A vile, unfunny joke made by a venal, miserable, sick woman, but a joke nonetheless. And when I read the Hitler references and calls for prosecution, the term "hook, line, and sinker" springs immediately to mind.

Justice Stevens would remind you that the First Amendment is not designed to protect polite conversation, but rather the stuff at the margins, because every once in a while it's the stuff at the margins that needs to be said in order to preserve our democracy. Sure, you have to hold your nose and accept a lot of garbage along the way, but that's the price we pay. So my suggestion is to think of Ann Coulter as the price we pay.

The answer to speech is more speech. No censorship.

"We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said. "That's just a joke, for you in the media."

Saying it's a joke doesn't make it funny, but it does make it protected speech. I'm sorry if that fact is offensive to some of you, but there it is. Forget legal remedies, call or write her employers -- that's the way to handle her.

I admire your passionate defense of the ideals embodied by our Constitution. Very well said, sir.

But if you arrest her, you have to arrest rootgrinder too. Does rootgrinder deserve to be arrested?

Mr. Keillor, on a day when we've watched many testaments of appreciation for Coretta Scott King, I can't help but compare the ease with which her eulogizers expressed pride and empathy for their subject with your attempt to apply your seemingly endless reservoir of empathy to Mr. Bush. How telling that pity is the best you can muster.

Man, this column is the gift that keeps on giving. In addition to "panjandrum" and "persiflage", I can now add "treasonistic" to the list of Words I Learned Today.

Now, I like hip hop in small doses, and I admit to only having heard Kanye West a few times. Kinda liked it, too. But here's the thing -- I constantly hear him described as "incredibly talented, "immensely talented", "hugely talented", etc etc etc. This phenomenon is not limited to West, of course -- the term "talented" is flung about with wild abandon in the hip hop world, to the point that I wonder whether those who fling it are trying to convince me of this contention, or if they're trying to reassure themselves.

By way of comparison, it's completely unnecessary to describe Neil Young, Emmylou Harris, or Ben Keith as "talented" -- it quite literally can go without saying. As Zacharek shows, the writer's task in considering musicians like these is to describe how they're applying their talent. Merely asserting that one has divined "talent" from their efforts would do them an injustice. Seemingly not so in West's case.

This is not to say that lyrical flow and the ability to choose the right sample and hire the right producer aren't talents, mind you. And, like I said, I enjoy some hip hop. But it's a lesser form -- I don't kid myself about that.

I'm struck by two thoughts while watching the moguls competition. First, as someone who's preferred method of negotiating moguls is to do so on his behind (Podborski: "Look how he keeps his cheeks together!"), I can't help but be impressed. Second, I should have been an orthopedist.

All hail the snowboarders! The merits of their sport can be debated, sure, but the attitude that most of them seem to bring to the notion of competition is refreshing, to say the least. After two of yesterday's races, one of them the final, the immediate reaction of the top two finishers was a joyous hug, and in both cases the competitors were from different countries. They were having a blast, and what's more fun than that to watch?

Contrast this with the attitude of the American figure skaters, about whom Jayson Stark at espn.com felt compelled to say "it's hardly accurate to refer to figure skaters as teammates."

Snowboarders are routinely described as cultivating an ironic remove from societal norms re competitiveness and the industry that's grown up around our notions of what a competition should look like. It's clear to me that they are indeed competitive, but refuse to conflate competitiveness with joylessness. Good for them.

Several years ago I began work at a large online company, and a half-day sensitivity seminar was part of our training. The trainer made the statement that, at this company, it was acceptable for a woman to dress provocatively, but that any comments made to said woman were potentially actionable.

Now, I don't consider myself to be particularly sexist, although everyone has their own definition, I suppose. My work demeanor is unfailingly polite and serious, even shy. I would indeed regard lascivious comments to be seriously out of place, and I can't imagine a situation in which I would make any such comments.

But I felt an inequity in this policy, so I felt I should speak up. What I said was, "When you say 'provocatively', that means 'designed to provoke a reaction'. So you're saying that it's okay to provoke a reaction, but it's not okay to react?"

Well, that was indeed the policy. I said that seemed wrong to me, but I let it go, not least because the temperature in the room seemed to be dropping rapidly around me. Nobody else spoke up to bolster my point, and we moved on. Always bothered me, though, because the solution seemed so simple. No provocative dress, no reaction provoked. It was, after all, a place of work.

Comments?