I think the banks should absolutely be held accountable for the stupid risks they took. It makes me furious when companies are able to bow out of their responsibilities.

I wasn't saying she needs to feel shame. I was taking issue with the fact that she didn't seem to treat the bankruptcy as anything more than an inconvenience. As though they were inflicted on her as some vast universal injustice rather than as a natural consequence of taking a risk and losing.

I continue to be dumbfounded at how lightly people take issues such as bankruptcy in this country. The way she presented her situation, she sounded like one of them.

She has since explained more, and she and I exchanged some emails about the article. I have a much clearer sense now of how she actually felt. But, at the time, all I had to base my opinion on was a very flippant article that seemed riddled with victimhood rather than "I took a risk and here is the fallout. it was awful and soul-wrenching, and in the middle of it, I caught myself thinking ridiculous (if understandable) thoughts such as, 'If all this were going to happen anyway, why *didn't* we enjoy ourselves more? Take that beach vacation?'" No, instead she made it sound as though she thought she really had considered it a lost opportunity — to be so responsible rather than really living it up.

When you put something out there — even just on a blog — you open yourself up. This was a reaction on my part to the story as she told it. Had she told it a different way — more in depth or simply edited more with an eye toward how flippant it might sound — I would have reacted differently. I have, in fact, since she has explained more, filled in some gaps, etc.

Finally, I am not here to "police" the level of shame someone should feel. But I do have every right to my opinion and to express it– just as others have expressed that they were touched by her story, or that they read it completely differently. (And their comments have let me see the story in a slightly different slant.)

You tell me that I should not police her level of shame, but that I should feel shame myself. It's an excellent example that we all can't help but judge. Sometimes, with more reflection, we find new depths or new perspectives. Nonetheless, we all have knee-jerk reactions to things. It's the nature of being human.

I do wish now that I had tempered my own piece a bit. And, because I put it up without a night's reflection to consider it and let it seep in (as I try to do normally), it was overly harsh in expressing its opinion. I acknowledge that it could have been done more demurely and slightly more tactfully. But at that moment I felt only outrage at her presented attitude.

So I wrote and I didn't give time to properly edit. Which opens me up to criticism as well. And I accept that the piece could have been better and less harsh — because I didn't edit it enough. And so she and I are, to a certain extent, in the same boat. How's *that* for irony?