It seems that for the past year, all of Paglia's columns for salon.com can be summed up as following: Palin great-anyone who fails to see that is an elitist, talk radio good-Rush and co. appeal to the "real America", Obama and the Dems not good.

Really, Camille, find some new topics.

esp. the bit about attending junior college then transferring, but I wonder how many kids are aware of this? Most 18 years olds cannot wait to go away and have the so-called college experience. When you are 18, being $10K, $20,or even $30K in debt may not seem like a big deal esp. when you have visions of landing that dream job and raking in the big bucks. The truth is, a degree from anywhere does not guarantee a fab career or a big salary-esp. in these times.

As some who is 32 and still paying off my loans from a very well-known university I wish someone had told me about this. I came from a family were I was the first to go to school. You can say I should have done the research even though I was largely ignorant of the entire process and did not even have 'net access at the time. I just wish someone had taken the time to explain this all to me.

I have always been in favor of regulating the porn industry or at least having rules which regulate that the workers are getting health checks and working decent hours. I saw a documentary a few years ago about the industry and was amazed to learn how long some of these performers work on these productions. Legally, the producers aren't even required to feed them. The majority of these performers are very young and have no idea how they are being exploited both in front of and behind the camera.

Question: Would anyone be applauding this decision if this was someone had a chronic illness like diabetes,and the judge sentenced him or her to a longer than usual sentence because it was decided that it would be in their best interest and that they could receive Rx meds and care that they otherwise could not get?

Prison is not a fun place to be and is stressful.

Couldn't an NGO or AIDS charity based in Cameroon see to it that this woman received the drugs and care she needed? Somehow, it seems like there had to be better options than sending this woman to prison.

I am sure O'Reilly will publicly say that he "condemns" this sort of violence while all the time knowing full well that his campaign against Dr. Tiller, specifically calling him a "Nazi" and claiming he protected child abusers is just the sort of thing that makes these nutters feel justified in commiting acts of violence.

I often wonder if O'Reilly truly is nuts enough to believe the stuff he rants about or is it the case that he just knows how to draw in ratings.

Wronged parties have always vented to friends and family about how unfairly they were treated. In fact, I would argue it is very common for people who find out that their partner has cheated on them to try and get their mutual friends to side with them. I would even argue that it appears to be human nature to do so.

The thing that has changed is the technology available to air those feelings. Gone are the days when one would write or call two or three close friends. Why do that when you can announce it to the world on Facebook? You don't even have to be a celebrity or have access to People magazine to let the world know how you feel anymore.

Yes, the growing up in public housing is a fact. I no longer have a copy of Prozac Nation, but I clearly remember her mother was not a Harvard alumnus. Can't recall if her father was, as he appears on and off in the memoir, but I do not believe he was. (Wurtzel did attend good private schools but as a scholarship kid.)

I actually am a bit surprised by the number of people on here who seem to automatically assume Wurtzel was some kind of pampered princess a la Katie Rophie when in fact, her up-bringing was anything but. In fact, when you take into account all she claims to have overcome it makes the squandering of her life all the more sad.

Frankly, her Elle article just struck me as pathetic rationalization, and coming from a woman who apparently got into an Ivy League school on a combo of her looks and media fame, and then couldn't cut it professionally as an attorney (after presumably spending many thousands of dollars).

In all fairness, Wurtzel was already a Harvard graduate when she wrote Prozac Nation. She went to Yale Law School in her late 30s.

I have no idea if her fame played a role in her admission to Yale Law School, but she got into Harvard on her own merits. (IIRC, she was not a legacy and she grew up in public housing in NYC with her divorced mother.)

With that said, though, I have known more than enough people who attended Ivy League schools to know that that in and of itself means nothing. A lot of people are good at the game of passing tests and making good grades, but have no common sense at all.

I was in college when Prozac Nation was published and Ms. Wurtzel was the It Girl for the confessional memoir genre. I read it and was not too impressed. I also read Bitch which by her own admission she wrote while strung out on speed and still was not impressed. Then there was her memoir on addiction and her articles for the UK-based The Guardian.

I came to the conclusion awhile back that the buzz around Ms. Wurtzel was more about hype than anything of substance.