With our first-ever private equity honcho running for president in an era of high unemployment and slow economic growth, it was always a foregone conclusion that this year's election campaign would include an appraisal of whether Mitt Romney's version of capitalism is good for America. It's a debate the culture has been passionately engaged in at least as far back as Oliver Stone's "Wall Street," and the battle lines are well-drawn. Is Bain Capital a parasitic corporate raider or an engine for lean-and-mean capitalist renewal? You get to make the call, and then you can go vote.

Facebook's botched IPO adds a new wrinkle. In contrast to Bain-style private equity wheeling-and-dealing, the Silicon Valley venture capital model for new firm creation has always enjoyed a much more positive public relations profile. Maybe it's a West Coast vs. East Coast thing, but conjuring up the likes of Intel or Apple or Google from thin air is a lot more sexy than swooping down on a troubled firm, brutally slashing costs and stripping assets, and then reselling for a huge profit a few years down the line.

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Here's what we know: Sometime in the run-up to the IPO, Facebook realized that it needed to downgrade its revenue projections for the second quarter because of difficulties selling ads on mobile phones -- which are increasingly the access point of choice for Facebook browsing. This news was buried deep in an SEC regulatory filing, but it also may have been communicated directly to Facebook's underwriters who, in turn, may have told their big clients -- the institutional investors who usually make out like bandits on IPO day by buying stock at the offering price and then selling on the pop. The big investors accordingly decided that the price was a little too high and dumped their stock as quickly as they could. Thus: no pop. The closing price was essentially the same as the opening price, and that wasn't supposed to happen.

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Last fall, Broviak says, her 13-year-old daughter's suburban Chicago school forced her to let them access her Facebook account and scour her private information, a policy Broviak says is commonplace in the Geneva Middle School South. In a blog post in April, Broviak added that when the incident happened, "the vice principal called me to demand I come to the school immediately to read through [my daughter's] private messages."

Broviak told MSNBC Friday, "What a violation of my daughter's privacy this whole episode was," adding that the experience took "a huge toll on my daughter, who ended up crying through most of the rest of the day and therefore missed most of her classes. She was embarrassed and very upset." She says when she confronted the school about the issue, they told her it was routine policy to investigate students' social networking pages and cellphones.

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You won't find Thomas Chin, either. Or Kariann Goldschmitt. Or Jake Edelstein.

More than 900 million people worldwide check their Facebook accounts at least once a month, but millions more are Facebook holdouts.

They say they don't want Facebook. They insist they don't need Facebook. They say they're living life just fine without the long-forgotten acquaintances that the world's largest social network sometimes resurrects.

They are the resisters.

"I'm absolutely in touch with everyone in my life that I want to be in touch with," Arwood says. "I don't need to share triviality with someone that I might have known for six months 12 years ago."

Even without people like Arwood, Facebook is one of the biggest business success stories in history. The site had 1 million users by the end of 2004, the year Mark Zuckerberg started it in his Harvard dorm room. Two years later, it had 12 million. Facebook had 500 million by summer 2010 and 901 million as of March 31, according to the company.

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It's no accident that the president's change of heart happened to make for a perfect sound bite. Nearly as fast as Barack Obama, leader of the free world, could utter the words "Same-sex couples should be able to get married," to ABC News correspondent Robin Roberts, @barackobama -- the president's not-nearly-as-popular-as@JustinBieber Twitter account -- was announcing "Same-sex couples should be able to get married." As of Thursday morning, it had been retweeted over 56,000 times and counting.

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“I’m not sure how I feel about you anymore,” he wrote.

How could this be? A week earlier, he professed his love. He wanted to change his Facebook status to “in a relationship.” How did it go so wrong so fast?

More curiously, why was I feeling devastated by my 14-year-old daughter’s first breakup when she seemed unscathed by it? Katie replied to her new ex that these things happen and there were no hard feelings. I couldn’t move on so quickly.

“He’s not sure how he feels about you?!” I shouted. “You are smart, beautiful and kind. For God’s sake, you play piano for old folks at nursing homes and knit hats to support children in Africa! You’re borderline perfect. What’s he not sure of?”

Katie told me to take a deep breath. It would all be fine, she assured me. She explained that John was a nice guy whom she enjoyed getting to know, but ultimately they had very different interests. They lived on different coasts. It could never work.

“But … he was so cute,” I said, pouting.

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The antiseptically titled “Abuse Standards 6.1: Operation Manual for Live Content Moderators” (along with an updated version 6.2 subsequently shared with Gawker, presumably by Facebook) is still available on Gawker. It represents the implementation of the Facebook’s Community Standards, which present the social media site's priorities around acceptable content, but stay miles away from actually spelling them out. In the Community Standards, Facebook reminds users that “We have a strict ‘no nudity or pornography’ policy. Any content that is inappropriately sexual will be removed. Before posting questionable content, be mindful of the consequences for you and your environment.” But, an oDesk freelancer looking at hundreds of pieces of content every hour needs more specific instructions on what exactly is “inappropriately sexual” — such as removing “Any OBVIOUS sexual activity, even if naked parts are hidden from view by hands, clothes or other objects. Cartoons / art included. Foreplay allowed (Kissing, groping, etc.). even for same sex (man-man / woman-woman" (sic).

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“Sometimes?” she replied.

“It’s called Twilt, that feeling,” I answered, laughing, having coined the term on the spot.

Twilt (n): the particular brand of guilt or self-reproach that results from posting, liking or commenting on items on Facebook or Twitter while simultaneously not responding to emails, text messages, phone calls or other types of personal communication with the knowledge or anxiety that the specific message senders will notice your public offerings and question your lack of private ones. Twilt, while related, is not the same as the guilt that results from general Internet-specific procrastination such as browsing blogs or online shopping, which, though it may result in its own brand of self-disgust, generally has no public shame component.

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The Like sign may just reflect the sentiments of the city of Menlo Park, a mostly affluent suburb that is sure to receive a windfall in taxes from the arrival of its new tenant, which has made the city the new center of Silicon Valley.

But the sign is also turned away from East Palo Alto, a neighboring low-income community of color adjacent to Menlo Park. That city will be the gateway to Facebook for many commuters and may be the future home of some of the 9,000-plus employees who are expected to work at the new location. And while the rest of the Valley celebrates the expansion of the new company that is redefining how the world communicates and uses technology, East Palo Alto residents say they see more of the same: another powerful Silicon Valley corporation that will benefit at the expense, and perhaps displacement, of their city.

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Facebook, where you can create an entire album of your drunken, vomity, relieving-yourself-into-a-sink exploits, where you can share images of your child happily sliding around in his own diarrhea, has long maintained a surprisingly prim attitude toward the comparatively tame issue of breast-feeding shots. Though the company insists that "breastfeeding is natural and beautiful," and that "the vast majority of … photos are compliant with our policies, and we will not take action on them," it also maintains that "photos that show a fully exposed breast where the child is not actively engaged in nursing do violate Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities." Photos that are taken down, Facebook says, "are almost exclusively brought to our attention by other users who complain about them."

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A month later, Zuckerberg and Cameron had a follow-up conversation, later posted on YouTube. Cameron, dressed in suit and tie, chatted with Zuckerberg, who wore a blue cotton T-shirt. “Basically, we’ve got a big problem here,” Cameron pointed out to Zuckerberg, describing the U.K.’s financial woes.

Zuckerberg outlined how Facebook could be used as a platform to decrease spending and increase public participation in the political process: “I mean  all these people have great ideas and a lot of energy that they want to bring, and I think for a lot of people it’s just about having an easy and a cheap way for them too to communicate  their ideas.”

“Brilliant,” Cameron said.

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Apparently I'm the minority here. Last week, a study of 1,007 parents with children between 10 and 14 found that a stunning half of all parents of 12-year-olds -- and 20 percent of parents of 10-year-olds -- knew that their children were on Facebook. Amazingly, nearly 70 percent of those parents helped their children sign up. Facebook's terms of service prohibit users under the age of 13 from registering. The study certainly confirms what I've noticed over the past year: the increasing presence of my friends' children "liking" their statuses and LOLing their photos.

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Why? I wondered almost immediately. These were people to whom I hadn’t spoken in more than 15 years, people I hadn’t much liked at the time, people with whom I’d had little in common besides geographic proximity and attendance at the same underperforming high school in central Virginia. I regretted it instantly, but tried not to worry. After all, I’m Facebook friends with plenty of people I don’t know well or like much, second cousins in south Florida, random playgroup moms, people I’ve met on planes or at Starbucks. What did it really matter -- having a few more virtual strangers in my life. That was what I thought. Then, a day or two later, I read one of their posts.

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First, it gives people who have something to say an unprecedented audience that’s both instantaneous and quintessentially democratic. The eulogy is no longer the preserve of the great and the good. Online, anyone can be a broadcaster, a commentator or a curator of news and information.

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Facebook also added a "Ticker" at the top right hand side of the page, which provided a real-time Twitter-like stream of status updates from all my friends. When I first checked it, it was packed with complaints about the new interface change. Judging solely from comments from my friends, people don't want Facebook deciding what's most important, Facebook's suggestions were wrong, irrelevant and insulting, and why oh why oh why can't Facebook leave a good thing alone?

Oh, and people hate change. And, goddammit, they're switching to Google+ (which conveniently opened its doors to the general public today), or Twitter, or giving up on the Internet altogether.

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Two innocuous words on their own, but unsettling when read in a computer screen subject line, sent from a former lover. Of course, I remembered him. In the era before email and text messages, when physical interaction was the most direct form of communication, he caught my waist as I moved across a room. He caught my waist and whispered, "You are so hot."

It was John Edwards' undoing, and it was mine.

When I received his Facebook message 13 years later, it shook me. I read two words, but I remembered an entire essay of details. His tan body, the lingering scent of cologne on my pillowcase, Sarah McLachlan on repeat, a cream-colored sweater, and waves breaking along the surf.

"Now there's a name I haven't heard in a million lifetimes," I typed. As an afterthought, I added, "How are you?" but it seemed inadequate.

We shared a night backlit by the glow of a South Carolina moon. There was an early morning sunrise, too. He was headed to California for a career in law enforcement, and I was preparing for social work in Ohio.

If it had been a Hollywood movie, he would have stayed. Or I would have gone with him. Or we would have agreed to meet a year later on the top of the Empire State Building. At the very least, I would have given him my telephone number.

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If you've had enough of the depressing news for the week, feast those things in your ocular cavities on these 10 pop culture stories that we've culled from the Internet and beyond! (But mostly the Internet.) They aren't here to make you feel OK again, but maybe they'll take your mind off the fact that the world is going to hell in a hand basket.

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