It is refreshing to see salon.com start to review happenings in the US theatre. I would love to see coverage of regional theatre as well as Broadway-- but....

Now, as to the brouhaha concerning Sondheim and the downfall of the American musical-- the author is 100% wrong. I put the blame squarely on the British/trans-Euro mega-bloated crap-fests sent to our shores by Andrew Lloyd Webber and the like. They have inflated production costs and made the vast uncultured Rube masses demand Big Spectacles for their increasingly ridiculous ticket prices. I find it amazing that Company, especially in the current pared-down form, can play on Broadway these days when it has to compete with Phantom and Lloyd Webber's other demon spawn. New authors have to write Bigger and Splashier crap-fests to compete.

Is Sondheim atonal? No, far from it. Even in the densest moments of Sweeney Todd's score, we haven't moved into Alban Berg territory. His music is complex, ambitious-- but not atonal. And if you want "funny" Sondheim, don't forget that he wrote the music for one of the funniest shows of all time-- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

My biggest theatrical pleasure of the last several years, besides seeing Elaine Stritch at the Carlyle, was a ravishing production of A Little Night Music put on by the Los Angeles Opera, with Victor Garber and Judith Ivey. Hey, it's by Stephen Sondheim! And the music is far from atonal-- it's sumptuous and gorgeous. Vastly better than any of the drivel that has issued forth from Lloyd Webber's pen.

We'll never get retractions or admissions of lying from these scumbags. Their livelihoods-- and maybe their sanity itself-- depend on these carefully-crafted, passionately-defended lies.

Look at the vehemence of Tucker Carlson ("exclamation point! Jazz Hands! Spirit Fingers!", to quote Stephanie Miller) in defending the falsehoods. (And by the way, Tucker-- go hang yourself with that fucking loser bow tie, you pantywaist asshole. And clean up the fucking language too.)

After all, loudly denying the truth keeps them from pondering the truth-- and then choking to death on their own hypocrisy. Which can't come too soon.

Mitt Romney has spoken out of his ass again!

Gays can't enter into marriage, but they can certainly enter into "contracts" vis-à-vis property ownership, child care, and some of those 1,000-odd rights, privileges and responsibilities automatically conferred onto a married couple. At astronomical legal costs.

Why, then, are childless straight couples allowed to call their "contract" marriage? Doesn't seem fair. Why doesn't Romney call for some kind of time span for a married couple to produce or adopt a child, after which it's forcibly annulled? And we're talking about YOU, Bob and Liddy Dole!

Even if the GOP were to manage a 2008 upset of any kind (and, barring serious malfeasance in the election process, I'm doubtful), their long-term prospects are dim. Every day exposes their dishonesty, cowardice, cruelty and ultimate anti-Americanism, and every day their most rabid followers are dying out. After all, our country can only move forward when a big crop of rich, stupid white men dies, and which party is the party of RSWMs?!

The younger generations in the US aren't as stupid as the RSWMs think they are-- or as anti-American. This country will barely survive this horrible experiment in "unitary executive" fascism-- but it will survive.

But a grim correction: Right now the US death count in Iraq is 3,504.

Because expending energy damning the existence of a spoiled, whorish heiress/débutante/moron [whose only claim to fame consists of being (1) rich, (2) blonde, (3) thin and (4) present at any star-heavy gathering of any kind] draws our attention from the jumbo-jet crash that is the Bush Administration.

What really gets me is-- Paris isn't even pretty. She has no talent of any kind (unless "no gag reflex" or "raging case of herpes requiring fistfuls of Valtrex (tm)" counts as talent these days). She has nothing to offer the world. She's not vaguely interesting. Are we Americans so deeply, utterly stupid that we're that easily distracted from important issues that affect the very continuance of our Democracy?

Wait-- don't answer that. I won't like the answer.

Glenn, do you listen to Stephanie Miller's wonderful radio show on Jones Media? She covers every figurative (and probably literal) hard-on sprung by the Pundit Class in response to male right-wingers-- daily, with taped sound bites and appropriate song cues ("I Will Follow Him", "YMCA", "In the Navy"). She's hilarious! But it's good you're covering this for salon.com, albeit in a more sober tone.

Chris Matthews has, with every spittle-flecked shout from his honking piehole, become increasingly hilarious to any sentient human within sight of his TV show. But these man-crushes are getting ridiculous and scary. I do see a Brokeback Mountain parody coming up on The Daily Show, any minute now ("I wish I knew how to filibuster you!!").

I can't believe that this homoerotic fetishization of any Republican/right-winger with a Y chromosome (Bush, Reagan, Thompson, Romney, Ann Coulter) plays among the christofascist mouth-breathers in the flyover states and the Deep South-- but I guess it does. The same drivel plays nearly 24-7 over on Faux News Channel.

But that article by Gene Lyons gave me the exact word I've been looking for to describe this disturbing need of the MSM to curry favor with the President, his handlers and his political comrades: "Courtiers". The press is no longer serving the public need to independently and impartially report and interpret the news; it is actively part of an Imperial Court, serving its needs and keeping the rabble uninformed and passive. Sickening thought, but at least now I have the vocabulary to describe it.