LW, I live and talk like you. Inside, I'm a lot like your guy. I pretty much think we're doomed, and I don't really care. No big loss for the planet. I know the little things I do are useless in the grand scheme of things. But I do them, because as long as I'm alive, I'm compelled to care about trees. That's just who I am. I'm forced to live with myself, so these two parts of me have learned to get along. They laugh at each other, at most. I don't think you're going to change your boyfriend, so the question is, can you accept this part of him? And equally important, can he accept who you are?

Although I might take your anti-Hillary screeds more seriously if they weren't so predictable. You used to surprise me occasionally.

Okay, you did surprise me with your ready acceptance of the "Obama wants to unite us" motif. Is the campaign kicking you a little something? I am all set to support Obama when he wins the nomination. But why fool ourselves? He's a politician, not our collective perfect, dreamy boyfriend.

Like many posters here, I see bipolar disorder in your fiance. And we may all be right, but it doesn't matter because people who actually know and love your fiance have told him they're worried, and he has refused treatment. And in fact, probably does not see what psychiatry has to offer as treatment at all. Like substance abuse, certain psychiatric disorders have a "bottom." Your boyfriend hasn't found his, and until he does, he will probably continue to resist treatment. And that is just his right.

YOUR right is to live your life in a way that gives you the best chance for happiness and fulfillment. You want very normal things, LW, and it shouldn't matter that other people might think you're the anti-war fiance who wasn't willing to support her guy--that's not what's going on here, and you know it.

Go after the life you want. But know that these parts of your fiance that you want to "other" and say are not really him, are part of him and probably will be for a long time.

Maybe because there is more to a person than his or her mental illness. And because she loves him. And because there's always going to be something wrong with the person you mash DNA with. If he was a Huntington's carrier, I'd say swear off the kids. Otherwise, life is messy, but we're going to live it all the same.

Hey, I told the LW to leave him, too. But that's because he's either a) mentally ill and determined not to be treated for it, or b) an inconsiderate twit. Not because he's mentally ill, full stop.

Because the evidence on cocaine damage to a fetus is mixed at best. The "crack baby" phenomenon of 20 years ago was just cultural fear-mongering. "Oh, isn't it awful!" People seem to like having a couple of "Oh, isn't it awful" stories swirling around at any given moment.

You know what drug does cause measurable, serious, long-lasting damage to a fetus? Alcohol. Yes yes, I'm sure most Salon readers already know that. It's worth repeating.

This woman is no hero. A mom-to-be smoking crack is probably going to be a bad mother for all kinds of reasons. Killing her baby from the inside is probably not one of them.

The rest of my post was about how the woman should not have been charged for a stillbirth nobody could prove was caused by cocaine. Or did you think I was throwing this woman and her rights to the wolves because I took a moment to point out that she's no candidate for mother of the year?

Weird, weird, weird thing to call a professional reporter with no personal relationship to you. And yet, not that big a deal compared to other big deals. Like how our country might actually put McCain in office. Let's not let that happen, okay? [She says, into the ultra-liberal echo chamber...]

That seems like a ridiculous overstatement to me. If you're going to go there, can't *anything* escalate into an assault? (This was a quote from the post, I realize, not the Broadsheet poster.)

You've got to hold it together, mama. "Brightstar" isn't real. You're responding to a persona built on letters, and you just don't know who or what s/he really is. If reading these letters upsets you so much, just do what many of us do and ignore them.

But I'm not sorry this creature will have to go through the ordeal of being charged. I guess I should have a problem with the law being misused, but in this case I can't get worked up about it. Part of why I never wanted to be lawyer.

Your Salon readers are probably the ones who want the democrats to win. It's the rest of 'em we've got to worry about. I can't watch Recount yet, but perhaps its coming out now will piss off enough people to get them out.