You said it. The only weapon we have against people who are thought to be powerful but whose behavior is despicable is our contempt. No matter how much influence they think they have, they will never be able to make decent people respect them. Fear, maybe, but not respect. Some may think this is not much of a weapon, but it is the only real one. Refuse to accept that sort of carrying on. Make them pariahs.

It's not hard to tell when somebody is lying and full of nasty attitudes. Such people ALWAYS think we are stupid enough to fall for pronouncements that are clearly designed to avoid legal consequences, but not to provide accurate information. To use Colbert's word, these jerks can't tell "truthiness" from truth.

I live in AZ too. Stay away from the Republic, that's the problem. Read the Star if you have to read a paper. It engages in poultry-excrement waffling too, but it is infinitely better than the benighted Republic.

Once again: If the rightwing bozos want to mess around with SS, first they better give me back all the money the government took from my paycheck. One lump sum, please. I won't even charge interest.

As one commenter observed, they've been doing the same sort of panic-mongering for decades and decades. I'm going on SS in July. Thanks to the state of the economy, it's the only money I will have. I worked for it, thank you. Ripping off the economy is not enough for you creeps. Now you want to rip off those of us who are barely getting by, and who did honest work.

These idiots clearly think that those of us who are eligible for SS security are incapable of penetrating to the truth. What, are we dumber than you are? Do we not vote? I've seen more life than most of those who cry havoc, and my mind works just fine. Keep up the propaganda, fellas. Hope it works out as well for you as it did in the presidential campaign.

Apologies for the typos in my last. There was an extremely annoying Cadillac ad that covered up part of my draft and I couldn't make the damn thing go away. Don't know why Salon allows such things, but then they allow that moron Wingnut to expostulate as if he really had something to say, which is even more inexplicable.

As a novelist who has published four novels (and one volume of short fiction) in twelve worldwide editions, including three British editions and a translation into Japanese (all to stellar reviews, thanks), I feel qualified to chime in on this topic.

Have maintained for many years (have been writing fiction for nearly forty) that one thing fiction does is provide us with a model of the way things go--not the usual intellectual model, designed to satisfy the demands of logic, but a model that is immediately and viscerally available. We can incorporate the models provided by fiction directly.

This view does not contradict the notions that story-telling is play and practice--notions I whole-heartedly concur with--but frames them coherently.

Of course play is important. So is dreaming. Both of these are behaviors shown only by mammals (and perhaps birds). Dreaming might be regarded, actually, as narrative completely untrammeled by sequential logic. That is a far more accurate and healthy way of looking at something that EVERYBODY dpes amd MUST DO than the currently fashionable notion that dreaminging is equivalent to madness. Madness is disfunction. Dreams do something important, even if we aren't sure what yet.

The essence of fiction is a sort of truth, but it is a high and flying truth, not the weak "truthiness" of mere probabilistically accurate description. Perhaps the story is about someone who can fly. Then the truth we get is not whether it is possible to fly, but how it would feel if we could. No critic can judge that. Only a reader can.

My son-in-law and I may be two of the only Americans ever to see "Zebraman" (Zaybra Mon, as they pronounce it) on purpose. I was impressed, when I could quit laughing. "Striping evil!"

Once more, goddammit. SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT AN ENTITLEMENT. I WORKED for that money. THAT IS MY MONEY. Get your greedy grubby little hands off of it, jerkwads. Or if you want to mess around with it, give me my money back. NOW. I won't even charge the government interest for all that cash it took out of my paychecks.

Fine article, Dr. Burton. One of the most disastrous misconceptions in our culture is that the realm of reason and the realm of feelings, imagination, creativity, are opposites, that they interfere with rather than support each other. This misconception is extremely difficult to root out, perhaps because it seems so simple and offers many people an excuse--either not to think (the Republicans seem to be for emotion and not reason in almost all other cases not involving SCOTUS appointees), or not to feel. No matter how many times anyone presents evidence against the misconception, people revert to it. Witness Mr. Samuel Smith, in this very letters column, arguing with you not by presenting evidence but by reiterating the same old terrible misconception.

Personally, I feel that people without empathy are only technically human. And I find it very difficult to generate any respect at all for someone who ignores evidence and refuses to use his or her brain. Why would a judge who lacks empathy be more likely to side with the bad guys than the good guys? MY empathy causes me to feel empathy even more strongly for those who suffer an injustice.

Reason helps those who do possess empathy decide on the most useful ways to implement the empathy.

Anyway, thanks. There is no remedy but to keep pointing out, as many times as we have to, how idiotic the idea is that reason and empathy are opposed to each other.