I have been reading Salon for over ten years. I'm shocked at the viciousness and misinterpretation of articles that takes up the bulk of the letters on Salon. Obviously it's particularly bad on Broadsheet, where it appears many letter-writers only read the headlines or just never recovered from what they see as the audacity of even creating a feminist blog on Salon, but it's everywhere. Carey's advice column, and even book and movie reviews - logically less likely to rile people up than the political content - get buried in letters of personal attacks on the writers. There is so much hate and emotional reactivity - needing to call someone a monster or an idiot or a fool or spew long, involved insults about their appearance simply because you disagree about a movie!

I don't agree with everything I read here - in fact I rarely agree wholesale, and I respect the people who do put forth earnest, thoughtful criticism and alternative viewpoints. But they seem to be growing rarer and rarer. This thread strikes me as one of the worst examples. I treasure open forum, which I why I can't resist clicking the "Letters" link - but I always leave with a little less faith in humanity.

I think the author is making a very reasonable choice about TV-free infancy and young childhood. However, it's worth pointing out that this conflict is at the end of its era: the next generation isn't going to watch TV at all. The internet is their source of music, news, communication, intellectual reading, research, creation, and multi-tasking trash.

This article is about an old question. The new, more pertinent questions are these: how old should they be before they're allowed to use the internet? Should they be allowed to have a computer in their bedroom? What should I teach them about the internet?

My parents broke every television rule in the book. With commuting, they both worked from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., so from an early age I could watch as much TV as I wanted, and the content was unrestricted. I was allowed to eat dinner in front of the TV. I was allowed to play video games as long as I wanted.

But because of other, and far, far more important aspects of their parenting, I graduated high school first in my class with full scholarship offers, and as a national martial-arts champion (hardly brain-damaged and obese). Should you worry about TV's effects on your kids? Yes. Should you worry a lot more about other things, like the values you instill upon them? Yes.

"As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children."

I don't think that the analogy between his grandmother and his pastor is a false one. Suppose his grandmother were, in fact, an extremely divisive, outspoken racist - we wouldn't expect him to dump her then, either. Because she is his grandmother.

For many Americans, the church you attend is not something you pick the way you choose a brand of toaster - you don't pick the best one or drop it when a better one comes along. Church is about long standing tradition - it is about who strengthened your faith, who officiated your wedding, who baptized your children, who consoled you for twenty years. For many Americans, their pastor IS family, and you forgive family, and you never turn your back upon them.

(For context, I am an atheist, but having grown up among Baptists I would never deny anyone their faith. I am also an Obama supporter, but I fail to see the hysterical Clinton-spinning anywhere on Salon - not in Ms. Walsh's column, not on Broadsheet, not in the War Room blog.)

There was a very brief period of time when celebrity gossip interested me. It was, as you put it, right after it started to get ridiculous, titillating, and limited to a small set of celebrities, and right before it started to get sad, scary, and simply degrading. It was the crotch shots that lost me; that's just a different game altogether, and one I don't want to play.

Clearly a huge segment of the population was interested, for it to have supported an industry. For people to say that it was only stupid, shallow, obsessive people watching - well, that's a lot of people to belittle and dismiss. And did you really not look at the sexy, freakshow elephant in the room? How?

And now that industry is failing. It's good to see it go, and hear that people are more interested in the elections than in dirty laundry, but a cultural phenomenon has come and gone, which is worthy of analysis.

I have a question that I want to ask on pretty much every letters on Salon. If you disagree with one reviewer, dislike one columnist, see some bias in an article - great. But if you find Salon as a whole somehow personally offensive - if you think it's a sensationalist rag, a vehicle for Clinton, a vehicle for misandrists - why do you read it? Why do you keep coming back?