An interesting article, and utterly wasted on many Salon readers, by the look of some of these letters.

By the way, for an interesting little thought experiment about your last point, Ray Kurzweil's Singularity book has a scene in which two bacteria from the primordial soup era talk about the wild idea that they could in the future be just part of some super-colony of bacteria and other things, an immense package of cells that could walk and talk and so on, and they discuss all of the same questions about whether they would still have individual identity in such a fantastic setup or not, and all the other questions it raises. I strongly recommend that book for anyone intrigued by some of the issues raised here.

Glenn Greenwald began as a blogger, and still is called that. Do you think Greenwald has had no impact? You may, it's a real question. I think he has, and so have many others in both the left and right blogosphere. Drudge changed things as far back as the Clinton impeachment era, and it's only increased from there.

The White House and both Democrats and Republicans in Congress respond officially to charges made by bloggers, to things they've dug up and brought attention to, and people have resigned as as result. People have also gotten elected as a result.

The Washington Post announced the other day that it would be selling access to government officials, to lobbyists who could pay from 25 to 250 thousand dollars for it. Do you think it was other newspapers who exposed that and raised the fuss that got them to apologize and cancel it?

You may well believe that none of this is true but almost no media and journalism watchers and analysts would agree with you.

Sensationalist, overblown and misleading headlines are par for the course at Salon. It's one among many of the reasons that it's not taken very seriously outside of Greenwald.

Palin's breathless and insane stream of moronic non sequiturs full of false bravado and undeserved and embarrassing self-congratulation was at least a one-off.

Camille Paglia on the other hand has been doing it for years, including once a month right here in Salon.

Palin's prior interviews and debate performances were bad, but nothing achieving the level of this recent rapid-fire manic dribbling idiocy. Paglia however does it every time she speaks or writes a word.

Well that was funny. Do you actually not see the hypocrisy in what you wrote? On the one hand writing a lengthy critique of letters you took the time to read that you didn't like, and on the other hand admonishing people that if they don't like something they should just not read it?

Not only did you read the letters you dislike, you took the time to write a lengthy, not to mention snide ("it's called a switch") comment criticizing others for being mean and nasty by commenting, in which by the way you also echoed Sarah Palin's misunderstanding of free speech fairly well.

It doesn't mean, for one thing, that criticizing someone is a violation of their right to speech. It's actually pretty much the other way around, the right to criticize would be one of the main things that the right is meant to protect.

The notion that someone like Camille Paglia would be given a forum to write this kind of nonsense and that readers of the magazine would stay silent and demure out of some odd notion of free speech is ludicrous.

You may be right about one thing, based on what Sarah Palin and you have said, the education system in this country is failing badly.

Time for your monthly hammering by vicious libs, Camille. Why do they keep her, they ask? Maybe cuz she attracts 600 letters, fools. Can you say advertising exposure?

-- terkoy

This comment sums up what Salon is accomplishing for the world by continuing to publish Paglia. To extreme right wingers, it's proof that even a "liberal" publication can't get any hits until they drop their liberal viewpoint and publish someone like Paglia who is "the only one who tells the truth".

Rush Limbaugh uses her the same way, he takes advantage of the whole pretense that she's a liberal to say "See, liberals secretly agree with me"

It's proof, in the minds of the extreme right, that progressives are bankrupt of ideas, and only by finally admitting that they agree with the extreme right wing can they function in the world.

In other words, if it weren't for Greenwald I'd say at this point that Salon is doing more harm than good, for anyone who's interested in an alternative to the brain dead extreme right wing media.

In fact even with Greenwald that may still be true. Most Americans have never heard of him. Many more of them know about Paglia due to Salon publishing, and Limbaugh and Drudge trumpeting, her extreme right wing thoughts. So that's your largest contribution to the world right now.

Thanks a lot.