I didn't know him, but I appreciate him nonetheless as I've been turning to Salon for just about as long as he was working there. Thank you for honoring him and your readers by letting us know about his death and what he meant to you personally.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading every single contribution to this article! What enthusiasm. Each of the candidates is, in my view, appropriately championed for her/his strengths, and Kate Pollitt has the sense to recognize her limitations. For months I've been saying to my friends, This is a great year to be a Democrat. We have a line up of great, strong candidates, none of whom alone seem perfect to me, but then, who wants perfection? In the end, the way things are going now, we'll have the best "team spirit" we've had in years/decades.

She's lucky to have you. Here's wishing you both the best, for your sakes and ours.

Camille's last several columns haven't been so edgy. This one is a treat (if not quite a feast)!

You wouldn't be one of those "phony soldiers" would you?

to you both, Camille and Joan, for your guts and grace as writers for Salon.

Speaking for myself, and I suspect for others, I would not be able to take the yapping adolescent-like reactions you get from a handful of readers in this letters section. (I really don’t understand the response “I’m going to cancel my subscription if you keep publishing a certain author”—how narcissistic, and it seems especially inappropriate when the author under personal attack is someone whom I’m guessing gets the most clicks and letters per article on your site, connects to a lot of OTHER readers, and whom many of us respect as one of Salon’s earliest contributors, whether she riles us up or not.)

I’m a big fan of Elizabeth Edwards (as well as her husband, Obama and Hillary), and I loved Elizabeth’s willingness to take on Ann Coulter directly. To me, her actions modeled the approach I wish more schools adopted in response to bullies; instead of catering to them, or passive-aggressively whining about them, just calling them out. But I also see how it takes a lot of maturity not to join the fray when the bullies are being publicly sadistic, whether those bullies are on air or in the Salon letters section. I applaud Camille and Joan both for the way you stay above the fray even as you stay engaged with us all.

It makes sense to me that in this current postmodernist/ post-structuralist time, when nothing is sacred and everything begs to be deconstructed (perhaps one of the most democratic, broadly creative and playful of critical eras?), Paglia’s structuralism will feel out of place to many readers. My reading of Paglia over the last 20 years is that in her worship of nature and art, she finds much larger connections than most of the rest of us do, especially those of us who have rejected religion. But why should we be threatened by her voice? My sense is that she's true to her generation; she’s true to her long-held passions; she’s true to her independent view of the world, without being locked to it. I suspect she’ll be open to exploring modern film makers and musicians in response to some of the suggestions in these letters. In the meantime, I continue to be sincerely grateful for the ways she continues to express her ways of seeing the world and to challenge my own perceptions.

From a reader who remembers what it was like to be captivated by Northrop Frye before having a clue who Derrida was...

I really like what John Edwards is saying in this campaign, especially his clear headedness about health care and the two Americas. And Barack Obama sounds great on these issues too. For some reason I trust Obama more when it comes to getting out of the war. Maybe it's that his whole style seems more "zen" to me. Anyway, I agree with Camille that these are the two Democrats to keep watching. I also think it's great that she's scouting out the Republicans! How arrogant for us to assume they couldn't win just because Bush is down.

Emily & Cid: Your letters are really great! What a fabulous dialogue. I'm learning much from each of you as individuals (about Mormonism, about being an open-hearted liberal atheist) and your interpersonal skills too! I can't wait to hear Cid's reply. You two could start your own column!