In the campaign media circus, the stream of gossip, leaks, gotchas and gaffes can be dizzying. Now Sarah Palin has thrown everything off balance in a storm of public scrutiny.

Is she a token? An everywoman? A wonderwoman? A true maverick or another shrewd peddler of politics as usual? Does it matter? All we know is that we want to know more.

And the kind of ravenous curiosity Palin has attracted--usually reserved for Paris Hilton types--also gives her political backers something to rally around. Republicans are painting media criticism of Palin as unfair and sexist; others say the McCain campaign is simply playing victim to stoke public sympathy and deflect valid inquiries.

At the Republican National Convention last night, Mike Huckabee declared that negative publicity has helped fire up the base:

“I’d like to thank the elite media for doing something that, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure could be done, and that’s unifying the Republican Party and all of America in support of Senator McCain and Governor Palin.

“The reporting of the past few days have proven tackier than a costume change at a Madonna concert.”

Among the many questions that have been raised about John McCain's choice of running mate, the one that is most galling is whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin can handle a big job while raising a young family. Nobody asks such questions of people like John Edwards -- who has young children -- or Mitt Romney or Jack Kemp. Both have large families. The question simply breaks along gender lines.

What's worse, the commentaries are fashioned to pretend that they are not asking such a sexist question. A Daily Kos blogger frames it as concern for the 5-month-old Trig Palin, the governor's youngest child, who was born with Down syndrome. Another popular frame is whether Bristol Palin, the second-eldest (fixed) of the five Palin children, will receive adequate help from her own mom now that it has been revealed that she is unwed and pregnant at 17.

It is certain that the underlying insinuation is that if Palin is a family values conservative, she is also a hypocrite for taking on an all-consuming public job when home demands are raging. But inescapably, the stories also suggest that moms can and should be held accountable for stepping outside the home in the name of ambition. Dads just don't have to answer the same questions.

Got drugs? According to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, "the average television viewer spends 100 minutes watching [pharmaceutical] advertising for every minute in a doctor’s office."

There's a roiling debate in the health-care world about whether the quality time the pharmaceuticals industry spends with us in our living rooms is a waste -- or even worse, hazardous to our health.

Previous research has drawn a connection between drug sales and consumer ads. But a new study suggests that direct-to-consumer advertising -- the charmingly vague, banally pleasant commercials promoting treatments for everything from erectile dysfunction to high cholestrol--may not be particularly good for anyone, not even the advertiser.

At the ballpark, one beer--or, at most, two--should be more than enough, given the astronomical stadium prices. But even one or two beers can necessitate a quick between-innings visit to the rest room.

At Yankee Stadium, though, you shouldn't plan on taking that bathroom break during the pre-game singing of the national anthem, or in the seventh inning, during the singing of "God Bless America." The Yankees have a strict policy: no leaving your seats during these patriotic tunes.

And they mean it.

This week, a fan made the mistake of trying to go to the bathroom during "God Bless America," and was forcefully, arm-twistingly ejected from the ballpark. (The Gothamist investigated the unfortunate cascade of events and generated some lively dialogue on baseball, toilets and "forced patriotism.")

This seems to be taking mandatory singing just a step too far. There are many definitions of patriotism, such as loyalty to the highest ideals of the nation, to name one excellent one. But at Yankee Stadium, it seems, being a patriot also requires a large bladder.

There's no shortage of contradictions in the electorate: people want elite credentials along with blue-collar street cred, they want toughness without unpalatable anger, and with both major candidates honing in on "values," now the challenge is mixing faith and politics without diluting either.

The straddling of church and state is bound to stretch now that Sen. Joe Biden, a pro-choice Catholic, has jumped into the race.

But it's sometimes an awkward balancing act. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently lost faith points on Meet the Press, drawing harsh rebukes for suggesting that there has been longstanding debate over abortion within the Catholic Church.

Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl fired back:

"Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable."

But if church doctrine is holding firm, faith of a more political nature is flowing freely in Denver.

College drunkenness is as American as apple pie. What would those bright college years be without memories of keg stands, beer pong, Jell-O shots, cocktails of cola and Cold Duck... and the morning-after moment of reckoning, huddled over a toilet awash in a sea of crumpled aluminum.

But the flipside of all this fun is lethality. Widespread binge-drinking problems on college campuses have goaded college administrators to explore policies that might deter out-of-control alcohol consumption. Since alcohol binges often happen in tandem with underage drinking, some reform advocates say tweaking the age threshold could help rein in reckless drinking.

The Amethyst Initiative, a coalition of more than 100 higher-education administrators, is urging lawmakers to reconsider the legal drinking age of 21, arguing that the age limit has little effect on underage drinking and actually perpetuates destructive “clandestine” drinking.

Is an alcohol binge fueled by the surreptitious thrill of breaking the rules? And if drinking were not such a legally risky act, would young people be less inclined to go overboard? (We invite readers to comment below.)

We all know there are two kinds of people in this world ... Mac people and Microsoft people. And for those who didn't know it before, Apple Computer ads--featuring a buttoned-up John Hodgman as a PC and hipster Justin Long as a Mac--hammer the point home. Microsoft is now trying to crash the hipster party by hiring Jerry Seinfeld as a pitchman.

Putting aside the question of whether a 1990s sitcom star will bring the cachet to Microsoft it desires, there's the issue that till now, Seinfeld has been one of the Mac people. His character's apartment always featured the latest-model Apple computer on the desk. As a commenter named Jonathan Wise wrote on TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog): "I always look for the Mac on his desk to identify what season of the show I'm watching."

This won't be the first time Seinfeld has appeared in a commercial for a computer company, either. During the 1998 series finale of "Seinfeld," Apple aired a version of its "Think Different" ad that closed with footage of the comedian in younger days.

All's fair in love and war and business. And you have to wonder whether Seinfeld's switch -- which is rumored to come with a $10 million payout -- might be a sign of more switches to come. After all, the economy is sinking while gas, food and utility prices are on the rise. How many other Mac people will be persuaded by their pocket books, and find they can no longer justify paying premium prices for flashy Apple products, when Microsoft's frumpy ones will suffice?

On the world stage, the brilliant performance of the Chinese women's gymnastics team has inspired awe--and a touch of doubt. As today's editorial page noted, their teeny frames have prompted suspicions of age doctoring.

The media is swirling with reports that some girls may be under age 16 — too young to compete in the Olympics--while state press reports seem to have been suspiciously scrubbed, possibly in an Orwellian effort to erase any trace of scandal.

Some commentators seem refreshed that the issue has finally given some bite to what they see as a sanitized Olympics love-fest — the "Kumbaya games."

Harvey Araton of the New York Times questioned why there was not more talk of Pixie-gate in the media circus:

"...why do I get the feeling that if these Olympics were happening in Chicago or Los Angeles, the story would by now be a serious cable television cause célèbre?

"Larry King would be hosting the stricken parents of victimized Americans. Hannity would be chiding Colmes about Communist child abusers. Lou Dobbs would be demanding the borders be closed to all Chinese gymnasts under 80 pounds....

"When in North America, do as the North Americans do — overreact. When in China, overlook.

"For better or worse, these are the shrug-and-don’t-tell Olympics, undoubtedly because it would be considered impolitic to embarrass the Chinese after they went to such great expense to throw the world this lavish party."

Is the American media giving its Olympic hosts a free pass?

From the perspective of many Chinese, Western outlets are in fact running a smear campaign to blemish China's Olympic moment. But China can't deny that it's tossed plenty of riddles at quizzical spectators.

It doesn't really bother me that some of the fireworks from the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in Beijing were computer-generated -- visible only to those of us watching the display on TV. Fireworks are cool, granted, but what was so amazing about this spectacular production was its human element. The cast of thousands. The sheer athleticism of the runner in the sky. The sweet, pure voice of that red-dressed 9-year-old singing "Hymn to the Motherland."

Oh, wait a minute. Now we know that lovely voice didn't belong to that lovely girl. A 7-year-old, Yang Peiyi, won a competition to sing the anthem, but at the last minute, a Chinese official decided she didn't have the right look. Something about buck teeth. The BBC also reported a complaint about chubby cheeks. In other words, she looked like many 7-year-olds. So a more supposedly suitable-looking girl, Lin Miaoke, appeared in the ceremony, while Yang Peiyi's voice was broadcast to the gazillion spectators at the stadium and around the world.

We all know China has a lot to prove with this Olympics, but it's hard to imagine how replacing the girl on the right here with the girl on the left would make a shred of difference -- to anyone except for the 7-year-old who was told she didn't look right. She's a beautiful girl with a beautiful voice, and I think we all know who's looking ugly right now.

Photo: Getty/AFP

A modest effort to push past the anti-Muslim sentiment now oozing across the campaign trail has now apparently fallen prey to it.

Mazen Asbahi, a Chicago-based corporate lawyer recently appointed as the Obama campaign's national coordinator for Muslim American affairs, just resigned amid tensions over his tenuous link to a foundation supposedly tied to an alleged fundamentalist Islamic organization. The mad syllogism, spurred by the conservative blogosphere and a probe by the Wall Street Journal, can be traced to a cryptic, subscription-only newsletter called Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report (which seems to be a resource for groups that track supposedly radical Islamic organizations).

Evidently, Asbahi served briefly on the board of the Allied Assets Advisors Fund years ago and then resigned when he "became aware of public allegations against another member of the board." The board also included Jamal Said, an imam tied to a mosque that those "watchdog" groups have accused of fundamentalism.

Ironically, Asbahi's appointment to the Obama camp was intended to defuse some the prevailing anti-Muslim bias and to cut through general ignorance about both Obama's religious background and Islam in general.

We likely haven't heard the whole story about why a Saturday night 911 call from Hicksville was put on hold for nearly two minutes. Meena Kohli, the mother of the caller, had been fatally stabbed. Officials say that high volume is one reason callers with emergencies sometimes have to wait to speak to an operator. So it's ironic -- not to mention unfortunate -- that anyone with information about Harpal Hira, a "person of interest" in Kohli's murder, is being urged to call ... 911.

To keep that line open for emergencies, Hira-spotters can call CrimeStoppers at 800-244-TIPS instead.

Memory loss is touching a growing number of minds. Researchers revealed yesterday that more people are slipping toward dementia associated with aging than previously estimated, and medical science is just starting to grapple with treatment options for this emerging disorder.

Researchers with the Mayo Clinic reported that mild memory impairment will hit nearly one million Americans each year. Men were more likely than women to develop the "pre-dementia" condition, which involves a significant erosion of memory abilities, though not as severe as Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, an additional half a million will develop full-blown Alzheimer’s and related dementia disorders.

As comprehensive treatment for the crisis may be far off, the influx in people with memory impairment means communities will have to find more immediate ways to accommodate them--and appreciate their presence. Newsday’s recent op-ed feature explored the experiences of people dealing with memory loss as they work to maintain vital social connections.

Governor David Paterson’s 52nd veto may have seemed nondescript, but it shed light on both his personal journey and the evolution of education for people with disabilities over the past generation.

Under the bill in question, Newsday reported today, parents of blind or deaf children would have received mandatory information from their local school district about special state-run schools for the deaf and blind.

In Paterson's view:

"Providing parents with information about only one educational option, our state-operated facilities, might lead some parents to discount the full range of options that might be appropriate and available for their children,"

The Governor grew up legally blind, and rather than placing him in a segregated educational setting, his family sought out a public school system on Long Island that enabled him to attend “mainstream” classes.

While Paterson went on to thrive intellectually and professionally, there is nonetheless an ongoing debate in the disability community over how best to meet the needs of blind and deaf students. Does a child benefit more from specialized schooling or a more integrative approach? How do you foster equality of opportunity but at the same time recognize unique needs?

From heavy metal to instant messages, it seems like a new intellectual bogeyman appears every few years, feeding parents' alarm about the influence of popular culture on their kids' minds. Now, thanks to a Sunday New York Times feature, everyone's talking about how online interactivity may be changing young people's reading skills, as digital denizens supposedly ditch Macbeth for MySpace.

The chief concern, according to literacy experts, is that the overstimulation dished out by the web undermines the deeper experience of absorbing a good book. Others believe that time spent browsing online text--be it chatting or Wikipedia--is expanding young people's literary horizons in a way that books never could.

This is hardly virgin territory, of course. At Newsday, we've weighed in on the online literacy debate as well, with our op-ed features and blog entries on how text messaging is changing the way young people communicate. In our research, we uncovered a different picture of online culture as a unique expressive medium--a format that kids not only absorb but also actively contribute to. Along with new, innovative literary forms inspired by SMS language, we stumbled on a Pew study suggesting that the kind of simplified chat-speak lambasted by teachers actually has little bearing on academic reading and writing.

So how do we distinguish between the kind of Internet activity that blunts critical thinking and the kind that enhances it? And why bother?

The dust-up over Bernie Mac's crude jokes at an Obama fundraiser brings to mind all the fuss a couple years ago, when Stephen Colbert played the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Back then, I had to wonder if the people in charge of booking entertainers for the dinner had ever actually watched "The Colbert Report," or if they had, if they got the joke.

Fast-forward to this past weekend, when first Barack Obama distanced himself from Mac -- even while adding an "I'm just messing with you, man" -- and later a spokeswoman for his campaign denounced the jokes outright. I'm thinking this is not the first time Mac has referenced "hos" in his stand-up routine, however. Could the campaign really have been surprised?

Some of the best comedy is controversial, eyebrow-raising stuff. Candidates and politicians --whose staffs should have all the resources they need in this YouTube age to thoroughly vet entertainers -- should extend invitations with their eyes open or not at all. The flustered, after-the-fact backtracking is pretty ridiculous.

New York has the dubious distinction of having a divorce system based on proving "fault"--that one spouse wronged another. The acrimony of the Brinkley trial laid bare some of the litigiousness that fills our divorce courts. The Opinion section invites readers to share their thoughts on New York's divorce system in our forum, Splitsville, New York.

If you (or your parents) have been through divorce in New York, we encourage you to share your own personal experiences and discuss ideas for reforms with some experts in the field:

Did the legal system hurt or help the process?

Do you think a "no-fault" system would lead to a fairer settlement?

What was the impact on your family dynamics and parent-child relationships?

How can divorcing parents, inside and outside the legal system, ensure that their children's privacy and sensitivity is respected?

Read more about this issue here, and follow the link to the forum to join the discussion.

Read more about our panelists: Steven Carlson, Steven Demby, Hal Mayerson and Andrew Schepard.

The district attorney in Boulder, Colo., concluded yesterday that JonBenet Ramsey's killer was someone outside of her family, based on newly available DNA technology. This conclusion only adds to the string of tragedies that befell the family of this 6-year-old beauty queen, who was killed in 1996.

First, the Ramseys lost their daughter. Then they had to live with police and public suspicion hanging over them -- in mother Patsy's case, until her death from cancer in 2006. There was quickly-dashed hope for closure a few months later, when John Mark Karr made a sick play for publicity by falsely confessing to the murder. And now, whoever the killer is, he -- the DNA samples belong to a man -- remains at large.

The current DA apologized to the family, according to an AP story:

"To the extent that we may have contributed in any way to the public perception that you might have been involved in this crime, I am deeply sorry," Boulder County District Attorney Mary Lacy wrote in a letter to the little girl's father, John Ramsey. "No innocent person should have to endure such an extensive trial in the court of public opinion."

The public judged the Ramseys because they played up their daughter's looks by entering her in beauty contests. Apparently, the myth survives that girls and women are asking to be assaulted if they display their beauty. People may disagree with the choices the Ramseys made for JonBenet. But that did not make a family member guilty of murder.

The death of any newspaper is sad for those who depend on it for a living, and for the communities it serves. Suffolk Life is an idiosyncratic paper with a much larger circulation than most weeklies ever achieve. Its publisher, David Willmott, was more influential than most weekly publishers ever get to be. And now, Suffolk Life is shutting down, partly because of Willmott's health, and partly because of the economic realities all papers are facing.

Willmott always ended his sharply worded editorials, "Willmotts and Why Nots" with the enigmatic tagline: "And why not?" But there was nothing enigmatic about the editorials themselves. He might surprise you with the position he ultimately staked out, but once he decided, he said it vividly and with absolute clarity.

He also took elections very seriously. His long written questionnaires and his rigorous interviews were formidable hurdles that candidates had to face, if they wanted his endorsement.

Now that voice, sometimes cranky and imperious, but always strong, won't be heard in these parts anymore. That's a shame.

As Newsday reported (and we blogged about) yesterday, teachers are outraged about SMS-inspired language finding its way into the classroom. But what are they really talking about?

Language is powerful political currency. Historically, language has acted as a lever in the subjugation of targeted groups; those in power can wield it as a gatekeeper to control others' influence and access to resources.

I'm not going to read too much out of what could well be an overzealous trendspotting report, apparently based on anecdotal evidence. (The Pew Internet and American Life Project tamps down fears that Internet jabber is corrupting students’ writing.) But spin factor aside, the debate reveals some interesting crosscurrents in technology, youth culture and education.

If kids fail to capitalize words properly or they jam sloppy abbreviations into homework, does the blame lie in the gadgetry that promotes this lingua franca, or is it something deeper?

The editorial board meets every morning to talk about what's going on, what we want to editorialize about in the next day's paper, and what those editorials are going to say. But sometimes our most animated discussions aren't represented on the page. That happened today, when we started talking about the A2 story about how text messaging is corrupting students' language.

Yes, the language purists and grammarians who worried a dozen years ago about what the rising popularity of e-mail was doing to ordinary discourse can now worry about texting, as teachers on Long Island report that more and more student papers reflect the broken English, all-lowercase, hyper-abbreviated style that kids thumb out on their cell phones and other IM devices all day long.

As folks who make their livings constructing paragraphs, trying to tame the wild sea of language into cogent arguments, we may have more of an investment than most in spelling, grammar and proper usage. But we still had a lot of different reactions to the story. One reason for that could be that among the six of us in the meeting today, we had people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s talking about what is certainly a generational issue.

Obama’s Father’s Day speech at a predominantly black church in Chicago raised eyebrows and struck nerves. Yet the message was nothing new in the black community: an exhortation to fathers to fulfill their roles as parents and community members, a warning about the paternal “absenteeism” seen as a scourge by observers both inside and outside black America. But coming from a candidate who has long gingerly toed the racial line—and been lambasted for being both “too black” and “not black enough” by different constituencies—the speech sought to display detached moral firmness and calibrated solidarity.

But while Obama's words about fatherhood frame him as a black American who has risen above common challenges, it also exposes tensions among evolving self-perceptions within black America. Is the problem of absent black fathers more rooted in structural barriers—from economic inequities to bias in the criminal justice system—or does it stem more from a poverty of self-will, to be remedied through individual transformation?

Apparently, in my column today about how unfair the media was to Hillary Clinton, I was unfair to Bill O'Reilly. A producer from his show called today to ask why I said it "wasn't surprising" that a guest on his show would joke about PMS in the White House, and why I hadn't included O'Reilly's response to the quip. Fair enough. The guest was Marc Rudov, author of "The Man's No-Nonsense Guide to Women," and O'Reilly's response was, "But guys have mood swings, Marc, and they have other control issues..."

You can watch the March 10 exchange here:

You decide.

As Gov. David Paterson plunges into roiling political waters with his mandate recognizing same-sex marriages, conservatives from New York to California are gunning for a showdown in America's fiercest marital feud.

The Governor's new policy to embrace same-sex marriages performed outside New York (Canada for instance) probably packs more political than legal punch, according to Leonard Link at New York Law School, but nonetheless fans the flames of the debate. Though Albany Republicans have laid low so far, the Alliance Defense Fund, a well-connected, Arizona-based conservative Christian group, is trying to block the measure in State Supreme Court. The organization hasn't had much legal success in New York, but several state lawmakers are backing the new suit, including Sen. Serphin Maltese (R-Queens), whose seat will be hotly contested in November.

On the day Bo Diddley died this week, John Lennon was also in the news, nearly 30 years after he died.

Unless Yoko Ono wins a legal appeal, 15 seconds of "Imagine” will stay in a new film documentary that questions the theory of evolution. How incongruous is that? She thought so too.

But it’s hardly the first time a song has shown up in an odd or inexplicable context in a film or commercial.

In the late 1980s Diddley, who had long since been eclipsed by the Beatles (and other British invaders), co-starred in a Nike TV ad featuring the baseball player Bo Jackson. Recalled the muscial Bo, “I never could figure out what it had to do with shoes, but it worked."

It was one of the rare moments when Diddley got some national attention after the mid-1960s.

For someone who called himself the Originator of rock n roll, life in the shadows wasn't easy to take. Lennon worshipped Diddley--said he was the first thing in America he wanted to see. Since all those years ago, Lennon has never been be far from the spotlight. Diddley's moments were few. His death this week was another of those occasions.

If you're not too distracted by the explosive talk in Washington about "terror," "Nazis," "Islam" and "genocide," some have posed quieter but no less intriguing reflections on the politicization of language.

A Times op-ed today argues that when politicians wield the term “jihad" to incite fears of terrorism, they both validate and denigrate Islam’s concepts of spiritual struggle. In a way, describing the terrorists in their own self-aggrandizing terms validates their ideology—reproducing a grand vision of their battles as struggles between good and evil. On the other hand, it degrades the beliefs of many mainstream Muslims by co-opting the phrase to equate Islam with modern terrorism. P.W. Singer and Elina Noor write:

to call a terrorist a “jihadist” or “jihadi” effectively puts any campaign against terrorism into the framework of an existential battle between the West and Islam.... It also serves to isolate the tens of millions of Muslims who condemn the violence that has been perpetrated in the name of Islam.

Meanwhile, as the Western media throws around the “jihad” label with abandon, a debate is raging within Islam—even among the ranks of the "terrorists" themselves—over how to interpret the idea of jihad as enshrined in Islamic scripture.

There will be no profiles-in-corporate-courage award for Dunkin' Donuts this year.

This week, the coffee behemoth indulged in a little pre-emptive capitulation (cave early and avoid the rush), when a few rabid conservative bloggers took issue with the scarf that TV chef Rachael Ray wore in an online ad for iced latte. After one look at the scarf that a stylist chose for Ray to wear in the ad, the terrorist-under-every-bed crowd decided it looked suspiciously like a kaffiyeh, headwear common in the Arab world. Jumping off from that paranoid observation, they took an astonishing leap of logic: Some of the people who wear the kaffiyeh are terrorists, and this scarf reminds us of a kaffiyeh, and therefore, Rachael Ray somehow supports terrorism. (Actually, the only thing terrifying about Ray is her preternatural energy level.)

Rather than stand up for Ray, who has become the cheery face of Dunkin' Donuts, its corporate leaders quickly pulled the ad, knuckling under to the knuckleheads in the blogosphere.

Thank you, WLIW/21, for giving some serious airtime over the next three nights to asking why young professionals are leaving Long Island in droves. Newsday’s TV critic Verne Gay says it’s well worth watching. It’s fortunate that he thinks so, because the local community needs to support this locally based TV station whenever it goes local, which is a fairly rare event.

As a mom, this is what I think when I see Miley Cyrus' naked back: There goes another one. Yet another teen idol succumbs to the temptations of stardom, letting down all the kids who admire her. My 9-year-old daughter harbors dreams of becoming Hannah Montana, a regular girl with a glamorous rock star identity that she keeps hidden from everyone but a few close friends.

The Cyrus family's charges that Vanity Fair manipulated the photo shoot seem insincere. Miley's family and friends were present for the photo session and viewed digital images. I think they just wanted deniability -- in other words, to blame the sexing-up of this 15-year-old star on the media. Now, Miley can have it both ways with sexy published images that push her into adult-style stardom while claiming innocence and staying in good with the Disney network, where "Hannah Montana" airs.

Move over, girls, Miley's ready to take on the boys. I guess I'll have my daughter shop around for a new role model. How about Jamie Lynn Spears? Pregnant at 16. Or Vanessa Anne Hudgens from "High School Musical"? Whoops, published nudie photos on the Internet. Britney Spears? Brooke Shields? Two more in a long line of girls whose innocence was bartered for fame.