The newspaper likes to slap a goofy, smiling mug shot next to my column each week.

But if there was no picture next to this column, and I had an androgynous name - which, I know, is a stretch - would you or my editor at the opinions desk perceive my ideas differently? If I were a man, would that affect the way I wrote this column, and would that in turn affect the way you read this column?

Diversity in journalism is a fascinating topic for me as a woman, as a minority and as a writer. Despite my interest, however, the latest debate on the scarcity of female opinion writers feels like one of those tricked-out SUVs with the spinning rims that you see occasionally at red lights: a lot of flash and commotion, but not moving forward. [Read article]

Question: Now that it's been two years since the start of U.S. involvement in Iraq, what is your take on the situation?

"We need to be getting out. I think peace is more important than war."

"I think they shouldn't have gone in the first place. There weren't WMDs and it seems more like the U.S. is there for their own economic and political interests." [Read article]

Criminals in America treated better, more humanely than Terri Schiavo

Terri Schiavo. Wow, I mean what the hell? Starvation, what a way to die. Why is she sentenced to die such a slow death? Why not just shoot her or give her lethal injections? I don't understand why we treat murderers and criminals more humanely. Even animals are treated better. The damn environmentalists and bleeding-heart liberals are never there when you need them. I think this idea of removing the feeding tube from a mentally incapacitated person is interesting. The court can't order her to be killed directly because that's illegal, but they can order her death indirectly via starvation and they will enforce their death sentence with the law enforcement agencies as their lackeys and accomplices to murder. How is this any different than eugenics? The media talks about how the issue of Terri Schiavo case as this phenomenon that has crossed all partisan lines where both Democrats and Republicans can agree that it was wrong for the president to try to step in and protect this women from the government, because that's what he tried to do. God, the NRA and other extremists like them will have a field day with this. When this is all over and the dust has settled, Terri Schiavo will be the new poster child for a campaign on how government is increasing its power over us and taking our freedoms away. And the government now decides who live or dies. People freak out about foreign terrorists being abused, but this woman is an American citizen, and her own government is torturing her to death right in front of our eyes. It's on TV every night, hypocritical bastards. [Read article]