Free Republic

Robyn E. Blumner is one of those feminist writers who specializes in reducing complex issues to lectures on Mars and Venus. Blumner bestows her wisdom in the St. Petersburg Times. The title of a recent offering ("U.S. could use more girlie men") caught my eye. Use them for what – objects of ridicule? But, no, Ms. Blumner is serious. She wants to feminize national security – to take decisions of survival out of the hands of "macho" males and substitute weeping for weapons, sentimentality for strategy and negotiations for no-nonsense. To illustrate her point, Blumner uses the HBO drama series...

Deadwood is one of my favorite programs. Set in a South Dakota gold mining camp in the 1870s, it grittily explores the way human beings organize themselves when consigned to a lawless territory that attracts miscreants, varmints and vultures. A recent episode had an especially insightful moment when all the leaders of the camp were called to an important meeting without an invitation proffered to the female owner of the camp's only bank. Alma Garret could have all the money in the world, but because she has two X chromosomes (a distinction more graphically described in the show), she wasn't...