Please open your minds. Just as living together isn't marriage, marriage doesn't necessarily mean living together.

Yes, for many, marriage entails nonstop co-dependence and practical compromise. But for those who can afford, emotionally, financially, logistically, a less stifling arrangement, it doesn't have to. Mature adults realize that.

Getting married is a formal and practical gesture of lifelong commitment to another person. Why couldn't one want to take that profound step and still want to maintain at least some of the freedoms of living alone (at least some of the time)? It may not be traditional, but that doesn't make it illogical.

The person I love most in the world I have a hard time imagining ever living with. I'd have no problem giving her my heart for life, just not my entire lifestyle.

Yes, children complicate the issue. But in LW's case, the youngest child, 16, seems like he should be old enough to handle the situation.

Beneath the glossy, pulpy, pseudo-Hitchcockian surface of Paul Verhoeven's twisted 1992 San Francisco thriller lies a profound sexual terror, a belief that all Eros is Thanatos and that everything men do to women and vice versa is a form of violence.

Yes, a depth that is practically the opposite of the internet-skimming addiction that just lead me from 538 to TPM to Kos to Salon, way too early in the morning. A depth that is also the opposite of the snarky mockery that greeted Basic Instinct and Showgirls when they came out, which it probably breeds as a defense mechanism. How many movies 16 years later are just a faint memory? Basic Instinct, on the other hand, sticks, vividly. Great musical score too -- I can still hear those welling strings.

Sharon Stone is not much of an actress generally...she seems to think histrionics are the secret of her allure. But Sharon Stone is so sexy in that movie, even through all the camp, it's absurd. She's still providing hard-ons through memory 16 years later. The depth of her performance in that movie is something like what porn should be, if it weren't so scared to give sex the respect it deserves.

was good for Obama in numerous ways, just as she claimed she would be. Her most underrated assist: the long Democratic primary fight got the country comfortable with Obama in a way a 3 month presidential never could have. Also, ironically, she helped Obama by airing out his biggest negatives -- Wright, "bitter," etc... -- before they could do him maximum damage.

She's a pro and she deserves to be the prominent Democrat in the country outside the White House. I sincerely hope her prominent role this season isn't forgotten by history.

is pure racism. As far as I know, there's not even a sliver of fact to that assessment. Calling Jesse Jackson "a shakedown artist" has been a popular meme on the hard right in the last 10 or 15 years. Michelle Obama just happens to share Jackson's skin-color.

And permanent frown? Please. She bears the complex, wry wrinkles of a life lived consciously and responsibly.

BTW, Barack is getting most of the attention, but Michelle Obama deserves a serious salute. She could not be a more gracious, authentic, strong, lovely, class act -- if you ever doubt for a second Barack's opinion of women, please just witness his superstar wife.

I think, as a TV critic, Havrilesky vastly overestimates popular culture's role in most lives -- or maybe just pretends to, because it's her comfort zone.

But, boy, did the following hit the bullseye for me as a grown child of Boomers!:

As our parents, you told us to tell you anything, to be honest, to come to you with our problems, but when we did, you were uncomfortable and dismissive. You didn't really want to know how we felt. When we were emotional, you flashed back to that time your drunk mother threw the jack-o'-lantern into the street. You loved us, but you were passive-aggressive and avoidant in spite of your best intentions.

A large part of my passion, and my friends' passion, in the epic Clinton/Obama Dem primary battle I think was fed by something of this generational psycho-dynamic.

Obama may be enigmatic and guarded, but, unlike most of our parents, he oozes authenticity. He's simply not phoney: not ingratiating, not constantly out to demonstrate his goodness at the expense of shoving other aspects of himself into the background...at peace in his own skin. And that sort of authenticity matters so much, perhaps too much, to us children of Boomers.

Hillary the Boomer, on the other hand, wore the well-intentioned mask we're all accustomed to from our parents, behind which, experience has taught us, lies complex repressions, contradictions, shadows. God love her.

One thing I'm a bit worried about is that there may be something reactionary to it, dressed up as moral ambiguity: i.e. characters doing what needs to be done, screw the law (or indeed ethics), and it's questionable but it still gives us a visceral thrill... Is this something the series does?

Sometimes Vic and his crew's shady tactics give a thrill, yes, but the show hasn't let them off the hook long-term for anything they've done. Vic has been both a villain and a hero, leaving an unconscionable trail of destruction and broken relationships while accomplishing quite a lot and mostly living by a higher code. That constant shading is what makes Vic such a fascinating character and the Shield such a fascinating show.

In other words, The Shield really does explore authentic moral ambiguity. That's why it's art, and not, like "24," porn for the hard right. Yeah, if you're a lefty, especially one who's never been mugged, it may occasionally make you question some of your pieties.

That's not to say it's a perfect show. It's occasionally cartoonish -- Vic's cunning is virtually super-hero level; the level of moral decay depicted in the Shield's L.A. strains credibility as well.