Although Smith's first appeal for protected status was rejected, Federal Court Justice Yves de Montigny recently ruled that Canada's refugee board should reconsider her case. He noted Winchell's murder, the fact that gay sex violates the military code, and "evidence that [Smith] was afraid that her superiors may have been involved in the harassment and threats targeted at her" as reasons to give her another hearing, after the original findings stated that somehow a written death threat on top of regular beatings and hundreds of lesser threats did not constitute "a risk to her life or risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment upon return to the United States." Smith's lawyer, Jamie Liew, emphasizes that Smith is not looking to avoid going to Afghanistan, but to avoid going there with people who mean her harm. "The idea that she would be deployed with people who were giving her death threats is a problem. If people in your unit are not there to have your back, you would be killed in a war and you wouldn't even know if it was because of friendly fire, of enemy fire or because of someone deliberately firing at you . . . Her situation is unique in that way."

It may be, in that she's the first to seek asylum because of persecution from fellow soldiers, but what drove Smith to Canada is far from unique. The Human Rights Campaign's website says in its FAQ about the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, "Although gay, lesbian and bisexual service members have been held to the 'Don't Tell' portion of the policy, reports show that the 'Don't Ask, Don't Pursue, Don't Harass' parts of the policy are often ignored. A 2000 Defense Department inspector general survey showed that 80 percent of service members had heard offensive speech, derogatory names, jokes or remarks about gays in the previous year, and that 85 percent believed such comments were tolerated. Thirty-seven percent reported that they had witnessed or experienced direct, targeted forms of harassment, including verbal and physical assaults and property damage. Overwhelmingly, service members did not report the harassment. When asked why, many cited fear of retaliation." And speaking of DADT, in October, the University of California, Santa Barbara's Palm Center released data that showed, in the words of Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory, "women are disproportionately punished under the military's fingers-in-your-ears policy toward homosexuals." Meanwhile, violence against female soldiers in the military is rampant, and questions often surround the deaths of gay soldiers, like Ciara Durkin, whose death was ruled a suicide by the Army, even though shortly before she died, she told her family another soldier had pulled a gun on her and asked them to investigate if anything happened to her.

Even if Smith had no evidence of specific threats to her life, it's reasonable to conclude that her being a lesbian would pose serious risks to her safety in such a hostile environment. We can hope Canada's refugee board recognizes that and allows her to stay, but until the U.S. does something to address a military climate that supports harassment and violence against female and gay soldiers, many more will remain in danger.

When Martinez and her husband, Jose -- a police officer who knew full well his wife wasn't doing anything illegal -- refused to leave, the security guard called the cops. Target mistake No. 2. Although the local officers who arrived confirmed that it is not against the law to breast-feed in public in Harper Woods, Mary Martinez says she felt humiliated and forced out of the store anyway. "Two security guards, the manager or team leader, two officers, they just made a spectacle and a scene. I feel like I can't go to that specific Target anymore."

Now, Target mistakes 1 and 2 can be written off as the poor judgment of individual employees, but 3 is the real eye-popper: When contacted by Detroit's Fox affiliate, Target's corporate headquarters said that breast-feeding is allowed in their stores, but "This specific situation escalated to a point where we were concerned for the safety of our guests, so law enforcement was called." Are you kidding me? How on earth does feeding a baby "escalate" to a safety issue for other customers? Target's corporate spokesperson does understand that when you give a quote to a media outlet, other people will end up hearing it, right? And also that words mean things?

Perhaps not, because the rest of the statement was: "We regret the incident in our store and will continue to provide a shopping environment that respects the needs of all guests, including nursing mothers." Yeah, see, the verb "continue" implies that you have already been doing a thing you plan to keep doing, yet calling police on a breast-feeding woman is not providing a shopping environment that respects the needs of nursing mothers. See how that works? So at this point, you could maybe start respecting nursing mothers, or change things so that all Target security guards are aware that breast-feeding is neither illegal nor against store policy, or create a new rule like, "Hey, don't call the cops on moms feeding their babies," but you can't really "continue" doing something you weren't doing before.

I mean, sure, maybe every other Target in America is wonderfully welcoming to nursing mothers, but even if that were the case, this one screwed up. Badly. And the savvy P.R. move in response to such a screw-up is not, "we were concerned for the safety of our guests" -- I'm sorry, did Mary Martinez whip out a gun and demand that everyone back off while she finished feeding her kid? Take hostages? Tell someone she'd planted a bomb? -- but, "Our security guard overreacted and misrepresented both store policy and local law, and we are ashamed that a Target employee caused the Martinez family so much trouble and embarrassment. We want to reassure our guests that nursing mothers are always welcome in our stores." Because you know what? Even if you alienate the kind of customers who might find an accidental boob sighting offensive, I'm guessing that's better for business than alienating parents of young children; women who are, have been or might someday be nursing mothers; and any other human beings who understand that babies need to eat.

The manager of the Harper Woods store told the TV station that (despite evidence to the contrary) "breast-feeding is certainly not discouraged inside of her store." Good thing, since I'm betting that store now has a nurse-in to look forward to. 

First, you'll need a phone. Forget that pussy iPhone and get yourself the Motorola Droid. Droid! Nothing chick-like there! That's a name that says, "I tinker with stuff and edit Dr. Who Wikipedia entries."

In the Droid's new ad, Motorola gives us an array of candy-colored, bling-encrusted mobile devices and smiling fashion dolls and asks, "Should a phone be pretty? Should it be a tiara wearing, digitally clueless beauty queen?" Hell to the no!

Instead, it should be "racehorse duct taped to a scud missile fast" so it "rips through the web like a circular saw through a ripe banana!" Beware the rampaging Droid! It has GPS but it doesn't even need it, because directions are for the weak! If the ghost of Steve McQueen had a baby with Captain Kirk, it would be this phone. It would have back hair and chew with its mouth open. This phone may have killed Tupac. As the ad explains, "It's not a princess. It's a robot." It's not a phone. It's a dick with rollover minutes.

Feeling somewhat more butch? Ready to get out there and engage in some high-speed chases and cut down some trees and shit? Sounds like you need to "wear the pants." And what could be more gangsta, more badass, than a pair of Dockers? As the brand that made everybody's asses look fat in the '90s lurches along the comeback trail, Dockers would like to propose a man-ifesto. (Get it? Hey, you want subtlety, watch Lifetime.) You see, once there was a time "men took charge because that's what they did." But then, "the world decided it no longer need men" and left them "stripped of their khakis … by the side of the road between boyhood and androgyny." It goes on in this tragic vein for some time. Stuff about crumbling  cities and genderless society, until you find yourself pouring two fingers of bourbon, neat, and watching "Field of Dreams" again on Spike TV. I think we all remember the great pants-jacking of American masculinity, which, based on the manifesto's references to disco and salad bars, occurred sometime in the Carter administration. For the love of God, can we put some khakis back on our menfolk at long last?

When the Incredible Hulk goes on the rampage, he is busting out of a pair of Dockers. The only reason to unzip a pair of Dockers is to pee standing up or impregnate a supermodel. If there were a seventh masculine icon of the Village People, it would be these pants! OK, scratch that last one. They're available at Kohl's and JC Penny's! Can you handle that?

Perhaps the best part of the Dockers imperative to "answer the call of manhood" is the links at the bottom to "shop men" or "shop women's." I feel gender confusion and androgyny kicking in. ROARR! WHY AM I SHOUTING? IT MUST BE THE TESTOSTERONE IN THESE PANTS!

It's vaguely consoling to be reminded that advertising doesn't merely prey upon female insecurities. But maybe someday they'll be enough roaming data and trouser wearing in the world for all of us -- male and female, princesses and Droids.

So it was inevitable that Tiger Woods' message-heard-round-the-world would get some creative treatment. We just never imagined it would so convincingly lend itself to a down and dirty, R. Kelly-style late-night groove.  From the fine folks at Half Day Today, Tiger's voice mail is the slow jam that will have you crooning "Take your name off your phone" to all the cocktail waitresses on your speed dial.

The 19-month-old has accompanied Palin on her book tour and is rarely out of the spotlight. He can be seen resting on her hip as she addresses a crowd or carried by an aide while Palin signs books. Adoring fans have showed up with handmade signs that trumpet things like, "We Love Trig." Jason Recher, a campaign aide who came along for the book tour, told Politico: "There’s a lot of people who come through the line to see Trig instead of to see her." It makes me think of the way believers the world over flock to see children who are deemed to be the reincarnation of a particular deity. Trig is being treated as the movement's blessed icon, a martyr because of what could have happened to him: abortion.

He's also being used as a straw man baby against pro-choice activists. "Palin's allies [suggest] that antipathy to her is based on the belief that she should have had an abortion rather than bearing her son," Smith explains. He quotes two conservatives bloggers who argue that this is part of a "broader societal bias against disability." This is just another iteration of the "pro-choicers hate babies" argument. Thankfully, Smith injects some reportorial balance: "Those people are, in fact, rather hard to find."

That doesn't stop Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List, from offering a sneering representation of the liberal point-of-view: "She had the audacity in the eyes of the abortion rights world to actually have this child and then has the audacity to bring him along with her and feature him as a centrally valued person in their family." Who, exactly, in the mainstream reproductive rights camp is offended by her choice? Dannenfelser dishonestly recasts disagreements with the way Trig is being used to further the anti-choice agenda with an objection to his actual existence and the fact that his family adores him. It isn't Palin's choice that we care about -- it's her disregard for other women's right to make their own choice, whatever that may be.

Remarkably, the article ends with a relatively inoffensive sentiment from Dannenfelser: She celebrates Palin for providing an example that will influence some women confronted with a similar situation. I think it's wonderful for there to be a public example of a family happily raising a baby with Down syndrome; women should be exposed to a whole range of role models for the various paths that are possible in life. But, again, it comes down to the issue of, hello, choice. Even Palin writes in her book that she considered abortion "for a split second" when she found out about Trig's condition. She considered it because she had a choice.