I enjoyed the review. I haven't seen the movie. However, Sondheim's music is notoriously hard to sing. Normally, those roles are cast with opera singers, who are prepared to sing the long, difficult parts. I can't imagine that either of these actors could sing enough to do the music justice.

Having said that... Good God! Please go rent the musical. There are several versions that have been recorded over the years. Sondheim is both a theatrical and musical genius. Any critic worth his or her salt should be familiar with his work. Sheesh!

The real shame of this movie is that Burton may well convince most of his audience that Sondheim is to be avoided.

Hannaham is a mixed bag. The Winehouse piece was pretty good. However, no more articles on Britney please!

Anytime you can sign someone from Nerve, that's a good thing.

Now, you just need to get rid of Paglia. Admit it, her stuff is tired and lazy and her take on global warming is both bizarre and irresponsible. She is not smart, original, insightful, or interesting. I hear she is capable of being all of these things. However, she's not earning her pay at Salon. Hitchens, who seems to play her role over at Slate.com, is much, much better.

Who exactly is this "they" that called Vista a failure? I'm guessing its just the usual Mac addicts. Vista is a step up from Windows XP. Its only drawback is that it requires more resources than XP (i.e. its more powerful) and so it doesn't work on outdated or slow machines. That hardly makes it a failure.

"...atheism is similar to the secular humanism of the modern period, which said that faith is incompatible with science, that religion and belief in God are bad for morality, and that theology should be purged from culture and academic life."

Haught's entire premise is founded on a lie. The above statement doesn't apply to what all or even most atheists believe. Atheism is just simply the rejection of belief in a higher power or god. Nothing more, nothing less.

Furthermore, I don't need to know anything about theology to be an atheist. Plenty of religious people abhor atheism without really attempting to understand it. Why should atheists give religion any consideration whatsoever?

Overall, I think that most atheists don't want anyone to be forced to believe anything. To each, his or her own! Everyone should be able to make up their own mind.

The problem is really with the religious, who try to force their belief systems on everyone else. This occurs in every major religion around the world. Anyone who resists this unethical behavior is branded evil and immoral (and now "delusional" and ignorant).

When a minority of vocal atheists (e.g. Dawkins and other New Athiests) make the case for an intolerance of religion in public life, oh the complaints!

This entire piece is insulting to atheists. Nice work, Salon.com.

This is an interesting and engaging rock review, not just an expose or tiresome commentary on celebrity drug and alcohol addiction. This is a far cry from the periodic essays on Britney's trials and tribulations you've published. This is more like it. Keep up the good work.

I'm not sure I'd be so quick to dismiss Mary J. Blige as not a legend. I think she is one of the most talented singers working today. I also think that history will look back on her work favorably, perhaps as an urban, modern Aretha Franklin.

Publishing ill-informed opinions and fallacies is not free-speech, its just bad journalism. Matters of science and technology are more black and white than simple opinions about movies, music, etc. There is good and bad science out there. It’s the editors’ and author’s job to either figure out which is which or to leave the topic alone. Simply parroting the agenda of the anti-environment, pseudoscience right is not acceptable.

I’d be happy to read a well-reasoned and science-based attempt to refute global warming. However, Paglia’s columns are far from that.

Free speech is essential, but it shouldn’t be used to excuse intellectual dishonesty.

I understand why employing Paglia seems like a good idea to the editors at Salon.com. She gets lots of hits on her articles and they generate lots of letters. She is somewhat well known in literary circles. She is a published author and an academic. She brings clout, excitement, and readers to the website.

However, I must seriously take issue with her lack of background, depth, and thought when discussing issues related to science and technology. Her viewpoints on global warming and pollution are totally unencumbered by the facts. She works on pure gut-level instinct and a few misinformed and/or out-of-date ideas about how the planet works. This mode of thinking and writing is probably valid in art and culture criticism. However, it just doesn't cut it when talking about science. Therefore, publishing her thoughts on these issues is just plain irresponsible on the part of Salon.com.

The science issues that Paglia takes on in her column are serious topics with serious effects on the Earth and our society. Salon.com owes it to its readers to take a hard, editorial look at everything it publishes on these issues.

Science journalism is not easy. Perhaps Salon could try to take pride in doing a good job of it.