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• Tuesday, March 17, 2009 09:45 AM

  Aaaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!!

  Can we please please please stop sniping at each other and the personal essay writers? This was charming and bittersweet, especially the paragraph about how the same job listings keep showing up day after day.

  And writing is a profession. Writing novels probably isn't, unless you write formula romances, but some of us work pretty hard using our craft for the benefit of others, doing PR, technical, and science writing, for instance. I'd like to be able to do that again full-time in some capacity. It's what I'm best at--making difficult scientific and technological concepts understandable and helping smart researchers promote themselves and get visibility and funding.

  See, this is exactly where They want us. If we're picking each other apart for our petty little imperfections (and I couldn't IMAGINE being forced to live with my inlaws and being a good sport about it) then we're not focusing our wrath on the real culprits. So, Laurel et al, please, please get a grip, for your own sanity and the good of the nation. There are certain behaviors, attitudes, and ways of life that just have me biting my tongue until it bleeds, but I have to ask myself: are these people harming the economy or the environment? Are they harming the fabric of society more than the subprime lenders ever did? No? OK, then, they get a pass. For now. We have bigger fish to fry. Focus all that righteous rage where it belongs and try to be a little kinder.

  —Marianna Trench Read Marianna Trench's other letters
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