Some writer's idle speculations are best left unpublished, and Fukuyama's 1998 piece may be such an example. It seems to be mostly a rhetorical air-dance. Granted, that doesn't make the article utterly worthless...just mostly without substance. The multiple and chaotically inter-related factors affecting a state's strength or weakness over time relative to another state are so numerous that Fukuyama's male-female dichotomy--regardless of it being based weakly on observations of non-human behavior within comparatively non-complex social structures--is very artificial. Any such overly-simple dichotomy would be: even one that simply looks at non-democracies versus democracies. Perhaps one might as well write about left-handed statecraft versus right-handed statecraft, or moon-gazing nations versus sun-gazing nations.

Consider that Athens was a democracy beaten in a foreign land (Sicily) that it imperialistically (in a pre-emptive manner?) invaded in the name of spreading democracy. What is more, it warred against other democracies. It also warred against tyrannies, of course. It defeated some states; it lost to others. Which was the "feminine" state in each of those instances? Was the United Kingdom a feminine state when Thatcher governed it? Is it now? Was it when it, or was the U.S., when either helped defeat male-dominated Serbia recently? Which is Israel? Does the reality of Golda Meir or the fact that women are among Israel's business leaders mean that it's a "feminized" democracy at all?

Again, it's not that all of Fukuyama's speculations are worthless, or even that this particular one is completely without value, but such ditties strike me as being no better than a great pianist's bad practice session--complete with warm-up exercises--weeks before a performance. It's best left unattended...or in this case, unpublished.

Mr. Barra mentioned Gore Vidal as a guardian of Venice. To expand on that: I would recommend to Salon.com readers Gore Vidal's documentary or its companion book, both entitled "Vidal In Venice." I encounter used copies of both on ebay and Amazon.com regularly. I own both and enjoyed them. Their wonderfully executed images of Venice may have a dated quality now (mid-1980s), but the overall information is not, and both projects are more entertaining than other histories of Venice I've encountered. The information takes the long, historical view, but includes many interesting facts and tales that appeal to Vidal's compelling sense of irony about "the serene republic."

I've grown impatient with objections to debates over gay marriage ban amendments--be they proposed at the state or federal level--as being a waste of time. These debates are not merely a waste of time. They are debates on an issue--a ban--that is akin to bans on "mixed-race" marriages; the ban, and any attempts legislative or judicial to limit the dignity of Americans who happen to be gay or the long-term committed relationships they enter, represents an assault on both commonsense and the progress of American civil rights.

That's pretty serious.

I've heard self-proclaimed liberals say that nothing should matter more to progressives than Iraq. Iraq is the grand issue for today, no doubt. But why the dismissing of gay civil rights, too? Latent bigotry, I suspect. Consider also that just what "Iraq" means in these contexts is often left undefined: leaving it? democratizing it? paying for our invasion of it? loudly blaming Bush for losing the post-invasion conflict there? reimbursing Iraqis for our invasion? These fellow liberals seem oddly unaware that the body count of gay Americans, mostly teenagers, who've over MANY DECADES killed themselves, lost jobs, been denied housing, murdered, beaten, refused visitation rights or inheritance, publicly mocked, driven from clubs, institutions, associations, or government because of their demonization by American culture is higher than Iraq's body count from this war. And they seem oddly unaware that the grand problem of Iraq, of which U.S. occupation is just a part, and their solutions involve so much beyond total U.S. control--including forces of globalization, Islamic extremism, nationalism, ethnic tensions, international relations between Iraq and the UN and the EU.

To me, it is illogical for liberals to shy away from or downplay the important of gay civil rights as somehow non-pressing, especially when one considers that civil rights for gay Americans is a domestic issue we do have comparatively great control over. One might even ask, if we can't clean-up a purely domestic mess like codified discrimination against gay Americans, if we can't expand rights for minorities, how can we expect to clean-up internationally-significant messes like the one Bush got us into in Iraq? Discrimination in the U.S. against its gay citizens, as with discrimination against its citizens who just happen to be of a different skin color, is a festering problem not to be placed far down on the list of issues to tackle. And when conservatives debate gay marriage bans, it's not merely a waste of time, it's a sign of the sickness of bigotry.

The advice being offered to Lost actually angers me. I've never been angered by advice offered by this Salon.com column before; I may have agreed or disagreed, but I've never before felt a line had been crossed.

At the end of the day, the relationship between Lost's parents is between Lost's mother and father. I find the scenarios of confrontation you are endorsing, Cary, to be a gross violation of the privacy of Lost's father and absolutely meddlesome.

It is not your place, Cary, not the place of Lost to make presumptions about what the mother and father do or do not know about each others sexual preferences. And to so cavalierly through out ancillary asides about divorce or the possibility that Lost will think herself or himself to be gay merely confuses further the central reality, which respect and commonsense demands be recognized, that this matter by actually be none of Lost's business!

To encourage Lost to go forward like an arrogant and intrusive detective bent on discovering "truth" about private matters between family members--whatever the cost (including, or so you suppose, Cary, divorce)--is patently irresponsible.