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....

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

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!"

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.

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.)