There's a saying in my community: God don't like ugly. Haggard did ugly. And ugly boomerangs.

To make fun of the hypocrits, those who willfully misled people for money, the cons men, the stupid criminals, it's natural in this country. It's as American as apple pie.

Many people here are not Christian, and care not about a Christian standard. The more one pontificates that they are hypocrities because they are not meeting a standard they never even said they were going to meet, never ever accepted, and don't accept now, the more they are turned off by the speaker. It reinforces that "Christians are stupid" meme that runs through these boards at far too high a frequency.

The people here making fun of Haggard never claimed to be perfect, as Haggard did. They never claimed a special mission, as Haggard did. They never demonized people over religious preference or sexuality, as Haggard did. Haggard set a standard for them. Labelling Haggard a "hypocrite" seems accurate. Making jokes about it makes sense. They aren't saying "string him up."

What makes it so ripe for jokes is that it seems every time a minister/politician goes off on how some sexual behavior is depraved and how people who commit that sin, that same condemner is committing the behavior in a far more illicit and bigger way that the people condemned. It just never seems to fail. The truly holy don't shout it or run around condemning people to hell, as Haggard did. It feels like it's inevitable. The louder they scream, the more likely they are doing it, and getting off on the way the "condemning" allows them to licitly discuss what they really want to do.

It's like a cosmic joke. If you condemn, you will do.

Music is a form of therapy. The LW needs to start playing open mike events to get her therapy. SHe's ruminating, and it's reinforcing the issue. THe more she plays for others and gets positive feedback, the better she'll be. There's complicated science behind it (there's a whole field of Music Therapy for medical/mental disorders in the Allied Health Professions). She'd be a good fit for that field, with her guitar by ear and empathy from having depression. It pays pretty darn well. Music can be her route out of depression.

She also needs to get out of LA. Too expensive. Depression does come from financial instability and monster bosses. Monster bosses are known to cause depression. Run away!

The numbers Cary use seem good, until you realize that a cheap apartment in LA is in the $1200 range. My sister-in-law is still in shock over how low our prices are. Salaries have not kept up with housing or insurance or food. That's low of living in LA.

Go to Seattle, Denver, Austin, Dallas, etc moderate priced towns in booming areas. Play your music at night, use thoe open mikes to lead to paying gigs in the day. Seek out the things that stop the rumination and make you happy.

Then go to college. Get your act together before you go. Right now you are still in that circular thinking one gets in depression. WOrk on yourself first. You ahve plenty of advice on how to get into college more cheaply.

Good luck.

And thanks Cary. I sometimes wonder if you read all of these letters. Most of us are not evil all of the time!

Clearly these people have never been around teens. "Rationale" and "teen sex drive" shouldn't even be in the same sentence. That study's metodology and assumptions were torn to shreds on the Slate Fray boards. It's not valid at all. Citing it actually undermines her credibility.

I support parental notification with bypass because most teens underestimate their parents' reactions, and most are not rational at times of stress. But parental notification as a sex deterrent? No. It is solely because I think we SHOULD treat abortion like any other medical procedure. Teens should get parental consent because they are NOT adult women, and adult women should need no special hurdles (waiting periods, literature) not provided for other procedures because abortion is a medical procedure, pure and simple. It has some moral issues, but so does plastic surgery and and any number of other medical procedures. Treat abortion like other medical procedures, between a doctor and an adult woman, or a doctor and the parents of a minor, and leave the rest out.

The ones with battlefield experience didn't understand? Excuse me, Mr. Rumsfeld, they understand far too well you are incompetent. You tried to overrule 2,000 years of military history and lessons from SunTzu, Clausewitz, and Machiavelli with technology and business methods. Downsizing, speed up, and technology are no substitute for boots on the ground, you dumbass. The generals told you to send more troops and use a more Clausewitzian, Powell doctrine strategy. That would have saved lives all around, flattened the insurgency early, and prevented this. NOOOOO, we had to go light and stupid. Remember Vietnam and your mentor Curtis LeMay, Mr. Rumsfeldt? He made the same mistake. Then, instead of outfitting the soldiers as well as possible and setting realistic rules of engagement, NOOOO, we priviledge civilians profiteers, use shoddy equpiment by "friends" bring in Haliburton and Co to cause more hatred, and hamstring our soldiers in myriad petty ways, from refusing legitimate rehab to legitimate body armour, to court martialling people for jerry rigging a "hillbilly" armoured Hummer with abandoned parts.

There will be a special place in hell for you for your wilful incompetence, an incompetence that began with the Millenium Games in 2001 and continued downhill.

Congratulations. You are the first SecDef to disgust and unite every branch in resistance to your stupidity. There have been venal, idiotic, greedily indifferent SecDefs before. You have set a standard for military disdain so low it has never been seen before.

Go to hell and good riddance. I just wish Bush had been smart enough to pick Warner or McCain.