Wow, it seems a lot of the commenters are just plain afraid of death. I don't blame them - most of us are afraid of death.

But I will tell you this. When my father was dying, he stayed at home and received hospice care. When he stopped eating and drinking, we were grateful because we knew that when a person stops eating and drinking, their pain receptors shut down and their death process becomes less painful. Most people can't accept this, because they think of the pain of hunger - but in a dying person, an empty stomach actually helps the death process to be less painful. The body begins to shut down naturally. It's much more peaceful.

It would have been immeasurably worse for everyone involved if my father had been in the hospital. As it was, we could sit with him for the few hours it took for the funeral home folks to arrive and take his body. It was a beautiful, private, loving moment when he died, even though he died far younger than seemed fair for such a good, friendly, vibrant person.

It would be nice if we could change our culture to be more accepting of death, of its inevitability. It would be nice if we could all accept that nature takes us when it takes us, and prolonging the process through feeding tubes and respirators doesn't make inevitable death any less inevitable. But in a society where we are obsessed with anti-aging, where people willingly cut themselves open and inject themselves with chemicals and poisons just to look younger, I doubt we'll be in that place any time soon.

How is it that people are equating natural death (i.e. no feeding tubes, no artificial heart pump, no artificial ventilator) in people who are already terminally ill with euthanasia?

Euthanasia is the intentional compassionate ending of life, generally in someone who is terminally ill and facing imminent death (i.e. a cancer patient taking a lethal dose of morphine or some other drug). It's something that would and should be up to the patient themselves to decide, not anyone else.

Natural death means that you let nature take its course without trying to artificially extend life.

They are two very different things. Neither one is forced on a person.

Sheesh.

Well, you know, Tori Spelling as a child asked her mom, "Am I pretty?"

Her mom said: "You will be when your nose is fixed."

So I'm not sure parental overseeing of children and plastic surgery is always going to cut it, so to speak.

This should come as no surprise to anybody who studies archaelogy, anthropology, or religious history (as a religious scholar I do a bit of all three).

The most common references that come to mind, of course, are Roman civilization, with the coliseum and gladiatorial games. Less commonly referenced are those same Romans who pitted unarmed peasants against gladiators and wild animals.

There's plenty of evidence that the religious cult that spawned Judaism, Islam and Christianity originally was a proponent of human sacrifice. Even today, Christians are united around a human sacrifice and symbolic cannibalism, and partake in it again and again, either symbolically or literally depending on your belief system, through the sacrament of communion.

Today we have our violent sports - football, wrestling, boxing, cage fighting - as stand-ins. We have violent films which portray violence and death as entertainment. Proponents of war - especially those who feel that mass killing is justified to establish a "right" behavior or way of life, such as has been expressed on a massive scale here about Iraq and Afghanistan - are removed from the violence but really not much different from our ancient relatives throughout the world.

I'm not sure I completely agree, but some would say that it seems part of human nature to crave bloody, violent, gory, or disgusting spectacle, even as we claim to abhor it.

How else would Two Girls, One Cup or Rotten.com have gotten so wildly popular?

First off, I wouldn't suggest bowling, as drinking and bowling go together. But other suggestions are great - early morning, definitely.

Second, there's something Cary didn't touch on, which is - should you tell her that she's hurting your feelings by making fun of your choices?

I'm not saying that you should, necessarily, but think of how you feel about telling her. If you're worried she's just going to pick on you, that her boyfriend is just going to pick on you, then you have a problem. She's not really being a good friend if you feel like you can't talk to her. And maybe you're not able to be, either.

If Cary's advice doesn't work, then maybe it would be better to lay low for a while. Don't cut her off but maybe put her off. Let her do her thing, and if you're such great friends, this will all blow over eventually.

Also, speaking as someone who dated an alcoholic (he hid it very well for months), and eventually broke up with him because I repeatedly caught him lying about his drinking, I can tell you that confronting someone about it can be painful, but it can also be good for them and you in the long run.

Anybody who wonders why Miley Cyrus is doing all this tarting up of herself only needs to look at the huge amount of publicity it generates across lots of demographic groups to know why she does it.

Maybe I'm cynical, but I wouldn't know who she was without all the outrage and backlash on the outrage publicity.