I just went through ALL the letters here, re-reading the ones with gold stars by their names indicating that those letter-writers have paid money to subscribe to Salon. One of them was topical but neutral on the subject of Camille. Two said she was wonderful. Every single one of the remaining ones made factual refutations of Camille's obviously poorly researched points, begged Salon to get rid of her, or in one way or another voiced serious displeasure with this ridiculous column. All the lengthy letters supporting the bizarre, poorly-written musings of this authority on pop-culture venturing way over her head into science and political science were by non-subscribers.

I conclude that Salon really does value "clicks" over paying subscribers, and that my hard-earned dollars are not valued by the company, contrary to their earnest solicitations. Therefore although I will continue to be a reader, I will let my subscription expire. Thanks for making this such a straightforward decision.

When I think of an emotional affair, I think of the movie Norma Rae, in which Sally Fields' and Ron Liebman's characters grew deeply emotionally involved while working together. There not only was no sexual behavior between them but only a little ironic flirting. When Beau Bridges asks Sally Fields if she's gone to bed with Liebman, she truthfully says no, and truthfully admits "But he's in my head."

This is an emotional affair. I'm sure the Bridges character was wounded by this admission. But he knew his wife was trustworthy, and after Ron Liebman drove his Volkswagen into the sunset, that little by little he'd fade from her thoughts.

I don't see the current situation as an emotional affair at all. It's based on lies and sex, whether the sex is physical or not. It's cheating, pure and simple.

>>the way to combat her or anybody you disagree with is not by taking your marbles and going home, but playing the game to the best of your ability.

I absolutely believe in free speech. Paglia can write whatever she wants, and I say more power to her. But for Salon to give her a significant amount of money (what if she's paid per word!?) when there are many other thoughtful voices out, liberal and conservative, but reasoned and not pulling facts out of their asses--that is their business decision. Which, as I noted, is not based on what the vast majority of people who are paying for subscriptions want, but is what the readers who are not supporting the site want. Which tells me they get more money from advertising revenue anyway, which tells me that they don't value or want my $40.

Wow. Last time I called my psychopath mother she threatened to slit my throat from ear to ear. That makes a pretty good reason not to ever call someone again, even on her deathbed. Your reasons? Not so good.

A funeral is important for the people left behind. If you really don't give a shit about any of them, skip it. One day you, too, may turn into my mother. But meanwhile, call your grandma.

Interesting that in contrast to this, we are shown another woman of the South who transcended her upbringing.

http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/07/13/lady_bird/

What would Lady Bird have done in this situation?

By all accounts except the flight attendant's, the child was NOT running in the aisle, screaming, kicking seats, or anything more than saying "Bye-bye, plane!" The fact that the flight attendant was tired and overworked says that in part this IS the company's fault as well as hers. But it says mountains that the passengers--many of whom probably get as fed up with small children as people here and were also all subjected to that 11-hour wait--are speaking up for the mother.

I didn't realize that American children and dogs are uniquely undisciplined--when I've heard babies crying on international flights, I never noticed their strictly American accents, and the time my seat was kicked for three hours by a toddler whose mother spoke French, I didn't realize she had to be an American. And for some reason, I thought that Barbara Woodhouse started teaching people how to train their poorly disciplined dogs in England--I guess they ALL bought her books and that problem has been solved for good over there.

Flying grows ever more stressful--yet another example of how our standard of living may have gone up in the past generation, but our quality of life has declined. But passengers, we're all in this together. When our flight is delayed and no one at the desk will give us a straight answer about whether we should rebook to make it to the meeting that was the whole point of the trip, when we've gone through indignity after indignity just getting through "security," when we've had to repack everything because we're not supposed to bring our regular shampoo or toothpaste in our carry-on bag--after going through all this we're ALL tired and out of sorts. It's ever so easy to focus our general feelings of displeasure and discomfort on that one crying child, that one overweight person sitting next to us, that one woman wearing too much perfume, that one cranky flight attendant, that one loud businessman who won't stop talking on his cell phone even after they announce it twice. But like many other things in life, if we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem.

I've always believed that tolerance is the foundation of American society. It's only by working together and being tolerant together that we insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to both ourselves and our posterity. And those crying babies on planes ARE our posterity. Being tolerant--that's the American way. Or it should be.