A while ago I used the phrase “. . . Senator Feinstein would screech . . .”. It now occurs to me that if the senior Big Gummint Democratic Senator from California were a he I’d probably have used the word “howl”.

I guess the Gender Sensitivity-in-Language Police don’t read me regularly.

Eventually it hit me that what I’m looking for, car-wise, is what I bought twenty years ago — except that this time I’d prefer that it not be a lemon. I really liked the Citation’s shape: a roomy midsize sedan with a big rear hatch. (And six cylinders.) Modernize that and . . hm. Is the correlation of my taste with the national taste negative or merely zero?

In Dave Langford’s latest Ansible:

FANTASY DEFINITIONS MASTERCLASS. Years ago John Clute, John Grant, and their Encyclopedia of Fantasy team wrestled with tough problems of defining fantasy and telling good from bad. If only they’d had the help of Tom Snyder, whose www.movieguide.org review of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away makes everything crystal clear while explaining how Miyazaki got it all wrong:

In a proper fantasy, the heroine might encounter messengers or representatives, allegorical or otherwise, from God or Jesus Christ, or even God Himself and/or one or more members of the Holy Trinity. The heroine certainly should not learn things from encountering pagan, animistic spirits, unless she’s there to completely defeat them and/or worship or honor the One True God of the Bible. This is the difference between good fantasy and bad fantasy.

If I ever visit England again, I must look up some of these Doctor Who locations, particularly Aldbourne alias Devil’s End.

Heaven give me strength. Airport screeners find sharp things hidden in a young Bulgarian’s luggage — but that’s not all!

Robert Johnson, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman . . . said the fact that the man’s one-way ticket was purchased over the Internet in August also raised suspicion.

(Hat tip to Rachel Lucas.)

For at least a decade, paying cash at the counter has been a confession that you’re a drug smuggler, and any cash you happen to have on you is forfeit. Now, if you buy your ticket on the Net a month in advance, you’re a terrorist. Is that nice Mr Mineta in bed with the traditional travel agents, or what?

I’m going to visit Dad in a few weeks (for my birthday, which is also my stepbrother’s; he’ll be 21). Dad bought the tickets, over a month in advance, on the Net — relieving my worry that the Keystone Kounterterrorists might hassle me for nothing.