Timing.

I read the Times' Sunday columns when they went up late Saturday, and all I could think was ... Bummer on the timing thing.

Dowd surely did not know of the downed Chinook when she was writing about the movie being made about the SEALS' glory day...

Nor did Frank Bruni know that his column "True Believers" would be running a day after that either, I suspect. He concluded,

And right now, with the stock market floundering and our credit rating downgraded and millions of Americans stranded in unemployment and Washington frozen in confusion, the temptation to look for one summary prescriptive — for certainty, even miracles — is strong. We’d be wise to resist it. To get us out of this mess, we need a full range of extant remedies, a tireless search for new ones and the nimbleness and open-mindedness to evaluate progress dispassionately and adapt our strategy accordingly. Faith and prayer just won’t cut it. In fact, they’ll get in the way.

and today, one new widow -- wife of a downed warrior -- said this:

"I want to tell the world that he was an amazing man, that he was a wonderful husband, and a fabulous father to two wonderful children," she said. "He was a warrior for Christ and he was a warrior for our country and he wouldn't want to leave this Earth any other way than how he did."

Vaughn's grandmother called him "a great American" who wanted to be a Navy SEAL ever since he was a boy.

Geneva Carson Vaughn recalled one of the last conversations she had with him.

"I told him to be careful and he said, 'Granny, don't worry about me.' He said 'I'm not afraid because I know where I'm going if something happens to me.' Aaron was a Christian and he stood firm in his faith," she said, her voice heavy with emotion.

"He's with the Lord now and I'll see him again some day."

Luckily, we have freedom of choice on religion too: to believe, or not to believe, but to permit others to worship as they wish. Granted Bruni's column was in response to Texas Gov. Rick Perry's faith rally, and not in response to the military tragedy. Still, we'd be wise to dismiss the urges to counsel others in how to get through tough times right now.

In a similar vein, Gloria Steinem appeard on This Week on Sunday. She concluded something like, We (women/feminism) will win in the end because we believe in choice.

Nevermind that many American women simply don't have the choice to stay at home to raise their children these days: governmental interference in terms of rebates for daycare but no subsidies to stay-at-home parents, and a poor economy in general, necessitates two outside-the-family workers to live at the levels a one-income-earning family was able to do before the advent of feminism.

And yes, Gloria (and Christiane too), women worked outside the home for years and years and years before the middle-class feminist revolution. Working-class women, domestics, those who organized themselves in convents before feminism kicked in to advise everybody... many say, in fact, that upper- and middle-class men were the prime beneficiaries of the feminism revolution.

Still, Gloria was working the "choice" meme. But... do non-birth-control-needing women have a "choice" to opt out of subsidizing the "free" birth control that will now be covered, it seems, on all insurance policies? Or does choice mean: I chose what I valued and what my morals permit. You pay for it, even you who choose differently for yourselves.

Do female fetuses have a "choice" to not be killed off, perhaps because papa wanted a son this time around? (or mama too.)

Do women who love women have much of a "choice" outside certain elite areas (and Iowa!) to transfer their financial benefits to protect one another, and to legally craft their relationships in a way that benefits both parties involved? (think non-upper-class and affluent women who are unable to privately contract past their state laws...)

Nope again. Look aroung Gloria. You mean well. Surely, you did your bit in advancing womens' causes. But while you haven't failed necessarily, it's a bit premature to be waving the victory flag for feminism, amidst the crumbling accomplishments. She called conservative women, like Palin and Bachmann, out for acting "parasitic" (I think I heard that correctly): meaning they suck off of the liberal womens' work to present themselves as the prime beneficiaries of letting more women into the game.

Funny, but it sounds like that way, the "team" is split. Or maybe we're belatedly realizing ... all women don't belong playing for the same "team". Too many cultural, economic, and historical background issues that separate us, other than the facts that we all might just happen to share the same genital features.