Concentrating the mind on what really matters.

Slate readers had money on their minds this week. Cindywags read the article about Oprah's Big Give and said:

I think this is a noble and worthwhile endeavor! If our world practiced more of this, we could make such a wonderful difference in so many people's lives. I do this on the scale I am able to, every day.

Her transition from this lovely selfless view to the line "Is this going to continue, and if so, how might I be able to audition for [Oprah's] help?" won our admiration and should be read in full here.

Two recent articles on foreclosures provoked considerable reader reaction: Both Frays feature long, passionate threads full of serious economic arguments and much more personal views. And when one poster explained why he couldn't afford a house in a good neighborhood, fsilber was there with some advice:

The solution is for people like you to buy houses in the worst neighborhoods, get together with your neighbors to take firearms training and get carry permits, and for you and your neighbors to kill all the robbers who aren't deterred by this. Of course, then the housing prices in your neighborhood might rise. But this is no different from when the pioneers settled the Wild West and tamed it.

There's business advice, too: Prytania looked at the adverts featured in "Ad Report Card" and after describing, vigorously, what he wanted in the morning (to be left alone) had this to say:

How could Holiday Inn Express have missed the real selling point? Implying both the tedium (middle managers) and the sweaty excitement (anonymous sex with middle managers) of the road just does not hold a candle to the possibility of the Big Bag 'o Bacon. Take those same four guys, give them grease-stained bags of pork to snarf from, and the whole world would soon be beating down H.I.E.'s doors.

Next thing gzuckier was reminiscing about the do-it-yourself waffles at another chain, while Jerry6532 kindly outlined his "truly sexy" ad idea for us—" Love can happen at the Breakfast Bar, so stay, eat."

More Fray posts have been picked out for two recent "Explainers"—always fertile ground. We love the kind of reader who starts a post, "Even if you were made of iron or Alnico and were permanently magnetized. …" or ends one, "Not on your dipthongs"—and the item on William F. Buckley Jr features a link to a long-ago article with some fascinating old Fray Notes at the end. There are also comments on the "Culturebox" on the fake Holocaust memoir; the "Chatterbox" on Ralph Nader; and "Moneybox" on disaster money. OIFVet's line there was, "I predict with a high degree of confidence that this year, the biggest natural disaster will happen on the first Tuesday in November"—what can he have meant? MR … 4:00 p.m. GMT

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008