I'll bet if you asked the editor, she'd say, "Unfortunately, our writers and our readers all come from the same limited demographic. I'd be really happy to get more diverse work, send it to me."

If you notice, the stories on the site that seem to be the most consistently popular are the ones that are the most exotic to the readers. I for one would be very interested in reading writers who grew up poor, American poor certainly but even more Indian poor or African poor or North Korean poor...

Unfortunately, one of the many downsides to being poor is you don't have leisure to write, and you don't have the examples of other people who write. I know many people who have written books, it's perfectly conceivable for me to write one. Imagine if you had never even seen a "writer" in person.

In particular, what can I try to convince my friends to do to get Obama's attention focused in the right way?

So what's the poor kid doing that's so bad?

She's simply bumbling around, dropping mugs, bleeding on things. Sounds like a confused 16-year old. What's so terrible about that?

She could be doing all sorts of hostile nasty things, things we've seen in other letters to Cary.

The letter writer doesn't seem to be one bit sympathetic to her. Can you imagine how horrid it must be to have your mother go mad when you're in a foreign country and abandon you?

And she's 16, for God's sake. How long is she going to hang out, five years at most? It's not like you have to change diapers.

There are plenty of selfish, unattached men. I suggest you find one of them, it will suit you a lot better. I definitely think you shouldn't be around kids.

...but instead make sure that the name and address of the purported signer adequately reflects your opinion....

"So... I've been thinking a lot about gay issues.... gay rights... what it means to be gay.

"Well, I'm not gay, but you do have the most terrible breath."

Drive to the far right, you mean.

Can you name *one* time when the Republicans in the Senate "compromised" in any real way?

...he doesn't.

Crowd panics where dozens or sometimes hundreds of people are killed are more common than commercial air crashes.

The Parks Department or whoever arranged this were simply not doing their jobs and it's important to publicize this.

"enormity: A monstrous offense or evil; an outrage."

There's tons of other words for "big" - there isn't another word for "massively evil".

Regarding the booing, well, between 9/11, Iraq, NOLA, and Afghanistan, about 10,000 Americans are dead, and several hundred thousand foreigners - as well as three or four trillion dollars pissed away - all due to bad decisions on Bush's part, mostly deliberate.

It's a tribute to how civilized people are that they simply boo.

While I do love the idea of free choice, I personally would rather give it up than experience the eternal, infinite torture that Christianity promises me after I die.

She drives a shitty car, well, tons of people don't have any cars. She throws jewelery at you at Xmas, a lot of people don't have food.

Dump her.

despite the nay-sayers...

Right, in realistic politics the same people who screwed up at the top get rewarded and get to try again and the people at the bottom suffer.

Tell me: why is "rewarding incompetence" somehow more "realistic" than "holding people accountable for their mistakes"?

Mr. Bolling completely gets what it was like to be a gawky teenager - again.

I had a similar experience to one of the posters... I was ostracized throughout high school as a geek (though I was lucky enough to have a steady girlfriend). Years later, someone from the school told me how cool I was back then. I was surprised! "But I didn't fit in at all!" "Right, you didn't care about any of our stuff, that was cool!"

We're rooting for you Louis, you're going to be a great cartoonist when you grow up!

...when it fucking well did not!

Why doesn't anyone say to him, "Well, the chances are extremely good that no matter how badly Obama does, there won't be anything as bad as your 9/11"?

Neil Gaiman has grown on me an awful lot, not only by having a lot of books that completely hit the mark but also by never failing to entertain and provoke thought, even in his lighter pieces...

I'm always very skeptical of movie adaptations of books, but I guess I'll have to see this one.

They simply could not actually make money (as opposed to taking in investor capital).

Even companies that are selling something of clear value (like Sirius) are having trouble getting anywhere. What about all the other companies that seem to exist only to show the ads of other such companies on their website?

How can you talk about Bigfoot and Cryptozoology without at least namechecking Loren Coleman?

http://www.cryptomundo.com/

http://www.lorencoleman.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loren_Coleman

Loren is both a scholar and a gentleman but also probably the world's top non-institutional crypto scholar. You do your readers a disservice by not mentioning him!

...but before judging him you should read the other article - this is a kid who never had a chance at any point.

(For example, he really didn't know what all his tattoos were except that they were "bad"...)

I'm in no way condoning his actions but he was basically doomed from the word "go", starting with irresponsible parenting (what sort of family leaves loaded rifles around with a 12-year old who's never been trained in their use?) and continuing with being broken by the army.

(This is a great series, Salon!!!)