Ms O'Beirne's take on the Larry Summers flap is correct; I wonder if Ms Traister has ever taken the trouble to read the transcript of those remarks.

If "feminism" describes the PC response to those remarks, then it ("feminism") has become another branch of the politics of victimization. I thought it meant equal opportunity - not a quota. Summers' remarks - read fairly - suggested that research should be done to explain the inequality of result; the response - with which Ms Traister apparently agrees - was to the effect that "we don't need no stinkin' facts"

Ms O'Beirne will continue to make mincemeat of her television opponents so long as they continue to take such intellectually vapid positions. Summers was made to grovel - but didn't get fired. Those calling for his dismissal are calling for censorship and climate of fear not conducive to the free exchange of ideas (and isn't that what universities are about?) worse than any Red Scare, since the latter came from outside academia, and this uber-political correctness is rot from within

Ole E. Rolvaag's GIANTS IN THE EARTH set on the frontier (in what is now eastern South Dakota) in the early 1870s. No one who has lived in that country and read the book as an adult will regard it as less than the definitive statement of the hardship and loneliness the common folk endured in "winning the West"

If one has never gone through a year or two, winters included, in the northern part of the American west between the Sierra Nevada and the Twin Cities, in a small town, can have a clue as to the physical circumstances under which the West was settled by whites. Cather alludes to it. Wister doesn't. Rolvaag lived it, and then he wrote it. Madness, sex, hardship, love - it's all in there, most believeably

I saw the headline - gee, Salon is actually going to say something about opera! Nope - just some chatter about young men who don't have the voices/training to sing real opera anywhere in this country.

One is, by definition, an opera star if, but only if, one performs in opera. These guys don't. Juan Diego Florez is an authentic - and to those who are incited to lust by handsome young men - romantic young opera star. I doubt that Marchese has a clue as to who Sr. Florez is.

Which is not to say these guys don't make a lot of money and delude a lot of totally unknowledgeable people into thinking that they sing opera. It is unfortunate that Marchese did not stress this - he mentioned in passing that these guys don't do opera, but only in passing

I guess knowing something isn't a requirement for producing a movie about it - or gossiping about said movie.

Paret and Griffith fought three times - the first in 1961, again later that year, and finally in the spring of 1962, when Paret suffered fatal injuries.

I saw both the first and third bouts on TV - back when boxing was prime time. Google works fine for people who aren't that old

That is the title of an article written by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling published in the May 2007 issue of the Armed Forces Journal. It is available online.

Yingling is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Cavalry Resgiment and has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm.

He ascribes the American failures in Vietnam and Iraq to the failure of the general officer corps to prepare the armed forces for the wars they have to fight, and to its failure to advise civilian authorities adequately on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy.

Although he does not mention Pace by name he indicts him - and those like him - who failed to prepare the armed forces and failed to advise the civilian authorities including Congress.

Read the article. It shows incredible bravery on the part of Yingling, who can probably kiss the notion of promotion past colonel goodbye. It shows a degree of character so woefully absent in the two, three and four star generals who became the president's enablers in a losing cause, even when their professional experience and expertise told them Bush's was a fool's mission.

Walsh is being dishonest when she says Bonds is entitled to "the presumption of innocence" That is a concept restricted entirely to the criminal justice system, and it means that if the state fails to produce credible evidence against the defendant, that presumption alone entitles him to an acquital.

Walsh is smart enough to know - hence my suggestion that she is being intentionally misleading - that (1) there is no criminal proceeding, and (2) there is an amazing amount of credible evidence that Bonds used steroids - the change in his appearance and muscular development past age 35 cannot be explained otherwise.

Walsh, when she says that Bonds is entitled to the presumption of evidence she means that no evidence that satisfies her has been produced. Criminal defense would be lot easier if the defendant were allowed to destroy/conceal evidence, and then assert that such evidence was the ONLY evidence upon which conviction could be had.

Racism? Nope, the race card being played again. As to an invitation to the White House - why not have Obama say that we'll see what happens in the meantime - maybe Bonds will be indicted for income tax evasion, maybe conclusion proof of his innocence will appear - don't need to worry for another year and a half