I apologize for the tardiness of this post. I shan't bother you with excuses.

Topic for today: Judit Polgar. I was analyzing a chess game yesterday; one of my more arcane hobbies. The game was one of Polgar's best. Judit is a Hungarian chess grandmaster and her work on the board is an exercise not only in proficiency but beauty. The relevance here is that I remembered signing up for my first chess tournament in which the form allowed me to choose, if I was female, the female section of the tournament. It struck me as odd, even then as an ignorant youth, that we should divide an activity, a purely mental activity into two engendered sections. It shows that despite our immense progress on gender issues, there is much work yet to be done. Chess is in no way a physical activity, not that there would exist merit in the distinction if it were, but it deflates some of the more convoluted "women are physically inferior" arguments. Polgar is not merely the best female chess player; she is one of the best chess players in the world. Should she be in a different section than Anand and Carlson? I think not.