I had a similar problem and was unable to get help from the psychiatrist.

I live in a middle class town in Massachusetts. My daughter's best friend in kindergarten through second grade was from a broken family - mom and three daughters - who were living in one of the very few rental units in our middle class town. They were quite poor but so sweet. Their poverty made them needy and my wife and I helped them out a great deal. Because of this we grew quite close to the mother - a strong, smart, streetwise woman with an air of sadness around her. We loved her a great deal.

Suddenly things started getting really strange. She tore into my driveway one summer afternoon and told me that she knew I was having my friends follow her and she wanted me to call them off. A few days later, I got a call from the police station asking me to come help them. She had barricaded herself in her car in the parking lot of the police station after "being followed" and she wanted help from the police, but she couldn't trust them because they wanted to get her, too... Things like this happened over the course of a couple of weeks.

It came to a head when her daughter was at our home playing with our daughter and she came to pick her up - crazed, agitated and visibly high (she had had substance abuse problems in the past but was long since "clean"). My wife and I didn't want to let her daughter go with her and it turned into a huge argument that ended with her speeding off in her car with her daughter.

I had given her rides a number of times over the previous years when she was carless. I knew that she saw a psychiatrist and I knew who he was, where his office was, etc. I also knew that she had been taking medication prescribed by him and she told me at some point during this crazy time that she had stopped taking it.

So I tried desperately to involve the doctor who was shielded from the public by his secretary. "Your patient, so-and-so, is really having some problems. Can you please have the doctor contact this person... ask how she's doing?" I begged and pleaded and never got anywhere. I was told, emphatically, by his staff that he was ethically forbidden to reach out to her as a result of somebody calling him, concerned. I pushed the issue hard and I it was maddening that I couldn't get anywhere.

Eventually a neighbor called the police on her for some public disturbance and she was hospitalized and examined and put back on her meds. She never completely recovered, in my opinion. We reached out to her but she was clearly embarrassed about her behavior from before and never responded to our overtures of friendship. Eventually she packed her daughters up and moved away.

Having the doctor intervene might not have saved our friendship, but that's not important. Had he intervened perhaps she would have gotten better faster - or not descended as deeply into her manic funk. Perhaps her young daughters could have been spared any number of uncomfortable moments watching their mom fall apart in front of their eyes. Perhaps the neighbor would have never have had to call the police and the experience of being taken away in handcuffs would never have happened.

I hope this letter writer's mother's daughter will respond.

I hope the letter writer's DOCTOR responds.

That hot, scented towel they hand you is worth the extra $300 for a ticket alone.

I'll bet Singapore Girls' farts smell just like that towel.

The article states that there are an estimated 1.5 million street kids in America. How could that possibly be? 1.5 million street kids would be one-half of one percent of our population. One out of every 200 people in America would have to be a street kid.

1.5 million means a simple average of 30,000 per state. Obviously California would have alot more than Wyoming, however is anyone familiar with any place in America where there are even dozens of street kids, let alone thousands?

Is anyone aware of any other estimates out there?

w00t!

Was there not a news story sometime in the past 48 hours that a British C-130 received fire while landing in Southern Iraq, sustaining significant damage? A second plane came to rescue the crew, and the damaged C-130 was destroyed from the air by targetted coalition fire so as not to allow any part of it to get into enemy hands.

I would imagine that the same small shoulder-launched missiles that may be responsible for the downing of multiple helicopters of late could be used against a fixed-wing aircraft like the C-130.

Does anyone have additional information?

There are a number of letters here to Marcotte stating that she hasn't taken responsibility for what she has written.

Huh?

She's taken full responsibility for what she's written. Her ultimate act of taking responsibility was resigning from the Edwards campaign. She is explicitly standing by her writing and not apologizing for any of it. What more can anyone possibly ask of her? She's a hero.

It is my understanding that Mr. Goldberg's first job was selling copies of his mom's [Lucianne Goldberg] Linda Tripp/Monica Lewinsky casette tapes on eBay.

I wonder why he doesn't feature this proudly in his biography?