I know a little about drug addiction. Cocaine makes you think your invulnerable. It makes you go out and sing karaoke as loud as you can at your local bar, dance with strippers, have sex with dangerous men, and generally act, as we are fond of saying down south, like a fool. Drunk and dial takes on a whole new meaning after you've blown through and eight ball. You can't tell me that Lilo's strung out missives aren't fueled by Pablo Escobar.

LL's behavior, at least in my humble opinion, reminds me of the way I acted in my early twenties...when I rode the white pony quite a bit. And I didn't have a lot of money, which saved me. I didn't have assholes like Healthy skeptic, the paparazzi, the news media, hanging on ever train wreck moment of my life.

It's going to get worse if the courts and the parasites attached to her skin don't through her ass in jail. Not ritzy rehab, jail. For a while. Like they did to Robert Downy Jr. She's an addict, and like every addict in this country, she should be treated as such.

I haven't been able to post on Salon lately...i was banned by my job (neo-con Nazis) but when I posted regularly, i found the whole idea of anonynimity (sp?) vaguely compelling. Why? when I had a perfectly good screen name? because i could say things i knew were politically incorrect. I could make personal comments that wouldn't be assigned to the pristine (at least in my mind) reputation of ms. stackey-ackey. I was allowed to be devils advocate, the foil, etc., etc. Since every letter we write is archived under our name, our fellow posters can go back and use inconsistencies against us. But I, like some people, feel differently every day of the week. To use my past words against me (when i've moved so far past them by the time I finished typing my post) seems cruel. So anonymous appealed, as a way to give vent to those feelings roiling beneath the surface of rational discourse.

Having said that, I must say, get rid of it. It's become the refuge of assholes. How can we tell which anonymous we debate? The sneaky troll abuses it like a teenage boy "abuses" his body. So, everyone, when I have the time to post at home, please take every word I say with a grain of salt. I have no agenda. I get distracted by the play of the ideas and words.

or that he's warm and fuzzy and is trying to appeal to women voters? And how is calling Hilary a man a compliment? Hmm...I think some of the letter writers are themselves being a bit sexist.

It's not about different cultures, or about the girl being sick. Its not that the LW is being paranoid, or that Americans are so distrustful of others.

Its the fact that neither of them ever asked. If the girl knew her mother would be spending a week with her, she should have informed her roommates. All she's doing is subletting; she's not on the lease, and to be honest, though she's paying for the room, her relationship to it is more like a guest at a hotel than a full-fledged roommate.

I'm sick of people from other countries constantly trying to pick on the way we do things in America. Granted, we aren't all about close knit family ties, and since we like our space, we don't want our whole family from Guatamala living in our bachelor apartment. I'm sorry. I wouldn't sit here and say oh those Central Americans, they are sick and wrong for the way they do things. I expect the same sort of respect back, though.

But this isn't about cross cultural understanding. I think the college student would have mentioned that. This is about common courtesy. And since the roommate and her mother seemed to go about this in such an underhanded manner, I too would feel suspicious. To be honest, this does sound distinctly American. Who cares about anyone else, lets just do whats good for ourselves (I'm talking about the mother and the "hotel" guest.)

I know I should just ignore it, but... And young men don't rely on their parents when their life doesn't work.

My brother lived with my mother for 10 years rent-free when things in his life didn't work out. He hid in his old room and drank.

Granted, I'm not saying this is a healthy relationship, but c'mon...young men can be as lazy and shiftless as young women.

Of all the warnings, cautions and instructions in the training packet, that was the bullet point I kept coming back to. To this civilian-trained pilot, such terrifying scenarios aren't part of our checklists and procedures. Out of control? What do you mean, out of control? What exactly was I in for?

Even though he doesn't say exactly what the bullet point is, it's pretty obvious it has to do with being "Out of contol." To be honest, I'm sure it's all couched in pilot-ese and legal-ese, so most likely he thought quoting from the bullet point might not show exactly the sort of terror it inspired in him.

I can see why some people might call it sloppy writing, and indeed, it would have been nice for him to go back to the beginning after jumping to the middle ( a nice bit of symmetry) but I don't feel the article suffers so much because of this.

The article isn't about the bullet points. It's about a civilian trained pilot, who spent years around planes, being out of his comfort level, and being out of control. If some of you would rather harp on what, in my opinion, is an "artistic" decision rather than an example of "bad writing" then more power to you, but I for one enjoyed reading about the F-14 and his experience in the cockpit and didn't need to know what bullet point 14 said.