Excellent advice! Talking to the police might result in something, might not - might even leave T feeling treated as a nuisance - but it will provide some satisfaction in having tried. (Which evidently nobody else did...)

Hooray for the humanity displayed in the responses to Cary, not nearly as evident in many of the other letter threads...

I appreciate your passion.

Couple things, tho. I was never abused, etc. at jobs. Those I didn't like, I left. (Those were the days when it was a seller's market.) What I mean is that as an office drudge I would do horribly boring mindless things for 8 hours per day, 5 days a week, years on end, for very little money. A few hours a week that had me well-paid and firing on all (or a few more!) cylinders, and self-employed (no "management" involved) felt a whole lot better.

Prostitution can be ghastly - imported sex-slaves come to mind - and conditions in other countries....but the same applies to some extent to other kinds of workers in lousy conditions. I'd rather my insanity-making office jobs to being a seamstress (or whatever) in China...or working the rice paddies...whereas farming in this country is a reasonable occupation.

Bottom line - it all depends.

Obama looked thoughtful and intelligent, like a kindly professor. I.e., he looked like a 'weak' egghead. McCain came on like gangbusters with rah-rah crap like guaranteeing he'll get Bin Laden if he has to chase him to the gates of hell and all that prisoner-of-war stuff that one simply can't sneer at (well, except, with qualms, in the privacy of one's own TV-viewing den). He played to the audience ... and I cringed.

Evidently having The Answers in a complex world is the way to go. Being thoughtful just don't cut it.

What I do hope is that that ridiculous 'Christian' venue is not representative. The country is pro-choice. Occasional nuts savage the clinics, but mobs of citizens don't. ('Mobs' of people use them.) Ditto gay people - who could have a problem with that nice Ellen anyway. Gay people are the new Jews, or something - get comfortable with them as entertainers ... TV works both ways, promoting 'tolerance' as well as giving pandering opportunities to dangerous caricatures like McCain.

Ya know, maybe I'm being paranoid, but I thought the evening was a genteel lynching...

And will the election be the same thing? Will the mindless yahoos outnumber the thoughtful people in the polling booths? I can't contemplate that question without shuddering.

And yet, and yet... The country is pro-choice. Nobody I know gives a flying anything about religion.

But then I'm not American! Merely an observer (and victim of whatever you Americans decide to do with the world).

(In my country, a Christian - and no quote marks - politician brought us universal health care. He seemed to think that was righteous. I bet those fat cats at the Saddleback monstrosity think that's EVIL socialism.)

(Christianity - and I ain't one - requires a lot of thought and sacrifice...think Jesus in a megachurch and feel your brain implode.) (I thought Obama got in a good zinger at that well-fed smug preacher-man with the "rich" business - isn't there some famous Jesus saying about rich men that, with any luck, will play itself in viewers' minds...)

Um, and I thought Obama's remarks about Clarence Thomas were kinda throwing a brother under the bus to score points with whitey. (Do not interpret that as a pro-Thomas remark - I despise the man.) Whereas McCain's obvious, horrible pandering on the same Supreme Court question is the kind of thing that REALLY scores points, alas.

I got up in the middle of the night to write this, cuz I was too disturbed to sleep...

I agree with what you say, only you said it all "mildly". I would express many of the same views, but not mildly. (I thought the night was a disaster. Not because Obama didn't 'perform' well - but because his isn't the kind of performance those yahoos at the [shudder] mega-church want...and maybe not what the majority of Americans want. They want the simplistic rah-rah crap that McCain deposited on their heads and that [puke] they happily gobbled up.)

P.S. - Don't let Klytus and the other snipers get to you. Or don't let them see that they get to you.

"Canned ham" - good one.

Yeah, Obama won the night...for the likes of you and me and most of the Salonistas. But for the majority of voters? I fear the answer to that one...

You said - "Nothing is above the president's pay grade"?? What are we - children who still need to believe that Daddy knows everything? It was actually the perfect answer: "I may have a firm opinion on the matter or merely find it perplexing and continue to struggle with it, but the point is, it's not my job to make that determination for everyone."

While I agree with you, I am afraid that's not what people want to hear. They want the simple, clear 'answer' (okay, response) that McCain gave.

McCain was all but given a pass on that one. He was allowed to say, regarding his greatest moral failing, his first marriage. Cheers. Next subject...

If it was a failing, it's not too late for him to leave his rich, blonde, good-looking current wife and go back to his disfigured first wife. She still seems to be positive and friendly about him. Whereas Cindy could always find someone else, preferably someone who doesn't call her a cunt.

You said - It's beyond me...How anyone can say McCain "did pretty well."

But the problem is, he did well among the yahoos. WE (generally fairly thoughtful, mostly non-religious Salon posters) didn't think so...but are there enough of us?