That Ms Traister spent a substantial amount of time looking at Details magazine. And she admits it. If you want to spend minutes [hours?] poring over Details magazine, Ms Traister, I suppose that is your right. Protecting the freedom of all means we wind up protecting the freedom of some to waste their time doing things like looking at Details magazine. That's why freedom is a messy and imperfect concept, I suppose.

But even that is not the end of it. Ms Traister takes Details magazine seriously enough to be outraged by it. Details is as stupid, vacuous and pointless as 90% of the magazines sold to women in this country. No doubt I could be appalled by what I read in virtually every single women's magazine in the nation. But I'm not. Because what is the point in being outraged at a product aimed at a segment of the population that has never had an original thought in their lives?

Let me be blunt: Ms Traister, your obsession with famous people and what you think they -- and the reportage about them -- tell us about the rest of the country is an embarrassing waste of time. [Yes, it IS your time -- we've established that.] I suppose I could be impressed by your honesty, Ms Traister, in actually admitting that you look at Details magazine and take it seriously. I suppose I could. Nevertheless, you might consider keeping such facts to yourself in the future.

Next time, Ms Traister, why don't you get outraged by something you read in Foreign Affairs or The Economist [easy to do] or The New Yorker? It won't only improve your rep, it'll improve you.

Is my attitude elitist? Perhaps. But we need a bit of intellectual elitism to balance out the people who look at Details magazine and take it seriously.

A huge proportion of the media are women and women, as any man knows, like to talk about themselves and other women. [I may take some PC flak for writing that but it is true, as my wife was forced to acknowledge after witnessing the scene in "40 Year Old Virgin" where Steve Carell's character gets a date with a hot babe simply by asking her a string of inane questions about herself.] Women and girls are often described as being obsessed with boys, but the truth is, the chaps will never command the fascination of females the way fellow females do.

'Chonin points to the throngs who read Maxim: Breasts are great when clad in titillating lingerie, but not-so-great when, say, nursing a baby at a neighboring table at dinner. Likewise, she argues that those men who love girl-on-girl porn wouldn't be so thrilled to see "real lesbians--the ones whose sex lives aren't simply warm-up acts for straight men."'

I've seen Maxim on the news stand, but never read one. However, I'd like to know how Ms Chonin discovered that men who read Maxim find breastfeeding offensive. Did Maxim do some reader survey indicating that virtually all its readers hate public or semi-public breastfeeding? Or is Ms Chonin [and Broadsheet] simply engaging in convenient stereotyping -- the sort they denounce when it is done to women?

Secondly, what's so weird about finding beautiful lesbians [real or fake] attractive and not having the same reaction to "real" or unattractive lesbians? Are not all of us attracted to people we regard as beatiful, whether they are lesbians or not? I loved "Fight Club," but there is a reason Brad Pitt makes $18 million per movie and Paul Giamatti does not -- and it ain't 'cause Pitt is the better actor.

Is the problem that Girls Gone Wild videos are in poor taste or is the problem that Ms Chonin and Ms Clark-Flory are discomforted by anything that appeals to the libidos of men and they want to use the example of one high-profile pervert to smear all heterosexual men. If it is the latter, just say so honestly? If it is the former, what's the point of this all? That Girls Gone Wild is an example of leering and adolescent sexuality? Is that really news to anyone? Does anyone actually find that controversial?

Ms Traister has made this claim before. Those of us who have seen the show [and know it helped make up for the last disappointing season of 'The Sopranos'] understand that is simply not the case. Even the most cursory viewing of the show will make it abundantly clear that the show does not promote polygamy. What the show does is suggest the strange living arrangement could involve decent people [Bill Paxton] as well as devils [Harry Dean Stanton]. And the most interesting part of the show is how two good people, the characters played by Paxton and the magnificent Jean Tripplehorn, who are so perfect for each other, could find their lives -- and possibly their marriage -- damaged beyond repair by the decision to enter into polygamy. The show's graphic portrayel of the financial burdens, time burdens, paranoia, and petty jealousy inherent in polygamy are sufficient to leave anyone -- man or woman -- vowing that such a disaster would never befall them.

'Big Love' promotes polygamy the way 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' promotes Nazism. If you're one of those simpletons who views a depiction of anything as an endorsement of that thing, I guess I can see how you could decide that 'Big Love' is part of a plot to popularize polygamy. Clearly, Ms Traister falls into this category, as she has made this baseless and uninformed assertion before.

If they did, I'm sure their government wouldn't be wasting time on this.

Seriously, though, this is the sort of thing that gives left-wing governments a bad name. Rome can't even do a decent job collecting taxes. Every time I travel to Italy I'm amazed at how well Italians have done for themselves and their country, considering they haven't had decent govenment since the 3rd century.