Well, we shouldn't return to the go-go binge-spending days of yesteryear. I think everyone knows that. Every morning I pray that people will start to get it through their heads that a slow, painful recovery, and a return to some kind of fiscal responsibility, regulation, and actual rebuilding -- whether it's led by the education sector, the tech sector, or good old fashioned manufacturing of some sort -- will be far better than just waiting for the next bubble to lift housing prices, temporarily.

I pray, and I hope.

Cary's advice has been laughably awful for quite some time now, to the point where I quickly scroll through and move on to the letters. I don't know if anyone else has raised this point, but I want to chime in and say something the might be a bit controversial: there's nothing wrong with conflict, even physical conflict -- with the obvious caveats that one should never start it, certainly never start it with someone obviously smaller or weaker than one's self, etc.

I was in a very similar situation to the LW, and reacted in a similar way, with a similar result. The only difference was that I didn't say a word in response to the verbal agitation, till it got to the point where there was no way not to respond. Then I just rose from my seat and quickly engaged with the guy. No one was hurt, since his friends and mine pulled us apart, though I was getting the better of the exchange. Know how I felt afterwards? Fucking great.

Not only did it feel great to stand up to a bully, I felt a huge sense of relief wash over me thinking back on all the times I'd been in similar situations, and not done anything. In other words, I'd felt far worse having previously backed down, and this confrontation gave me a modicum of release.

I wonder what our society would be like if more people stood up for themselves. If the thought of doing so wasn't haunted by the specter of guns and other forms of cowardly retribution. If more people stood up for themselves politically, weren't afraid to put their bodies on the lines in protests and acts of civil disobedience and so on. I agree that physical violence should be avoided if at all possible, but sometimes it's simply not. And conflict is not necessarily something to be avoided.

the one part of the story that the LW should feel remorse over is the verbal smackdown. as anyone who's been in these situations knows, once you say something so cleverly insulting that the guy's own buddies are laughing at him, there is no possible outcome other than things escalating further, probably towards violence. the LW was clearly more sober and/or quick-witted than the other bloke, and so must have known on some level that this was where things were headed. if you really want to avoid bar fights, keeping your yap shut even in the face of loudmouth idiots will do the trick 90% of the time.

I've been watching all the hand-wringing and doom-saying on this issue all summer, and I've remained pretty even-keeled as I waited for Obama to do what he's just done -- what he's managed to do over and over again -- wait for his opponents to make about five moves and then come in for the checkmate. It remains to be seen, of course, and as Joan and others have pointed, whether Dems actually follow up on this and pass the legislation that they have never needed Repubs to pass.

Think about it: A Democratic president who has made health care reform his no. 1 priority; full control of the House and Senate by the Dems; public opinion that runs in the solid majority (anywhere from 55-70%, depending on your poll) in FAVOR of reform.

What on earth is stopping us?

What exactly does this douchebag mean when he throws around the word "socialist"? That's right, I forgot -- it no longer has any meaning beyond casting aspersions on something you don't like. Just once I'd like to see a journalist ask for specifics, and then watch the speaker squirm.

By the way, I don't know about Oregon, but in California there's this wonderful chain called In N Out Burger. They make damn good food, and every time we went there were lines out the door. Guess they weren't having any problems with socialism.

Guess no english majors are reading today. "The rich are different than you and me" is a quote from Fitzgerald's short story "The Rich Boy." Hemingway's retort to Fitzgerald is recorded is the latter's book, The Crack-Up.

Still, it's a surreal, medieval and scary world out there, and a miniskirt isn't going to change that.

As a medievalist, I see this sort of construction all the time: Blank event was awful/sexually backwards/anti-female/politically repressive/fill-in-the-negative-term-of-your-choice, therefore, it was "medieval."

Mostly I just laugh, but something about the usage in this instance prompted me to write. What exactly is medieval about this incident? I feel like we're supposed to unfold an entire trope of attitudes towards women from this statement; the lazy connection that comes to mind (and calling something medieval is always lazy, since it is never explained and we're just supposed to know what it means) is the idea of a woman being accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake by an angry mob. Needless to say, this sort of Monty Python imagery is more fantasy than fact; nor is it confined to the Middle Ages, nor does it represent an accurate picture of the status of women during the Middle Ages.

Please, for all of you grasping for a catch-all negative term for something, reach for a different word... I realize "neoclassical" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but come on.