Well, I'm home from work now & I appreciate the time people have taken to respond to my questions. McGrath, since you just posted, I'll respond to you first &, at the same time, to TerriM & keltcgrasshopper. What gets me upset is the thread title itself. Even if I don't open the thread itself (which I frequently don't &, when I do, I screen by user name as others have mentioned), I see the ridiculous, unfriendly titles anytime I scan the Forum. Some of you (Peg, for one) seem to be missing the point that the initial premise of "Why are Americans so fat?" is patently untrue, so what's the motivation behind an untrue, unfriendly statement? Provocation/stupidity? Since the thread's author admits to being American, we can only assume he himself is grossly overweight, since, according to him, Americans (that must mean !) are!

Jon, you are very kind & assume the best of the thread author. He is welcome to speak for himself, act for himself, & have whatever guilt he chooses. I resent him trying to impose his guilt on me merely because of my nationality. If the thread developed some thoughtful posts, I think it speaks well of some of our members, not the author.

Bill, yes, I did add to the BS threads in this case. It is rare for me to use the BS prefix or even start threads that I consider to be BS. In this case, I felt it was preferable to start a discussion thread, rather than to respond on a thread I really disliked. If you read my initial post carefully, I didn't bother objecting to all non-musical threads (obviously a lost cause). What I am objecting to in this thread is only the negative & untrue ones. In the past, there have been some really fine discussions here that were not primarily musical in nature.

kat, if this is growth, in my opinion, it is of a cancerous variety--not healthy cells.

bert--Maybe I'm a stick in the Mudcat. I don't see any way that "Why are Americans so fat?" can be seen as anything but a rude, judgemental statement.

Mrbisok--Yes, I have a problem w/ your generalization, too, although it raises some good points. I am conservative (in the American sense), as are some others I know of on this Forum. It doesn't preclude a love of folk music, although some of our politically liberal members don't extend that courtesy to their social lives & seem to feel that their beliefs are the only valid ones for anyone.

Now that I've got all that off my chest, I would like to thank all those who responded in thoughful ways. It is really nice to see that we still have some thinking members left.

best to you, always,

bbc