I just now wondered if the Internet isn't the ultimate bread and circus act. It allows the rabble, that is, you and me and our anonymous ilk, to call for blood, but it changes little: the president becomes more powerful, the rich become richer, the U.S. keeps attacking countries, and the poor become poorer. The Internet might be that little cap on the top of the pressure cooker that steadily dissipates the steam. We hear our collective roar, but it's a roar bellowed by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I'd take it a step farther and say that we've created and participated in an arena in which basic human decency has been broken down to a degree that is hard to even confront, much less repair. Because the internet is so anonymous and written accounts so narrow, we don't think of each other as human. We think of each other as embodiments of principles or traits that we ourselves despise.

Never mind that we are all mixes of strengths and weaknesses. All we have to do is pick a weakness we ourselves don't have, or pick a strength we do and rip apart the opposite. It doesn't even need to be true. Certainly it doesn't have to be the whole story. All it has to be is a kind of stand-in for something we dislike, and the safety of the medium gives us permission to attack.

The problem is that there are real people on the other side of the screen, who are not actually projections of our own insecurities and anger. It's not Ms Belger's fault that her parents were rich, and that they did pretty much what our own parents would have done if they were rich. Blaming her for circumstances outside of her control isn't productive to anyone, not to us nor to her.

There's also the issue of her husband. Most of the men here seem to be projecting onto him their own experiences or fantasies of being visually average and as hard-working as they can be, and being rejected as inadequate for it, but if you look up Paul Belger, you find a very handsome man who is far from an Average Joe. She met him at Burning Man, not at the local bar and grill. He's a wannabe actor. He is, in other words, a pea right out of the same pod in spite of his more modest beginnings. He, too, wants the comfort and free time to pursue a creative career. Really, in the eyes of the Nice Guy/Jerk crowd, he's more Jerk than anything else, the Handsome Starving Artist subtype.

Again, what we see in this excerpt isn't the whole story. Absolutely it's not the story of a bad woman mistreating a good man, it's a story about two people figuring out how to balance dream and reality. She had to get a job, true, but so did Paul. He had dreams of acting. She had dreams of writing. Neither of them were good enough to be earning a living right out of the starting gate. Something else had to happen, and this is the story of what did, from her point of view.

That's all it is, though. It's not a complete diagnostic scan of her character and fitness as a human being. As such, it shouldn't be permission to rip her to shreds, but the internet gives us that permission merely by allowing us to get away with it.

And yes, I think it distracts us from other things that are causing real problems. When it comes to the increasing precariousness of our lives, the Belgers aren't even a side issue. They're a non-issue.

I am glad you decided to stay. Remember the reasons you fell in love in the first place , before I was done with the next to last paragraph I was saying to myself , I bet he would make a engaged dad. Sure enough you next spoke about a job he got working with kids!

Men who are really good at making money tend to focous on that and can neglect home , wife and kids emotional needs. All the money in the world can not make up for a Dad you want and need to spend time with. I think it human nature to want what we don't have ( men included ). Trick is to want what we do have.

I am tired of the roll money plays in our country, love of money brings the human race down to the lowest common denominator.

Wow! What a posting! It'll be my cognitive cud and I'll get back to you with something more, hopefully, than a steaming pile of shit.

While I can't connect directly to the author's experience I've ridden rides in that particular financial hell amusement park and I can avow it's all shitty.

Quite possibly the worst time of my admittedly short life took place right after graduation. I was exceedingly broke. I moved back to a home town I all but loathed. I worked a manual labor job at my father's small (out of garage) company, which provided good pay but also included hard work and on again off again work.

The resumes I sent out garner sweet fuck all, no rejection letters let alone a job.

But this is all troubled gravy, really.

The meat of my problems arose from a gigantic phone bill I earned by not keeping up with two months of minute use through my part in organizing a writers festival and everyday communications. The first month in my new apartment I was cut off from cellular communications.

Right after that, my credit card company came down on my head like a ton of bricks; I owed them what was in my world nothing short of a fortune.

Make no mistake, the debt was of my own making. I blamed no one but myself.

At first, news of these debts just added to the challenges I faced coming out of college. Yet, sixth months on, payments on my student loans came home to roost and the realities of my work situation and prospects hit my mind like a nasty LSD dose.

I greeted each morning with either a mental or audible, "fuck," before pulling on my financial burden like long soiled clothes.

I switched from drawing away from my friends, family and girlfriend (I was a pariah, worthless, a cosmic drag on all I came in contact with) to exhibiting a surly veneer that unraveled to bare-knuckled hostility upon anything other than a warm hello.

I felt useless and foolish. The claustrophobia Mrs. Belger speaks of is breathtaking and soul crushing. Money wasn't coming in fast enough, the horizon spoke of endless fields of shit to trudge through, romance and intimacy were among the first casualties, their heads were lanced on the front lawn of my mind, greeting me each morning as I left sleep and opened the door to my waking life.

Needless to say my relationships all suffered. My significant other did try to jump ship, zombie pirates had boarded, who could blame her, but not due to my inability to paint the town red, more my inability to see hope, my refusal to take pleasure in any aspect of my life.

After months of bone white tension from barely hanging on to my life, a fortuitous break came in a servers gig at a higher end restaurant right before the holiday season. This was the early 2000s, steps into the economic orgy the nation's reeling from today; lavish corporate parties and patrons flush with cash equaled a veritable flood of the almighty through tips.

In the end, I grabbed the reins of my financial future and, with some help from my parents, lashed my way out of the debt ridden waste land, creditors paid but credit score smashed.

Being financially fucked is no joke. My words but scratch the surface of mental anguish and feelings of worthlessness I felt. Think suffocation, drowning, being burned alive. Imagine straight-jackets, children lost in shopping malls, watching Bush be "re"elected. It's easy to lose you're way to maintain decency as a human being. Poor and I go back like fat crayons and car seats, yet that first dance with your name on the bottom line, well the pressure leaves more than your toes smashed.

So go screw, all you judgmental posters.

Walk a mile on the bottom of track cleats and see if come back with a tale of mental stoicism and behavioral perfection.