I'm thrilled to hear that she was able to afford a really readable and convincing ghost-writer.

It occurred to me while reading that this might be a put-on, but after finishing I'm going to declare it the real thing. He's got a couple of books out there, I looked 'em up. Some people have deep-rooted political sympathies that no experience could shake, but others blow in the breeze of public opinion, and that's OK: superficial people help society move smoothly, and are often entertaining. And this was an entertaining, if not profound, piece.

My best friend from high school became a Reagan Republican after college, messed his life up, and sat around spitting hate talk at all kinds of groups. I recommended therapy: he took it, turned his life around, and he's a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat now, and much more pleasant to be with. It happens.

Thank goodness.

I don't usually read Brooks because he only raises my blood pressure. But I saw his pull quote about all of us therapist liberals refusing to admit the possibility that the Fort Hood killer was simply evil, and I couldn't resist. He's always got some whack-job theory that explains why things are the way they are, and I always wonder, if his theory is so freakin' scientifically sound, why didn't the rest of us get the memo on it? Does he have a book of secret theories that explain everything? If so, why can't the rest of us buy it on Amazon? But the idea that there are people who are just evil is the kind of thing I was taught as a kid, and outgrew. I tried to write Brooks a comment informing him that most people mature and evolve to a point of having compassion for others and quit believing fairy tales like "the devil makes people do bad things." (As Salon readers know, only Roman Polanski is intrinsically evil.) But comments were already cut off - and it was only 8:30 AM. Which I guess the Times does to minimize embarrassment when one of their assholes has written a real boner of a column again.

Anyway, I turned immediately to Glenn Greenwald, who didn't disappoint. He never does. And I'm glad I could exorcise some of my frustration on Salon.

And, yeah, the letters format, mmm, uh, needs some tweaking.

What does this incident say about the common right-wing rant that if we just armed everybody (college students, for instance), this kind of rampage couldn't happen because everyone could simply defend themselves? Were the personnel of Fort Hood prevented from carrying firearms? Is Fort Hood some kind of fuzzy-headed liberal gun-free zone? Or is that kind of NRA-profit-inspired thinking maybe as brain-dead ridiculous as it seems?

Gave me a nice laugh as I go off to work to deal with my own (differently) offensive boss.

Never! The Salon HATE-Polanski crowd would rather see that woman stripped, whipped, and torn apart by rabid wolves than see a "celebrity" not be punished for something he did wrong.

Birther attorney Orly Taitz has never responded well to having one of her many cases tossed out of court. Unsurprisingly, she had much the same reaction...

Sorry to be a grammar snob, but you got me in the mood with the recent "Lexicographer's Dilemma" article. There's nothing in the first sentence here for "much the same reaction" to refer to (I won't say "reference"). One knows what you mean, but... it's a little disappointing to start off one's Saturday morning reading that on one's favorite news site. Cheers!

As the grandson of an English teacher and son of a grammar fanatic, I've always chosen to err on the prescriptionist side of usage. ("Reference" as a verb I find more painful than fingernails on a blackboard, and there's no way to convince students that "refer" fills the verb role perfectly adequately.) However, as I enter my mid-50s and my memory doesn't work as well as it used to, I increasingly look back over my writing and find that my mind is starting to substitute homonyms for each other: that I'll thoughtlessly use "their" for "they're" when I'm perfectly aware of the difference. It's making me a little more tolerant.

1. Ouch! What a great, sad comic.

2. I agree with Adam Smith. Is there anyone who won't want to enlarge? Is there some reason it can;t happen automatically?

Yeah, ProsecuteBush, I agree with you, most of us basically agree with you. But let us diverge ever so slightly from your opinion on some minor point, and you excoriate us as traitors. We're either with you - or we're with the torture-enablers!

In fact, your rhetoric reminds me of someone I used to have to listen to... mmm, let me think... I've got it: GEORGE W. BUSH!

Votre semblable, votre frere.

This is supposed to be a Democracy. Keillor has a say about granting amnesty as well as you and I and everyone else. In fact as a celebrity he has more to say than most of us. By calling for amnesty for torturers he enables torture to continue.

Our laws and our legal system are supposed to determine whether amnesty is granted and torture is stopped regardless of what any celebrity says or thinks. A democracy doesn't mean that punishments get meted out according to a referendum of innumerable private views. I do appreciate your name and viewpoint, though.

I love Garrison Keillor even when he's wrong, as he was about amnesty for those who authorized torture. If he had any say about granting them amnesty, I'd hate him, but he doesn't. He's just a writer, a humorist. And I love him for being good-natured enough to make me think that I, too, can be wrong sometimes, and that doesn't mean I'm going to hell, or deserve to.