It's sad he left two kids behind, sure, but why should the price of having a family be living a lie? Should lumberjacks or firefighters be shamed out of having families? Soldiers? Police? What professions are "safe" enough?

On a side note, Germaine Greer may in fact be the most embarassing thing there is about being a liberal at this point. Someone should drop her a note reminding her that once upon a time being liberal inolved having a bit of compassion in one's soul, not just eternal anger.

Our apolgies, but this is a no-trolling zone. Please take your attempt to demonstrate your lack of (circle one or more)

A) knowledge

B) empathy

C) chromosomes

to a more appropriate forum. May we suggest (circle one or more)

A) freerepublic.org

B) heavy traffic

C) hell

or some other location of your choosing, so long as it isn't here. Please (circle one)

A) Have a nice day.

B) Have a nice life.

C) Go die in a fire.

Yours VERY sincerely,

Everyone Else

When someone dies that a lot of people like, especially if they die young, making snarky comments immediately after their death is not the height of civility. If they're a controversial political figure or some such, that incivility can perhaps be chalked up to ill will they actually earned during their life.

What I'm hearing here, on the other hand, is a mix of "the guy's schtick didn't appeal to me, so I have the right to tell people who are genuinely hurt they're stupid" and "anyone who doesn't fit exactly into my ideological definition of perfection should be demonized."

I'm not sure which of these is more repugnant.

"indeed, it would be better if we could understand the plight of animals without making a sensation out of the whole thing. "

And it would be better if everyone just did the right thing all the time, for the right reasons. And it would be even better if they could make tofu taste just like bacon.

However, in the real world, one deals with people as they are, not as you wish they were. That is, if you actually want to accomplish anything useful, as opposed to engaging in self-righteous preening.

Even the vegans I know think PETA is an embarassment.

...is that unless your forebearers watched as Columbus, Cortez, Cabot and the like pulled up and planted flags, the US isn't a "homeland" in the same sense as a European country is to most people there. We are a people with many "homelands."

But we do have heartstrings for the Idea of America, if not for our scattered ancestral DNA. And it's the twisted version of what that Idea is that gives the current administration its ammunition in the War on Whatever. Cheney and company would have you believe that America is all about a "way of life", that consumption is an ideological end in itself. But we are rich because we were once great, not the other way around.

It's dropped as far as it has. As the Rev. Ivan Stang once said, "Think about the average guy on the street, the average Joe you know. Half of all people are DUMBER than that."

But even otherwise intelligent people are capable of participating in mass delusion, if it presses the right buttons. Charles Mackay knew THAT back in 1843.

Memory is a funny, funny thing. Research has shown that memories of intense, traumatic events are stored in a different part of the brain than everyday memory, and that even honest-to-god amnesia may not affect them. If an incident is embarassing enough, perhaps it really IS seared into your brain, even if no one else remembers it happened at all...most of us have an exaggerated idea of how much we impact others to begin with, after all.

Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I will go feel mortified once more about that copy job I forgot to pick up for that professor 25 years ago. Even if he forgot about it too.

"How on earth can I respect someone who puts no priority in bettering himself?" Wait a minute...I thought we were talking about grad school here, an institution which has as much to do with bettering as hospitals do with getting well--sure, it happens, but that doesn't prove a causal connection.

Seriously, though, Cary has the right of it. Right now it sounds like both parties involved are dancing around things. The only chance the LW has for resolving this mess in a way that won't mess him (and perhaps his lover) up is to get the answer face-to-face, and live with the consequences. (Well, OK, maybe getting his brains boinked out a few times by someone else would add its own brand of clarity too, but it doesn't sound like that's likely right now.)

...the amount of money to be made through marketing self-loathing. If you're not part of the solution, you can make a pretty good living perpetuating the problem.

On a side note, is there anyone else who feels that most obnoxious oenophile attitudes could be solved by a forced daily regimen of MD 20/20?

Letting the importance of a goal suck the needful joy out of the struggle to achieve it. I would trade a hundred grim-visaged warriors for one genuinely joyful believer, regardless of the cause.

That said, it is all too easy for the forces of marketing to co-opt anything worthwhile these days, so some wariness is always in order. But never at the expense of joy.