... it seems like an industry is developing where one half is happy to barter for sex and companionship, and the other half is happy to take it.

"Industry" seems a little strong here. In New York City young women make the same sorts of arrangements with rich older men — and boast about it! In San Francisco young men make them instead. While being "kept" may not be everyone's cup of tea, we hardly regard it as cause for censure when it happens in our own society.

If you like, put it this way — one half is happy to barter for youth and vigor, and the other to barter for wealth and privilege. The worst that I can think to call that is "traditional."

It means being able to park unimaginable might wherever you like. It means you can get in anybody's business, should you feel an itch.

It also means the high seas are safe for a massive amount of free trade, from which China benefits hugely at little expense to itself. I get it about national sovereignty and yanking the tiger's tail and all that, but given that the South China Sea is one of the world's great spots for piracy, you'd think China would be reluctant to mess with the US navy in East Asian waters until they were good and ready to take over themselves.

Rebecca Traister's comparison of Michelle Obama's gesture to Bill Clinton's speaks, perhaps inadvertently, to a larger commonality between them, one which includes all of the Democratic candidatorial spouses (what is the term for that?). Even some of the Republicans are, with some stiffness, getting into the new paradigm.

The reason why the comparison is interesting is that, in a sense, the role that Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Edwards, and the rest of them are all playing is one made in Bill Clinton's image. Clinton has raised the bar for what it means to be a First Spouse — first with his wife during his own campaigning, and secondly and maybe more saliently now. His casting himself flawlessly as the amiable, agreeable, low-key but slyly independent helpmate who knows how to use the relative freedom he has to exercise his wit, and to take the jabs, make the comments, and express the "soft" stuff that protocol forbids that a candidate do herself (or himself).

This is the new template for what a presidential spouse will be, and — to the extent that the "for real" is for real — more power to them.

So what do Broadsheet readers think: Are there times when some good old-fashioned stereotyping makes for better pumpkin pie or bigger laughs, or does it always spring from that dark, stupid corner of our souls?

Another way to ask this question is: do we inhabit these roles psychologically or theatrically? Because we feel we must? Or because we wish to perform, out of some ceremonial, archetypal, or even satirical urge?

This is a question that social psychologists have been asking a lot recently — about BDSM devotees, about drag kings and queens, anyone who consciously and (at least on the surface) solemnly assumes a gendered or sexualized role outside of the social norm. Is it "screwed up" — are these people who are helplessly re-enacting past traumas personal and collective? Or are they engaged in something more like an investigation, like actors rehearsing roles?

I have to imagine that most people in our society are caught somewhere between the two. They don't want to live like a 1950s fantasy (it is to laugh — have you seen what people paid in taxes then?) — but once or twice a year they want to put on the costume and play. Having no easy access to that notion, they cover it up as some kind of reaction against modernity, a tale of how some things are just meant to be, despite our modern politically correct conceits.

At least, some writers appear to, including the ones that Carol Lloyd cites. Maybe I'm going out on a limb but I think even those of us who consider themselves fairly conservative don the apron or grab the carving knife more as actors than as culture warriors.

If robot love ever becomes indistinguishable from human love, then we stop saying there's a difference. That's the essence of Turing's claim, right?

So all you insincere or ambivalent humans, all you who haven't learned how to express your emotions effectively — beware! In the dark future of 2035, you may fail the Turing Test of love, and the machine pass, and you will be the one forced to suck the grime off the rug while the robot makes love to your spouse.

Too bad the thesis isn't online. Farhad Manjoo's review of the book is just what it needs to be, but a glimpse at the source would have made it complete.

The evolution everybody has been using is that Joe Klein decided to mouth off about the FISA issue in an article on Tone Deaf Democrats, double checked by talking to one Democrat and one Republican, then totally botched his job and the article.

Essentially, your (very impressively detailed) alternative boils down to: someone decided for Joe Klein that he should mouth off about the FISA issue in an article on Tone Deaf Democrats, which he double checked by talking to one Bush administration national security official, then totally botched his job and the article.

So, sure, slightly different actors, but still the same pattern — Klein, and Time, taking their cues from the week's White House talking points via some intermediary, working up an article that uses all the required keywords, and so on. We all know the story by now.

Is it really necessary to postulate an elaborate and somewhat strange pattern of legislative ignorance on the part of either Klein or the unnamed actor?