I enjoyed Allen Barra's review of "A Walk on the Wild Side" in Salon today, enough so that I'm thinking about getting the novel a spot in one of my intro to fiction courses.

But Salon's headline was just too funny: the book "captured the Crescent City as we'll never see it again: seedy, brutal, alive." Does anyone who makes these claims every visit New Orleans? The images we associate with the Depression aren't currently walking the streets, but why would we expect them to be? Still, New Orleans is still unlike any place you've ever been, and yes, still seedy, brutal and lively.

Fans of the book who come visit the city ought not to spend too much time looking for "Perdido Street in the French Quarter" since there's no such street in the Quarter. And finding a hill tall enough to push Legless down to his death, that's gonna be another tricky task. You might have noticed a year ago that we're not just flat, we're concave.

It doesn't matter what joke Kerry intended to deliver. He blew the delivery. Planning a joke that easy to screw up is typical of Kerry. The best outcome we can have from this incident is for it finally to be clear to Kerry that he will never be president. He needs to free up all that dough we donated to him in 2004, fade to black, and let other, better candidates take us forward. Here we are, poised to actually accomplish something, and this ham-handed egotist has to put himself in the spotlight once again, flailing and bellowing about being under attack and the unfairness of it all. We need to dump the drama queen, now.

It's quite possibly time for LW's friend to change partners, and keep looking for the autonomy within herself to avoid controlling relationships.

It's definately time for Salon to change partners in its advice column. Cary Tennis' work here just gets worse and worse. This one read like a creepy writing student's response to a workshop prompt.

Uppity? Jeeeeeeeesus Christ! Next you'll be saying he's not black. Oh, wait, you already did. I guess he'll be able to quote Salon next time he's pulled over for a DWB.

As much as I appreciate Valenti's appeal to young women discovering their relationship to feminism, I have to say this. Jessica: flashing your boobs at Mardi Gras isn't a feminist statement. Your intentions and heightened self-awareness of feminist body issues don't matter. All you're doing is joining the inane Spring Break crowd of tourists who are completely unaware and uncaring about the traditions and origins of this amazing cultural ritual. Nudity is a part of this Farewell to the Flesh, but there's some artfulness to it. Go to the corner of Bourbon and St. Ann for the best, most daring drag and costume contest on the planet. Dance to the drumming all along Frenchman Street in nothing but carefully placed feathers and beads. But pulling up your shirt and yelling woo-hoo while some drunk frat boys pile on for a grab is just brain-dead behavior and doesn't have a damn thing to do with Mardi Gras. Please, keep it in your own town. But of course, you wouldn't do that in your town--so much for thoughtful feminist critique of the sexually repressive patriarchy.

"Really, this is their business, and it's not for us to judge. "

If there's one thing I'm sick to death of hearing from my fellow feminists and liberals it's the sentiment above. It's fine for us to judge. Not every cultural or religious practice is worthy of our respect.

If I hear "the pie maker" intoned in that pompous narrator's voice one more time, well, I don't know what I'll do. There's just no accounting for taste, and for those who like this sort of thing, this is exactly the sort of thing they like. So I have no wish to see Pushing Daisies push up daises in the ratings, but my God, it's so off my Tivo Season Pass list. It's twee. It's fey. It's precious, and that's no compliment. The movie-style theme music makes it feel top heavy for TV. The narration is obnoxious -- just call him Ned, and drop the silly "the pie maker" thing. Every second, every frame, is incredibly affected. Nothing turns me off quicker than something so delighted by its own quirkiness. Blech.

"Could it possibly be that these two women are the one's that are actually liberated, in the actual sense of the word? "

No. They're clearly idiots. Just dumb as a bar of soap. Swimming in self-referential hipster irony is old. Tired and old, and of interest only to idiots. One can only hope this was their 15 minutes of fame and someone smarter and wittier can step up for a little feminist limelight.

"Since my parents had a hard time paying for some of the wedding expenses in a timely fashion, I paid some of the expenses using only some of the money we received as wedding gifts, and my parents said they can pay us back over time (a few hundred a month)."

Wait! Hold the phone!

Is the letter writer actually accepting a few hundred dollars a month from her parents, her retired, elderly, just-getting-by parents, for her own damned wedding?

God in heaven. What class this couple has.