I have often puzzled about where Heather Havrilesky was coming from. She reviews television, a medium she clearly thinks is below contempt. She thinks even less of the people who read her column, since anyone who would waste their time watching such a medium - and look for serious commentary on it - is clearly a RE-tard.

Well, that's not so sophisticated an attitude. Every person who writes cultural criticism for the "free" community newspapers - the ones financed by ads for gay escort services and tattoo parlors - adopts the same attitude of contempt. After all, for quite a few self-elected intellectuals of any political stripe, you're defined by who you spit upon.

But here, she pretty much gives it all away, by picking four ugly male stereotypes and pointing out how badly they treat women. She could have included sitcom husbands and boyfriends, TV hosts, even the Fab Five of "Queer Eye," but she was obviously trying to build a case against men. Her intentions are painted clearly from all the tar on her brush, and by the fact that the article is addressed to women.

Warning to all women: do not accept any beverages from Ms. Havrilesky, or drink anything in her vicinity. The drink will contain roofies, the room will spin, and you'll eventually find yourself naked and strapped to a cold marble designer table in a Tribeca loft.

Seriously. You had me going to Yahoo to check if this was legitimate. And DeGeneres is famous for her non-sequitur humor (which I think, in her early career, was used to distract people and herself from her sexual preference).

Once you've seen the lame makeover of "Universe of Energy" at Disney's EPCOT, with an animatronic Ellen waving a palm frond to keep a dinosaur at bay, you believe she would do anything for an oblique joke. And yes, I admit I watched the video to see "her" topless...but that's what gave it away, finally. Not even a Wonder Bra could make Gunnar look like that with clothes on.

This is a pure right-wing screed, the kind of thing I would have expected in the Reagan era - no nuance, straight down-the-throat propaganda stuffing. There must have been smarter counter-ads than this. What did they look like? (At least someone would have said that Rod Serling would have hated this misuse of his show more than the crappy Canadian ripoff of his series. And that's saying a lot.)

Is she the best spokesman for the cause? This one who puts out a monthly download on audible.com that's essentially reading porn? All right, I grant it's a service to the blind community, but that's hardly going to keep her comments from being dismissed out of hand. It's kind of like asking the designers for Fredrick's of Hollywood to critique junior high school uniforms. ("Not enough leather, and the panties aren't crotchless.")

These accounts may be partially or completely fictional, but it can't be denied that people are fascinated by them. I think they're expressing doubts about the way contemporary Christianity works. "The Da Vinci Code" is primarily a cry that women and the very basis of femininity has been suppressed by the Catholic Church. That's been a complaint from feminists that I've seen made public since Kavenaugh's "A Modern Priest Looks At His Outdated Church."

Protestant churches have allowed a degree more participation by women, but still are centered on the masculinity of Jesus. Catholicism has had more controversy, with nuns used as "grunt labor" to educate in Catholic schools and to nurse in hospitals. And the amount of worship given to the Virgin Mary - for someone whose philosophy is less described than the works of male saints - would probably puzzle an outsider studying the faith.

For those people who aren't ready to quit the Church, reading "Da Vinci" and the related books is a safe form of rebellion against the Church.

Ms. Zacharek said, "The picture is "about" a single momentous, horrific event, and its intensity is undeniable. But while "United 93" offers a horrifyingly realistic evocation of pain and fear, it doesn't open itself out to any greater, more expansive truth. And it offers us no hope of transcendence."

The problem is that any more "expansive truth" would bring in material that would allow the story to be dismissed, primarily politics. Imagine the soundtrack with "God Bless the USA" or Charlie Daniels on it. The movie would be seen as a propaganda piece for the Bush Administration, the war in Iraq/Iran/Wherever, and it would have cheapened the experience.

Or it could have been a piece sympathetic to...no, not the hijackers, but to the idea that this whole incident came about because of America's manipulations of the Mideast. But come to think of it, the right wing would see it as sympathetic to the hijackers, and we'd hear the right-wing radio hosts ask why the filmmakers hate America.

The only real truth to this incident is that it is a tragedy, and that a basic description of the events, without interpretation, is the only sensible way to cover the event. If you want to cover it at all.

I probably won't see the film. All it can offer me is one more thing to be depressed by. But if I can steel myself to eventually see it, I think I'll be glad that it didn't become a propaganda piece.