It seems finding the right online dating site these days can be as tricky as finding the perfect partner, and in the war of online dating site “values” it looks like it’s eHarmony.com vs. Chemistry.com.

From a May 5 piece by Lisa Miller in Newsweek:

Among the young and the single—especially those with Blue State values—wariness about eHarmony runs high. For one thing, there’s the association with Dr. James Dobson. Warren published several of his books under the imprint of Dobson’s Focus on the Family and then, when he was first flogging eHarmony, he did it largely via Dobson’s radio show. “James Dobson … did more to help us get started than any other person,” Warren told NPR’s Terry Gross in 2005. Because of Warren’s strong evangelical bona fides, the impression persists that eHarmony is a dating service for Christians—even though the company has severed its ties with Dobson’s group, and eHarmony “has never been limited to a Christian audience or any particular subset of the population,” says a company lawyer.

A clever marketing campaign by competitor Chemistry.com recently seized on those concerns — and the fact that eHarmony, which has had about 20 million users, rejects about 20 percent of applicants and doesn’t offer a full explanation, as the story notes.

The Chemistry.com TV ads feature seemingly attractive, nice people who mull over their possible reasons for being rejected by eHarmony: Occasionally unhappy. Too many late fees at the library. Too scrawny. “Nope, still gay.”

The accusation that eHarmony discriminates against homosexuals drew the most attention. The site currently only offers two options: “man seeking woman” and “woman seeking man.” eHarmony says it has not ruled out offering same-sex matching in the future — the service is just not available right now.

The 20-percent rejection rate on eHarmony may seem high, but it’s not unreasonable for singles seeking others online to want the sites they use will weed out the serial killers, the weirdos, the stalkers and the crazies.

But, for those who haven’t been lucky in love beyond the Internet, it would be nice to think that your online dating site, at least, would love you the way you are, right?

I’ll never forget that trip home from college in 2002, the first time I opened my suitcase and found a small, white card with an official-looking seal informing me that border security agents had gone through my bag and inspected my belongings.

“Great,” I thought. “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been rifling through my underwear.”

The men in black, or whoever they were, left little evidence that they had been through my things at all, save that card, and some slightly out-of-order folded clothing — oh wait, this was MY suitcase, so nothing was probably folded anyway.

Nevertheless, that card alone made me feel slightly, well — violated.

Six years later, there are bigger fish to fry — a U.S. Senate hearing yesterday questioned whether federal officials can seize and search people’s laptop computers during airport security inspections. That story in today’s New York Times.

The federal government says the laptop searches are a necessary step in efforts to catch people who carry illegal material across U.S. borders.

The searches are problematic not only because of the obvious privacy concerns, but will likely cause an uproar because so many people today tie their entire lives up in their computers. I’m traveling to Chicago next month and will probably take my laptop, on which is saved countless, priceless notes, papers, interviews. I’ve seen friends treat the death of a laptop like the loss of a loved one. Seriously, they’ll mourn for days.

What would they do if their computers were suddenly taken away? For me, it would be as if someone took over and blew up my office.

I’m also confused as to what the Feds looking for. Data? Viruses? Photos? Is this a security issue? If it’s a bomb disguised as a computer, I could see how there would be cause for concern. But can’t anything being carried on a hard drive just as easily be sent via email from outside the U.S. to within American borders without even going through a metal detector? Someone enlighten me.

After going along with stricter bag inspections, pat downs, shoe removal, long lines, extended waiting times, no bottled anything, and the consolidation of all toiletries and medicines to a quart-size, zip-lock, clear plastic bag with (relatively) little protest, one wonders how much more travelers will tolerate.

Seven years after 9-11, seems like little white cards in our suitcases may be the least of our worries.

A shameless plug — for what should be an interesting program:

The Hawai‘i chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, of which I’m a member, is sponsoring a panel discussion on the 2008 presidential elections tonight on PBS’s Island Insights.

WHAT: Political Panel Discussion on the 2008 Presidential Elections

WHERE: PBS Hawaii Island Insights, Ch.10

WHEN: Tonight, 7:30 p.m.

WHO: Panelists include Denby Fawcett, KITV; Richard Borreca and Laurie Au, Honolulu Star-Bulletin; and Treena Shapiro, The Honolulu Advertiser; Moderated by Dan Boylan.
Gina Mangieri, KHON-2; Brian Schatz, chair of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i; and Willes Lee, chair of the Hawai‘i Republican Party will make guest video appearances. (Think CNN YouTube debate…. but without the snowman.)

UP FOR DEBATE: The 2008 primary race marked the first time in history that either an African American or a woman seemed poised to become the nominee for a major political party. But is that really the news? Have domestic and international issues taken a backseat to gender and race? Do race and gender affect the way the media covers presidential candidates? How can the media effectively cover the issues that are most important? How can Hawai‘i journalists localize the presidential election while avoiding bias toward Hawai‘i-born candidate Barack Obama?

Have questions for the panelists or comments about local media coverage? Email questions ahead of time (ie: before 7 p.m. tonight) to insights@pbshawaii.org.

If you’re busy tonight, catch the rebroadcast on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. This is a good chance to weigh in on local election coverage — what you like, and what you think should change.

CBS’ chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan appeared on “The Daily Show” last week with a few observations about broadcast coverage of Iraq becoming increasingly scarce in U.S. media, which the NYT picked up in a story on Monday.

Logan suggested that it may be hard for reporters trying to get stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on air to compete with other reports — coverage of arguably one of the most exciting presidential elections in recent history, for example. Or, as she suggested, half-jokingly, Paris Hilton getting arrested.

“You hear that people are tired of hearing about the war, so you have to go against that,” she told host Jon Stewart.

“We may be tired of hearing about this five years later,” she said. “They (the soldiers) still have to go out and do the same job.”

“If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts,” she added. (THAT was the sound byte, of course, that got everyone going.)

YouTube edited clip here:

(Watch the full clip on ComedyCentral.com.)

Is she right? Have the American media wrongly shoved stories about Iraq and Afghanistan to the side?

The Times article cites data compiled by Andrew Tyndall that suggests coverage of Iraq by the network giants, CBS, ABC and NBC, has been “massively scaled back this year.”

Almost halfway into 2008, the three newscasts have shown 181 weekday minutes of Iraq coverage, compared with 1,157 minutes for all of 2007. The “CBS Evening News” has devoted the fewest minutes to Iraq, 51, versus 55 minutes on ABC’s “World News” and 74 minutes on “NBC Nightly News.” (The average evening newscast is 22 minutes long.)

As in any newsroom, it’s the eternal conflict between the news that is hugely important, socially, politically, economically, and the stuff that sells, like celebrity gossip. Honestly, if I were in a different profession or if I had more time, I could probably make a killing following all the celebrities vacationing in Hawaii around with a video camera.

Even the hand-wringing about race and gender and what it all means in this presidential election — that discussion had raised some of the most interesting questions of the election at the outset, but it has become an obsession and one wonders whether that is even the real news at all.

That’s tangential to what the real issue is, anyway, that is — there are still major unresolved conflicts going on in other parts of the world which are being pushed out of people’s consciousness by empty, easy stories about frivolous stuff.

Anyway, USA TODAY picked up the story, too, and has compiled a good list of blogs that readers can turn to for more news about Iraq.

Images of the robots inside fluffy children’s toys at mattkirkland.com.

Don’t try this at home, unless you want nightmares. Luckily, I was a little bit too old when Barney entered the scene.