What's a little sad about all this is that one of the most talented writers of a generation, Maureen Dowd, has completely wasted her talent on this sort of fluff. Virtually no one writing in newspapers today has Dowd's skill at turning a phrase or crafing a sentence, but she's pissed it all away on half-witted pop-psych analysis of the country and various presidents. And because the NY Times needed a woman on its op-ed page and hired Dowd, we're all supposed to take it seriously. Writing for the NY Times doesn't mean I have to take David Brooks seriously, so why should I take Maureen Dowd seriously? She's got ten times the writing talent Mr Brooks does, but has half his ambition to actually write something worthwhile.

What's also a little sad is how Ms. Traister cannot see beyond her girl crush and realize what a waste of talent Ms. Dowd is and how shallow her conclusions are. It's not very sad, just a little sad.

is that The Daily Show demonstrated what true great comedy writing is like, especially on the subject of current events. If The Daily Show hadn't come along, intelligent people might still regard SNL's "Weekend Update" as good writing. Unfortunately for Ms. Fey, The Daily Show did come along and it did rewrite everything. No one who has seen both could fail to notice the glaring quality difference.

do you actually think before you type and hit the publish button? Yes, that is a serious question. If this was the first time you'd written silliness like this, it would be easy to overlook. Even if it was the second or third time. But we're well into double digits now, aren't we?

Honestly, Ms. Traister -- you need an editor. Very, very much. I'm not trying to be cruel, I'm trying to help. Most writers need an editor. You're one of those writers.

Any murder is a terrible crime and the guilty ought to be pursued until caught and then prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Nowhere in Salon or the BBC report do I see any mention of how many men have been slain over similar time periods in Ciudad Juarez. I read that 28 women have been killed in Ciudad Juarez in 2005. If, say, 11 men have also been murdered, I'd say we've got a real story here. But what if 37 men have been murdered? Or 72? Or 106? Not much of a story if that is the case.

The Mexican police have done a terrible job investigating these murders? I can well sympathize. To have a loved one murdered is awful enough. To know the murderer will be free because the authorities can't be bothered to investigate or are not capable of investigating properly only makes the pain of loss worse. It's worth asking, however, how many such crimes in Ciudad Juarez have been solved? I mean, is the rate of crimes solved different depending on the gender of the victim? Incompetent or non-existent policing in Mexico is hardly a new problem. Are there any statistics indicating that criminals who prey on women are less likely to be caught, tried, and imprisoned than criminals who prey on men? Again, the stories provided do not provide that information.

So is this a case of The Patriarchy oppressing women or the poor of both genders being preyed upon by monsters while the authorities twiddle their thumbs? I can see that the NOW and Broadsheet have made their decision on that issue. But is their decision based on hard, cold facts or upon a desire to feel a gender-based outrage and inspire similar outrage in others?

Lynn Harris wrote: "Tip from Broadsheet reader Rebecca Zerzan: "The various news media of the heartland have been busy exalting a study of vervet monkeys that demonstrates evolutionarily hard-wired gender roles."

I could point out how Broadsheet contributors regularly embrace shaky "studies" if they appear to reinforce their own views, so it is rather amusing to see them condemning others for doing the same. I'm not going to do that, however, because...

The real story here is that someone in Kansas apparently believes in evolution.

There are plenty of instances where a 15-year-old girl [or thereabouts] and an unrelated adult male authority figure have sex and it doesn't appear to harm the girl. At least, not at first. People react differently to these things. I know a woman who said she "seduced" her junior high science teacher when she was 14 and looked back upon those memories very fondly. Seems rather sickening to me, but not to her. Most of these relationships are, inherently, predatory and injurious. If it involves someone like a teacher it becomes even more problematic. If one or two teachers are allowed to get away with this behavior on the grounds that no one was hurt [and maybe -- in those cases, no one was], it'll spread to other teachers and there WILL be a lot of young people hurt.

We have a general rule against these sorts of relationships in our culture. Like most general rules, it isn't perfect, but it exists for a good reason. The alternative would be far, far worse.

It's a country filled with unemployed drunks.

I guess it isn't possible for some women to get any sillier, is it?

Pay the ticket and stay out of that lane if your only passenger is one riding inside you.

Stupid people with money are going to spend it on something. They could spend it on something better than this. They could also spend it on something worse. This has got to rate pretty far down on the totem pole of societal problems.