Dear Cary,

Great psychoanalysis of Sarah Palin. I don't think many people have given much thought to the implications of her personality type and how she uses seemingly innocuous little tricks to manipulate people. (Most people just assume she's an air-head.) I thought it was hilarious when Amy Poehler (as Katy Couric) aked Palin (Tina Fay) on SNL: "Is it my imagination, or when you get stumped, do you just get more adorable?" She didn't say anything. She just got more ADORABLE. I'm not crazy about her either, but I don't see the point of working myself into a tizzy about it. Not that I don't work myself into a tizzy about conservatives in general. If it's any consolation, some of the top conservative intellectuals as well as THE NATIONAL REVIEW (the late William Buckley's magazine) have called for her to drop out because she is out of her depth. Like many attractive women, she has gotten by on her looks for so long that she has not needed to develop her intellect or any real self-awarenss. She has probably been playing this game for so long that she doesn't even realize she's doing it. It has become second nature. But, what truly mystifies me is: how in the HELL can anyone see her as a Feminist icon? But, if they are capable of buying John McCain as a reformer they are, obviously, capable of the most exteme delusion.

Indeed, hasn't the whole point of "feminism's" insistence on access to birth control and abortion on demand been so that women could be as "slutty" as men were perceived to be? That would make Paris Hilton the ultimate "feminist" wouldn't it?

The most disturbing part of this whole discussion is the use of "old people" as a humorous yet insuting term. People who would never be outraged by negative collective name for any other group of human beings seem to have no problem with blatant AGE-ISM.

I should have said WOULD Be outraged.....

You could pretty much use the same headline (I agree with everyone else) for all of your letters to SALON. As far as my letters go, you can never be completely sure whether I am being serious or not. The main thing missin in most of these letters is HUMOR!

Rumor has it that women think in a more non-linear fashion than men. But, there is a difference between non-linear (which can be very creative) and non-sensical. If Sarah Palin were a novelist or poet (assuming that she had something to say) she might be seen as some kind of avant-garde writer or just stoned out of her mind. Her abandonment of simple English syntax makes me think that she must have been flirting with the football team when they were teaching sentence structure at her high school. Even Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and James Joyce, etc., regardless of how far out they got, still used the primary rules of grammar for the most part. And, when they didn't, they knew that they were departing from the traditonal form to achieve a certain effect. What worries me is that Ms. Palin, is oblviious to the tangle of verbal tangensts that comes out of her mouth. If her mind is as disordered as her speach, she may very well have some kind of personality disorder. On that level, it is sad. But, someone who lacks basic verbal skills should not be runing for national office. It's not a matter of pity. It's a matter of lacking one of the primary requirements for the job.

Dear Glenn,

Isn't it obvious that a large part of this "financial crisis" can be linked directly to the huge amounts of money we're hemmoraging in the Iraq War? More, specifically, have the so-called private security firms (ie: mercenaries) sent us a bill?

----Thanks

Dear Cary,

I have kind of a crackpot theory about all of this. I think we would have much less "emotional illness" in this culture if we did not have so much denial about its existence. In other words, I think a lot of emotional illness is actually caused by trying to suppress our perfectly natural feelings, including our reactions to legitimately painful occurances. On a personal level, I am going through something very similar to your letter writer. (And, being a man, sort of rules out menopause.) One of my oldest friends died a couple of months ago of a sudden heart attack. His widow, who is also one of my dearest friends, has been having a very difficult time. And, in trying to be there for her, I am not only mourning my friend's death, I am also sharing her grief. Today is my 55th Birthday and feel very sad and hopeless--anxious, having trouble sleeping, depressed. (I don't cry all the time, but I feel like I want to.) It seems that evey day there is some new horror--death, illness, financial crisis, war, corruption in government, etc, etc. It seems endless. The thing I have noticed is that, after the death of my parents, over the last eight years, everything seems to hit me harder and I am experiencing the same symptoms I had when they were ill and dying. I feel paralyzed and overwhelmed. I have had some good periods with the help of medications and therapy. But, it seems that at the very moment that I think things are ok, everything turns to shit. Now, I am wondering if these periods of extreme pain are just part of life that we have to survive as best we can. Should I just accept and this and stop torturing myself with the illsuion of feeling good long term?