I am not taking sides here, but one person wrote about doing a Salon.com search and finding only a small number of articles about jews (and reporting that most of the results were about politics). So I wanted to check on that myself, and I found that by going to the Salon directory there were a number of results that did not appear in the search.

So for context, I wanted to list the results for Salon articles on different ethnic and religious groups. Note: these numbers are a function of Salon's own categorization of articles, and may be overrepresentative or underrepresentative of the actual amount of coverage devoted to different ethnic or religious groups. (For instance, there are only 11 articles listed under the heading "Athletes", which is clearly an example of underrepresentation of the actual number of articles dealing with athletes.) By posting this, I am not intending to draw any conclusions.

Anyway, here are the directory results:

Jews (90 articles)

Judaism (38 articles)

Latinos (50 articles)

African-Americans (164 articles)

Arab (27 articles)

Native Americans (13 articles)

Christianity (88 articles)

Evangelicals (19 articles)

Muslim (59 articles)

Islam (141 articles)

Mormons (8 articles)

Budhism (23 articles)

Catholicism (76 articles)

Asian Americans are not categorized in the directory.

Gender conflict is real and the smart shows understand how to deal with it. Men are not neutered when women are put in positions of power. They learn how to deal. Shows like the Shield or Battlestar Galactica or the Wire understand how to introduce powerful women and powerful men and how to create interesting plots showing the tension and showing how sometimes the sexes learn to work together and how sometimes they resent each other. Yet gender and race conflicts are wrapped up in stories about gangs or robots or drugs. This new network season promises veiled sexism showing that when women finally attain positions of power, there is no room for men. Men either become neutered lapdogs or revert to cavemen. This is not reality.

It's unfortunate that our television networks seem to believe that powerful women are so distasteful and awful that men must be demasculated in the process. And it's even worse that these patriarchal values are hidden in shows obstensibly presenting themselves as feminist.

How can something so wrong feel so right? I am always entertained by a new Camille Paglia column and even more entertained by the responses. Today we get a mixed bag: the usual out-there bloviation interspersed with some legitimate points.

She starts with national security. She supposes that the magnificent evisceration of constitutional rights by the Bush Administration has indeed improved our national security by "nipp[ing] nascent conspiracies in the bud." I like blind conjecture, but I love facts. Where are the facts, ma'am? Do we have any idea who the Bush Administration was spying on? Do we know how many terrorists have been brought to justice thanks to intelligence gathered by illegal wiretaps? Let me do my own supposition: the answer is zero.

Ahh, yes, radical jihadism threatens "the very existence of Western Civilization." Well, I'm sorry, but does not subverting our very democratic values in the name of security threaten our civilization even more? It's outstanding how far we've fallen in the eyes of the rest of the world. It's depressing when you hear stories about people wrongfully imprisoned in Gitmo without charge--how our very image of an open and lawful society was decimated by our actions.

She, of course, brings the straw man: the Democrats do not appreciate the nature of threat. Oh really? Did they ignore active intelligence that Bin Laden was "determined" to attack the U.S.? Did they destabilize a country adding further fuel to the fire and creating a future haven for terrorists where none before existed?

Ms. Pagilia returns to reality with a brief assessment of the futility of Gen. Petreaus's testimony and Gov. Whitman's declaration about the safety of the 9/11 disaster site's air. I say, "right on", to those points.

Her assesment of the Craig situation unfairly stereotypes gay men as horn dogs who will hook up anywhere they can find a piece of ass, including public restrooms. Sure, there are people straight, lesbian, and gay who have kinks. Some people of every persuasion find the danger of hooking up in public exhilerating. Citing George Michael as an example does not prove that "out" gay men are hooking up in restrooms in the same proportion as "closeted" gay men or straight-identified men. It's unfair to attribute bathroom sex to gay men only even if a larger percentage of gay men are hooking up in restrooms than the percentage of straights or lesbians. I happen to be friends with several gay men and none of them to my knowledge have sought to screw in nasty public bathrooms.

...and only "psycho" women would hook up in restrooms? What the hell does that say about women with weird kinks? And does that mean that men who want to hook up in restrooms are perfectly normal? We all want to have sex where we defecate?

Also I appreciate her insights into late 1950s cinema and early 1960s music, but every time she mentions modern culture, it's Britney Spears or something similar. I wish she would open herself to the great art that's happening now.

I loved the brief comment about the Notre Dame coaching situation. It's really great to see that whole situation blow up in their face now that Coach Willingham recruit Brady Quinn is gone.

I was a little disturbed by the article and the implication that a woman of 25 is not as sexy as an 18-year-old. Ms. Spears is younger than several women who are glorified in Men's magazines, such as Jessica Alba (26), Ali Larter (31), Eva Longoria (32), Angelina Jolie (32), and Halle Berry (41). While perhaps these are young-looking women, none of them look like they are younger than 20.

We hit 88 in Chicago yesterday. The annual Chicago marathon was cancelled early, one runner died, and dozens were hospitalized. But, thank God we get to fight with Canada, Russia, and Norway over Northwest Passage oil rights. Silver lining.