What a great article, Laura Miller. And very well written. Kudos.

This one paragraph alone was worth the price of admission:

Thinking of the grammar wars in this light helps explain why they provoke such rage. Much as some people might detest seeing the noun "impact" used as a verb, if a lot of people say it and almost everybody understands it when it's said, then a coup has been effected. The "verbing" of nouns (or the creation of "nerbs") has been a flashpoint for the past four or five decades with the growth of business management lingo. Complaints about this point to a particularly American social fissure: between the cultured sensibility of the liberally educated and the can-do utilitarianism of striving MBAs.

The grammar snobs and culture brahmins are clueless and petty when it comes to language, aren't they? And they are totally clueless about how much fun it is to coin new words by making verbs out of nouns.....i.e., verbicizing. (Damn, that was fun.)

Garrison Keilor and Camille Paglia function as mirrors here at Salon.com. They also function as lightning rods, attracting all the unhappy, vindictive, overly-serious individuals who respond to their columns with some of the most vicious, angry letters ever seen in this otherwise civil left-wing haven.

It's gotten to the point where Camille's column is almost beside the point every month. The real entertainment is reading the letter from the Paglia haters. (Don't you get the feeling that they're waiting out there every month, champing at the bit, seething with anger and brimming over with judgmental righteousness?) It doesn't matter what Camille writes; they're there, waiting to condemn her, and Salon also, for tolerating her.

And Garrison Keilor....

He writes these gentle, whimsical essays on life...observations of the passing scene from a man growing old gracefully.

But no matter. The Keilor haters (you know who you are) are waiting, ready to condemn him after every column because he's a gasp.......torture apologist. And now you're after him because he enjoys the company of young ladies. How long will it be before the "dirty old man" accusations start flying? (What? They've started already?)

Congratulations, guys, like the anti-Paglia element you've become the entertainment here. Don't ever change. I look forward to your fulsome condemnations following each GK column.

That was good, Garrison....

One hundred men interviewed about their sex lives said they had sex once a week or once or twice a month. One man said, "I have sex once every two years." The psychologist said, "You poor guy," and the man said, "Yes, but tonight's the night!"

Dear Cary and LW: Congratulations. You're both idiots.

So we do away with labels....

We're all citizens of the planet....

We're all equal.....

Do you ever stop and actually read the drivel that you write, Cary?

So I've got as much right as my local M.D. to call myself a doctor. Except we can't use that "doctor" label. We're all citizens of the planet. (Isn't that a label?)

Anyway, as a citizen of the planet, I have the same right as my local M.D. to tell women to take their clothes off, right?

Right, Cary. You're an idiot.

Regards,

Citizen Doctor GW

Not everybody is depressed, or bipolar like you.

So put a sock in it.

I'm in agreement with all those who've said to the LW that it's the family that is the problem, not the brother who is converting to Catholicism. It's obviously the family that is threatened by this conversion.

Keep this up and you'll lose him as a son and a brother. Turning to religion as a response to the oppressiveness of life is a much more valid response than turning to drugs, or inertia.

Back off....

Love your class warfare, Garrison.

Love your sarcasm.

And dammit, love those Minnesota Twins. May they break the flinty hearts of all New York Yankee fans and go all the way, prolonging the life of that monumental edifice, the Metrodome.

Dear Nothing to Look Forward To.....

Forget Cary Tennis's sappy, crappy, "well intentioned" advice.

I can feel your existential pain through your writing. I wouldn't try to sugar coat things for you. Sometimes, our lives just suck and there's no relief in sight if we continue down our present path.

If I were you, I'd look my situation squarely in the face, screw up my courage and decide I'd rather have a couple of happy, fulfilling years followed by an assisted suicide than a long, slow mediocre slide into sickness, unhappiness, resentment and eventual death.

Resolve to quit your boring job. Get all your assets together. Dump your unfulfilling partner, and do what you've always wanted to do......whatever that is.....

Travel? Exploration? Dangerous liaisons? Did you always want to start smoking? Or quit smoking? Start drinking? Purchase the services of highly competent sexual partners?

Or maybe you've always wanted to search for inner fulfillment? Travel to India? Learn meditation and the Four Noble Truths? Find a guru?

Or have you always wanted to write a novel? Write poetry? Learn to play the guitar? Sit on a beach in Mexico with a Pina Colada as the sun sinks slowly over the Pacific Ocean....?

Instead of suffering through an unhappy, unfulfilled life, why not just say "Fuck it!" to life and go out in a blaze of glory?

Just a suggestion......

Good article. We want the Olympics in Chicago for all the wrong reasons:

• To bolster Daley's flagging popularity.
• To enable Obama to repay political debts.

The people of Chicago don't even want the Olympics, whereas Rio de Janeiro really wants to host them. Rio deserves the Olympics (they've never been held in South America); Chicago doesn't.