And we shudder and complain about the attention Paris Hilton gets but we talk about her just the same, sometimes in quiet and disparaging tones.

No, no, and no again. "We" don't talk about her. You do. Incessantly. Salon is in love with this woman, I don't know why. Does it feel avant-garde to note people are "famous for being famous"? Does it give you the impression you're getting at the heart of contemporary America? Do you know how off the mark you are? Do you know how very long ago Warhol noted, and parodied, and celebrated what you are after now? Do you realize you help create the world of contemporary America by what stories and celebrities you choose to cover?

My "you" is not directed at Elliott alone. It's directed towards the various staff writers and the editors who cover this woman, and push for more coverage, the collective "you" of Salon, who cannot distinguish between their obsessions and those of their readership, and who insist on speaking for the latter, though the latter insist over and over that Salon's assumptions don't apply.

Do you think you are giving us our medicine? I've asked this elsewhere, and I'll ask it again: why does Salon not listen to its readers?

I probably should have said comedy of manners, but I think Restoration comedy and comedy of manners are interchangable terms, despite the length of a century, which the two cover (The Country Wife, of the Restoration, is often referred to as a comedy of manners, and School for Scandal is often thought of as Restoration comedy). "Relatively short"? Cecilia?

Glad things worked out, but you didn't answer my question. You clearly said to Cary that you could be interested in a romance developing, you just didn't want some odd is-he-isn't-he-flirting-will-he-come-clean-about-what-he-wants situation. Now in the letters column you're saying you don't want sexual issues in the office at all, and you aren't interested in a romantic development. Whence the change?

One minute she was bragging to MSNBC's Chris Matthews about how the Edwards controversy -- if you didn't hear about it, she called the Democratic candidate a "faggot" earlier this year -- is helping to sell her awful books; minutes later she was braying about how Elizabeth Edwards was trying to keep her from selling, or even writing, her awful books. Which is it, Ann?

As I understood her, she said the Edwards campaign wants her to stop being adversarial, but is using an adversarial approach on their website to make money. It's a fair comment.

I don't like, indeed very much dislike, Coulter. And that many young people there seemed to support her makes me uncomfortable. But if she says "I'm making a killing off saying these things, but they want to stop me from doing so" (which seems the gist of your interpretation) that's not a contradiction.

I also think it's just wrong to present this as "innocent mother and wife stands up to political loudmouth" which is what Elizabeth Edwards seemed to be angling for. She's pulling something of a Hillary (Bill Clinton governorship and presidency era). She's going to scrap it up, and play the "let's be civil" game at the same time.

Good for Edwards that she confronted Coulter, but it's a political maneuver. I hope people don't lose sight of that.

He's power-tripping, but a nice guy.

You could be interested in taking things further, but you don't like sex to enter the workplace.

You submitted a question to an advice column that regularly gets over a hundred responses per question, with people who regularly have widely different interpretations of an issue, yet you're surprised so many people could be interested in your life, and apparently you are irritated by the analysis a number of them offer you.

I find your posts more and more confusing.