"checking the Burning Man site, I'd have to call "attended Burning Man" a big red flag. From the site:...." Look, just ignore the pompous windbaggery on the BM site.

Burning Man is a huge art party in the desert. If you're a nitwit when you go, you'll still be a nitwit afterwards. If you meet and talk to enough interesting people, you might learn something. Remember: Big Party. Fun to be had, people to meet, stuff to see. Long grueling drive, potentially difficult camping experience. Dust.

BTW, no one under 28 or so should bother going to grad school.

Also - LW, all 3 of you will be better off without each other. Find some humility-inducing work and get over yourselves.

Really?

Coulda fooled me, but then what do I know.

That's not funny.

Because people are human, that's why. Often driven by emotion and sometimes fallible.

Some people are pretty firm about boundaries, even to the point of being rigid and neurotic about it, and all to willing to judge others who fall short of their standard. Others have terrible boundaries and see any restrictions at all on their behavior as oppressive.

Deciding in advance who you will or won't fall for doesn't always work! Deciding what you will or won't do about it doesn't always work either.

Don't they just cover the usual forms of malpractice? I mean, if I were a big rich evil insurance company, I would LOVE to deny payment of a claim for harm done intentionally to a patient by a religious fanatic employee.

I dunno, but nothing makes a big rich evil insurance company's day like denying a claim!

I've had this ongoing realization since I was a kid that basically, as far as most of the other species on this planet (except possibly for some of the insects) we're MONSTERS. We kill, rape, destroy, pillage, and/or pollute everything we get anywhere near. This is what we do for fun and profit. It's a sickening realization, awakening to the fact that you're one of the bad guys.

It'll be interesting to see how we keep rationalizing our wonderfulness to ourselves when the natural world becomes unavoidably obviously destroyed by our actions. I think it pretty much is already but people think I'm being 'negative'.

Let her throw jewelry at some other poor infatuated sop.

Money won't fix love.

And no matter who she ends up with, without massive psychotherapy it'll always be something. Any actual fallible human partner will get words and objects thrown at him if he deviates from the life script in her head. I hope you have receipts for any other gifts she may throw back in your face.

What's up with writing to an advice columnist that she reads? Passive-aggressive? Trying to get her to dump you? That might work. Try standing up for yourself next time.

Here in goody-two-shoes San Francisco we recycle not just because of liberal guilt, but because we HAVE to. Our landfill is 50 miles away and is almost full. The people who sort through the stuff are employees of Norcal Waste Systems I believe, some of them may also be college students but I don't think they're volunteers.

Really? The other party's candidate isn't just a guy you disagree with, or even COMPLETELY disagree with, or completely disagree with plus you think he's incompetent and crooked.... He's THE F*ING ANTICHRIST??? I'm pretty sure that it's impossible to deal with people like that.

Was there ever a liberal "McCain is Satan" strain of thought? Or anything like it? Why not? The prefix 'Mc' (or Mac) means 'son of', and of course Cain was the first murderer and is thus known as the progenitor of evil among men. McCain's first real job was to rain fire down on people, killing them by the dozens or even hundreds, wasn't it? Wouldn't he thus be a more likely Antichrist? One wonders how that little detail escapes the attention of some people.

Should be thrown into Gitmo with the regular ones. We'd have to keep it open a little longer, but they could be billed for their visit to the Guantanamo Bay Resort and Spa. Works for me.

Drink much, Kate?

Because of course in the good ole days, whites voted first. Right?

Interesting what your use of language reveals about your subconscious, you fucking stupid racist Republican.

But given the arm's length list of global catastrophes underway here on planet Earth caused by (a) too many people (b) consuming too much stuff, perhaps there's some sort of collective subconscious anger directed at those perceived to be breeding excess new consumers.

I'm constantly amazed at how people keep poppin' 'em out. How do you explain the apocalypse to your children, folks? Do you break the bad news right after you explain about Santa, the tooth fairy and the easter bunny?