The crazed and ignorant are to be found in all geographic areas - as are the sane, saintly, educated and inspired. It is rather the medium that is the message here.

By writing this, the author is making broad sweeping generalizations about that group he mislabels "liberals". Modern Democrats are somewhere to the right of Eisenhower, but the reader wouldn't know it because this article, like so many others, insults the imaginary behavior of liberals rather than discusses the actual ideas and philosophy of liberalism.

By publishing this piece, Salon is asserting that insightful analyses about dozens - hundreds! - of critical policy issues are less important than preaching inflammatory rhetoric about non-issues.

The piece is also incredibly stale. Joe Klein has been proclaiming that liberals hate America for years. Any such statement is an oxymoron. Liberalism is one of the grand threads of American history. One is confident that it will continue and prosper into the future - or America won't.

Cary is right about listening to your inner voice. It's the comparison of this to an on-board computer that stinks. (I'm a programmer - trust me.) Forget about what "computes". The random fact of already possessing a plane ticket should not determine your future. Is your inner voice really telling you to cut and run? Or perhaps this is some third party?

Your inner voice is also telling you: 1) life is worry-free, 2) great friends, 3) comfortable place to live, 4) fantastic city, 5) friendly locals. Be grateful that the worst you have to say about the job is that you are "underused"!

Horace didn't just admonish "carpe diem". The full quote is:

"While we're talking, envious time is fleeing: seize the day, put no trust in the future."

Consider the contrafactual: the prodigal returned, how great the regret? North America will still be here next year.

And if you really want to go to grad school, why not in Europe? At the very least matriculate before moving stateside - earn a pile of euros in the mean time and have adventures to make your classmates virens with invidia.

Most of these movies are completely forgettable. "Kicking and Screaming" sounds interesting, but I haven't seen it. "The Graduate" is a classic, of course, but was ruined for me by an amazingly tone-deaf professor who based an undergrad film course around dissecting the movie for week after week. Her idea of the point of the movie was to spend a class comparing the scene with Hoffman in scuba gear with the scuba diver in his fish tank. There really is only so much you can say about such an obvious little bit of business. Mrs. Robinson? Not a word.

Is it surprising that there is such a shallow canon of post-graduate genre pictures? What is common about such a transition is not very insightful (student loans have to be paid). What is different is everything. Why focus on graduates who had no plan while they were in college? Why expect them to suddenly find themselves on a path with dramatic possibilities?

High school is a much better transition for drama. Not only college possibilities, but also the military. Sports stories or attempts to make it as an actor or musician in the big city, but also kids who may complain - but don't whine indulgently - about having to get a job. "Breaking Away" or "October Sky". What about "American Graffiti" or "American Hot Wax"? There are also plenty of movies with characters who are grateful to be in college, say "Rudy".

Someone mentioned "The Big Chill" - what a concept, give the characters time enough to build an interesting life. This would apply to that whole other genre of class reunion pictures - "Grosse Pointe Blank" or "Romy and Michele". What about "Deerhunter" or "Diner" if you want to focus on transitions themselves?

What about making a few movies about people of the same age who have chosen to pursue some sort of adventure - the peace corps, even - rather than self-indulgent slackers? Getting a boring 9-5 job is not the only option out there. Or one might think the few months before graduation could be more interesting to consider than what happens after the inevitable letdown of graduation itself.