since Rebecca Traister urged us to keep talking about sexism. With Salon purveying so much misandry, there's always something to talk about, but I wonder if this is what she meant. Maybe so, but something tells me otherwise.

Or maybe it was "Iron my shirt!" What's the matter everyone, didn't you find that funny? I guess only misandry is funny, not misogyny. Do I have that right?

I guess it would be fruitless to inform these people who believe themselves to be conservatives that one of the core tenets of American conservatism has always been limiting governmental power. If the government can detain these people without charge, it can detain you and me without charge. And by the way, it can, as per the old Koramatsu decision. There was a time that American conservatives were troubled by these facts. Not any more apparently.

Well, your letter is proof positive that you have a poor sense of humor.

But honestly, don't you think there should be one day out of the year when we don't trash dads? Dads are ridiculed and generally dumped on every day of the year in countless different ways, so I for one would like it if we could just let fathers day be kind of like what mothers day is - a day to celebrate all the many things fathers do for their children, for society, etc. I understand that, like mothers day, it'd be a bit schmaltzy, a bit too precious, but come on, we can handle that can't we?

Yep, that's the answer. When the media do something outrageous like this article, just skip it. Don't criticize, don't let your opinions be known, just blow it off. What a sensible idea. Could we have applied that concept to media cheerleading for the war in Iraq? Why yes, I believe we could have. Did they uncritically channel Bush's false claims about WMD's, nuclear material, that Iraq was an immediate threat to the U.S.? They did, but why criticize? Just move on. It makes life so much simpler.

But I'd be willing to bet you don't really mean that we should just "move on" from all ideas we find outrageous, discriminatory, sexist, ill-informed, etc. I bet you just mean we should do it in this case. And I'd further bet that you think that because father bashing is OK with you. And that's the nut of the matter isn't it? Father bashing is OK as indeed male bashing is generally. It's no surprise that Salon ran this piece, given that Salon diplays a consistently anti-male bias. And that's why people like me criticize articles like this.

To celebrate fathers day, let's do an article trashing fathers. It'll be a hoot! And when guys complain we can say "C'mon, can't you take a joke?" The same way feminists were quick to laugh at all the anti-women jokes back in the sixties.

This case just says that the prisoners at Guantanamo get a hearing to determine whether their detention is justified under the law and whatever evidence the military can produce. When those hearings happen, a judge will decide that issue. Under existing precedent, in time of war, almost anyone, including U.S. citizens on American soil can be detained without trial and without charges. Read Koramatsu.

but all it does is give a detainee the right to a hearing to challenge whether he/she should continue in custody. But this decision does not overrule Koramatsu, the SC decision which ruled that Japanese-Americans could be interned indefinitely in the absence of any evidence suggesting them to be a threat to the U.S., or indeed that they had done anything wrong at all. And those were U.S. citizens. The magic word in that decision and, I suspect, in the upcoming habeas hearings for Guantanamo detainees, is "war." Koramatsu placed great emphasis on the government's ability to take steps to protect national security in time of war. That is still good law, so, in addition to the fact that the Gitmo folks aren't American citizens, the detention may well turn on whether we are actually in a war or not. It'll be an interesting discussion, because if we're in a war now (Afghanistan and Iraq wars were started by us and the "War on Terror" is sufficiently vague to allow it to continue indefinitely), and courts rule as much, it should open the door to indefinite detention of American citizens without charge, just like in Koramatsu.

So do you recognize the fact that, if suggesting that Clinton is a lesbian is sexist, then suggesting that Edwards is gay is sexist too?

no, it was not meant to be a stumper, but on Broadsheet, you never know.

So do I take it by your answer that, to you at least, "let's keep talking about sexism" includes talking about misandry as well as misogyny?

since no one, including Traister, wants to define sexism, let's try it this way: was the obsession with John Edwards' hair sexist? Maureen Dowd compulsively referred to him as "the Breck Girl." Was that sexist? The two (Dowd's trope and the hair obsession)suggested none too subtlely that Edwards is insufficiently masculine. Is that sexist? It also referred to a physical trait of his as in some way important to his qualifications for the presidency. Is that sexist? If not, why not? Is there anti-male sexism? Should we "keep talking about it?" Or is sexism defined as something bad done to women and only to women?

Celtics players were high-fiving and congratulating each other in a game that was going their way, and Kobe was p.o.'ed at his teammates in a game that was going badly for them. There's something strange about that?

kindly define your terms. What is sexism?