks for itself. She knew her network's primary audience, and nakedly appealed to their worst fears and instincts about Muslims in an attempt to discredit Mr. Aslan's work, which she had quite obviously never even bothered to read.

Of course she was ill-prepared.  If she had been better-prepared, she'd have asked Aslan the Islamaphobic equivalent of "when did you stop beating your wife," but she wasn't smart enough to do that.

But let's go to whether that means she's anti-Muslim.  What if she - or any interviewer -  had asked a black man why he'd want to write a book about a white person?  What if a woman had been asked why she'd want to write a book about a man?  Would that be racist or misogynistic?

I'm not sure we could definitively answer either question, but we'd still know something about the intelligence of the person asking it.  We'd still know something about the openness of the mind of that person.

What Aslan should have done, what he probably would have loved to have said is, "how fortunate for you that if you ever want to write a book about the dumbing-down of the media, no one will ever question your ability to speak from experience."

Seattle is now unaffordable for any but the rich. Of course, you could rent a 300-square foot "apodment" (no bathroom) for $1000 per month, or, if you're really lucky, a 400-square foot studio apartment for only $1350 per month -- in Ballard!

Schultz and Bezos exemplify the worst of the big kahoonas, but there are so many others on that list. And yet, we have even more homeless being bussed in to eat up social services and harass passersby from every street corner in downtown, Ballard, Queen Anne, Roosevelt, the U-District, and Capitol Hill.

But fear not, Mayor McShwinn has spent most of his tenure building bike lanes and fighting city council.

Seattle. A fake Indian name for a fake "world class city."

Nope.  The adult-in-the-room dance tends to work, and this President has shown that he knows how to read that script.  Because that script defines the Repubs as temper-tantrum-saying-no-to-everything types, the President will enter this ridiculous debate (brought to us once more by the bring-down-the-debt) with the higher ground in the eventual eyes of the majority of voters.  It may not be pretty; but, it works.  And, when one is dealing with this Congress, better to lead with a counter-punch set up from the beginning.

Nope.  The adult-in-the-room dance tends to work, and this President has shown that he knows how to read that script.  Because that script defines the Repubs as temper-tantrum-saying-no-to-everything types, the President will enter this ridiculous debate (brought to us once more by the bring-down-the-debt) with the higher ground in the eventual eyes of the majority of voters.  It may not be pretty; but, it works.  And, when one is dealing with this Congress, better to lead with a counter-punch set up from the beginning.

For some reason, I thought she was a he - just "looks" like a boy, I guess (certainly not dainty).

Last year's 3,698 reported cases of abuse and neglect represented a 40 percent increase over the 2,626 in 2009.

And of course, the big stat:

Nearly 30,000 children have suffered abuse or neglect in Army homes over the past decade, an Army Times investigation shows

I believe that a true social progressive harbors compassion and empathy for those less fortunate, because in all likelihood, he or she has had occasion to experience some of life's darker and sinister shades, either vicariously or in person, or both.

I have two young male first cousins on either side of the family -- I'm 20-plus years older than both -- who've long battled serious addiction problems for the better part of the past decade. On the maternal side, he's had a love affair with heroin. And on my father's side, he's overly fond of the bottle.

Both young men have been a primary source of grief and consternation within their respective families and beyond, and both ended up briefly on the street and even in jail at one point or another in their lives. While they've since climbed back from rock bottom and at least made it to their 30s, they've had alternating bouts of sobriety and inebriation ever since.

I've also had two close friends from college days at UW, one a Husky baseball teammate, who've since drank themselves to death, before ever reaching the ripe old age of 45. And it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I learned about a great-grandfather on my father's side in northern Illinois, an incorrigible 50-something alcoholic who back in 1950 wandered outside his home while sloshed to the gills, passed out and fell face first into a drainage ditch, and drowned in six inches of water -- not 50 feet from his own front door.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I've had my share of good times with booze, pot and coke. I have tried most everything else at least once, save for crack and meth; that stuff really scared me. But I outgrew all that, and with regard to my former affinity for the nose candy, I just put down the hand mirror and rolled-up dollar bill one day in the summer of 1986 -- still can't remember exactly when -- and walked away, without even realizing at the time that I was actually turning my back on the white lines for good. I haven't touched it once in the 27 intervening years since.

Further, I think there are more than a few people out there like me, even if they don't necessarily want to be upfront and frank about their past, for whatever their own reasons. Look, we had fun getting buzzed and high in younger days, but it's not like we needed to do it on a daily basis to the virtual exclusion of everything else in life.

In that regard, and speaking for myself only, I tend to view substance abuse as not unlike an adult version of a child's toy for people like me. After a while, we got bored with it and put it up on a shelf, where there it sits until the next time we choose to play with it. I mean, I still like my margaritas, but quite honestly, my life isn't going to be empty without them, you know?

But for far too many other of our brothers and sisters, substance abuse is simply not a personal choice, even though it may have once started out so. They suffer from addiction, which is an insidious, corrosive and very real disease that gradually eats away at their flesh, like a cancer.

And if we Americans are really the compassionate and caring people we regularly like to claim to be, and we're at all interested in helping such unfortunates instead of shaming and ridiculing them, then we need to deal with substance addiction for the serious public health problem that it is -- rather than attending to it primarily through the legal system as we do today, as though it were simply one more of life's ugly and unpleasant sideshows to be locked away someplace, out of sight and thus out of mind.

But at the same time, we also need to be brutally honest and real with ourselves here, and acknowledge that even if all the latest treatment options were made freely available to addicts and alcoholics, we're just not going to be able to save everybody. Only those persons who are innately strong-willed and self-disciplined have the greatest chance of overcoming their disease and surviving. Those who aren't, generally don't.

Anyone in a forum who feels stereotyped must certainly realize there is only one thing to see, your own words.