I am a Katrina survivor and a former employee of New Orleans Public Library, laid off after the storm. Please DO NOT send books to New Orleans Public Library! They have been swamped with books, tons of books, semi trucks full of books -- so many that even the 900 volunteers associated with ALA could not process them. The library is being buried alive by gift books! We all appreciate your kindness, but when you have no buildings to house them, and no librarians to catalog them, books are not really what we need. What New Orleans Public and the other devastated Gulf Coast libraries need right now is money, money to rebuild. If you would like to use your used books to help, a good thing to do is to hold a used book sale in your community and donate the proceeds to a Guld Coast library. You can go to http://www.nutrias.org to learn about NOPL's recovery efforts and learn how to donate.

I would also like to correct one thing in the piece -- there are not two libraries open in New Orleans, but four, and soon to be six, as the volunteers and vendors of ALA have refurbished two branches. Check your facts, Salon! A simple visit to the website above could have confirmed this.

I'd also like to speak to the rebuilding effort in New Orleans. People want to rebuild, to get on with their lives. We are not just sitting on our hands waiting for the Feds or whoever to do something. But when you have no place to live, no water, no electricity, how much can you do? New Orleans needs help. Remember, it could have been your city. Terrorism, bird flu, earthquakes -- next time it might *be* your city. If New Orleans is left to rot and die on the vine, how can any American city think itself secure? It could happen to you.

I grew up in an analogous situation: a serious, bead-jiggling Catholic mother and an atheist father. My Mom took us to Mass every week, but my father never came. I asked him why not.

"Becasue I don't believe in God," he said. And that was that.

When I was older, a teenager, I asked him again.

"I just can't," he said. "It's all such bullshit."

"But Mom believes," I said.

"Well, it works for her, but it just doesn't work for me."

And that was that. Dad never denigrated Mom's faith or tried to "convert" us to atheism. And Mom honored dad's wish not to go. Neither of them belabored it, but Dad's example gave me room to see there was more than one way to live.

When I grew up and finally allowed myself to admit my unbelief, Dad didn't "win" becase I left the church, and Mom didn't "lose." Really it had nothig to do with them -- I grew up and made my own choice. It was a personal decision.

For the LW's daughter, when she cries, I say, let her cry. 13 yo girls cry all the time anyway. I don't think he should go to church to pacify her -- he has a right to his beliefs and, indeed, a responsibility to model them to his child. Just live your life and show her that non-Christians can be good, stable people. It will be an important example for her as she grows and makes her own choice. When she cries over your soul, remind her that, by her own creed, no one can know what is in God's mind, and it is arrogant for any man to assume they know who will and won't be "saved." You can comfort her without buying into her belief structure.

OMG, this story put tears in my eyes. What a great moment in American history!

I was actually in tears by the end of this thing. I realized that this was the first time in my life I actually had a candidate I was *excited* to vote for, who inspired me instead of being the lesser of two evils. I can't wait to go cast my vote for Barack Obama on Tuesday! Barack Obama is a great man and he will be one of our finest Presidents. All this talk about how we will "destroy America" is fearmongering and utter nonsense.

All this commie-mongering just makes me laugh. Turnips! Soviet high-rises! These people are all grandparents and retirees, if you notice. People who would never vote for Obama anyway. No one under the age of forty even knows what "socialism" is, for Pete's sake. It's just not working. It's amazing to me that this is the best the vaunted Rethug attack machine can come up with at this point. Turnips!

OK, Heather, I know you are the TV critic, but you are watching way too much TV. Why are you watching CNN in the middle of the day? Don't just SIT there and WATCH it -- that's what Tivo is for!

No one who is surfing Salon at work on their break has the faintest idea what you are talking about. Just turn it off and chill out.