"My nakedness did not interest her. I suppose that repeated exposure to the male form will do that, just as plucking chickens might make you a vegan."

Perfectly stated! The association between an anonymous massage and chicken-plucking is particularly apt (and icky!).

I agree with Cary and LauraBB that the slush pile experience can be empowering, but for a different reason. The writer Bret Lott describes a similar situation in his book "Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer's Life." Lott was also a young writer who consistently failed to get anything published. He eventually took a low-level job at a publishing company where he was the one to go through the slush pile and send out the rejection slips. Like the LW, he too was demoralized at first by the poor quality of virtually all the submissions, but in the end this job changed his attitude toward writing. He came to realize that most of the writers he dealt with were making the same mistakes (poor editing, weak dialogues, above all shoddy cover letters) and came to realize that he had been equally thoughtless in his own efforts. In fact, he DESERVED to fail. Taking this exerience to heart, he started writing again and eventually transcended the slush pile.

The moral of the story seems to me that generosity towards other struggling authors is essential, but if we want to move forward it needs to be combined with merciless self-criticism. If our work is really no good, why should we want to see it in print?

The slush pile is more useful as a concept than as a channel for publication. No one should have any illusions about the slush pile - it almost never leads to publication. After sinking my work into scores of slush piles, I've gone on to publish four novels to date, but only after developing personal contacts that allowed me to send my manuscripts straight into the editors' hands. This is not easy, and agents are hard to find too, but in my experience it's the only way.

I agree with Xanthro: no matter what kind of speeches the Clintons end up giving, all the reporting is going to be about them - a true self-fulfilling prophecy. The fix is in! Chalk up another one for Karl Rove (and the Clintons).

>>If Germany suddenly drove Tanks into Kaliningrad to 'free' the German speaking Russians from Russian overlordship would you support that too?<<

I don't follow you here. The Russians in Kaliningrad are most definitely NOT German-speaking, so what precisely is the point you're driving at?

I spent some time in communist East Germany in the 1980s, and I learned that one of the state youth organization's favorite tactics was to organize letter-writing campaigns among school children in support of whatever new ideological or economic crusade the Party had just launched. The kids would be provided with talking points and supervision. These articles would then be sent to "Neues Deutschland" and other official Party-run newspapers and were published as a sign of "popular enthusiasm." Back then you could always identify the members of the youth organization by their white or blue uniform shirts (depending on their age). Are uniforms for the McCain-Palin campaign in the offing? At this rate, it wouldn't surprise me one bit.

>You know how swingers carry condoms?

>Well, fundy swingers carry these things.

Perfect, Bigguns! That really made my day (and I bet you're right, too). I doubt this is the last time we've heard about this thing. But the real market is going to be in the Muslim world, isn't it? Somebody is going to make a killing.

Richard Powers summed up the Internet's socio-cultural impact in his 2006 novel "The Echo Maker" as follows:

"The Internet had hit Nebraska like liquor hitting a Stone Age tribe - the godsend every sandhills homesteader descendant had been waiting for, the only way to survive such vacancy."