One feels the need to inform readers that this is the woman who "lionizes" CS Lewis, propagandist extraordinaire for the Christian Right, and that other vapid, mentally and morally challenged "writer" behind the Twilight abomination. Believe her view of Pynchon only when Lewis has an original well presented idea or Meyer learns how to spell and write in a way that requires something other than a 2nd grade education to understand, that is never. Pynchon is the Grand Old Man of American letters, and while this book may not fit handily into the canonical texts, anything the man writes presents rewards that Meyer and Lewis can or could only dream of.

What I'm trying to say is never pick your literature based on the ravings of a woman who can write an entire book about the fundamentalist children's indoctrination lectures of Lewis or will admit to even a guilty pleasure in chaste Christian Mormon vampire teen novels. You are warned.

Laurell Hamilton's books. As a reader since the very early pre-Anita Blake series books, I watched as Ms. Hamilton repositioned herself as a prophet of the perverse. a naked apostle of the bondage-submission and s&m "lifestyles". Not content with the vampire lore she also has a secondary series that focuses even more on the confusion of pain and pleasure. Mostly at this point I pity both Ms. Hamilton and those disturbed enough to buy into her new age beyond good and evil plot lines. It's sick stuff, as most psychologists will readily admit, and it occasionally bothers me that the freedom fought for by writers like Joyce has produced sterile dystopian nightmares such as Hamilton's.

Of the other writers covered by the article, most are merely mini-Harlequin factories, turning out romantic variations on the bad boy tamed tripe long popular with the undereducated. To even compare these writers with Gaiman or Crowley, or even with the true originator of the "urban fantasy" genre, the Canadian Charles DeLint, is just ridiculous. Gaiman struggles to shine new light onto contemporary parent-child relationships, he deconstructs and then reconstructs traditional fairy tales, giving them new resonance and charm in the process. Crowley plays with the elasticity of time and space, seeing connections between the mythology of our medieval predecessors and current beliefs and happenings. DeLint struggles to serve as a healer of the psyche, using traditional stories and mythic elements to illuminate and hopefully begin a healing process on those too badly damaged to be at ease in the contemporary world.

And of course the Buffy storylines have in fact much more to do with the aspirations and objectives of the literary writers than they ever will with the disposable plot lines and pornographic nightmares of the average writer in your "urban fantasy" genre. Curious readers will do themselves a favor if they go straight to Gaiman's "American Gods", Crowley's "Little, Big" or anything of DeLint's, and stay as far away from the formulaic genre works and sadistic porn as they can.

Or are you truly missing this scenario: Pregnant woman goes in for an abortion, doesn't like what the doctor does, pulls her pistol and boom!, one less abortion doctor? Woman walks scot free from premeditated murder?

Think about it, then someone PLEASE reassure me that this isn't what they have in mind!

I have a reason for asking. I won't use Apple. No discussion. Why? I was around during the dinosaur age of computing, and I watched Jobs throw away a one operating system world by refusing to license Apple's disc operating system and internal architecture to competitors. There would have been no Gates, if Jobs hadn't been such a blind idiot. I got stuck with tons of obsolete hardware and software, and a grudge against Apple that will NEVER go away. Safari could come out of the pc and wipe my arse and I wouldn't use it.

Some of us old guys have prejudices. I'm not apologizing for this one. Jobs is the most overrated single figure in computing, IMHO, and, right or wrong, I'm just not interested.

Maybe this Thurrotts shared that experience?

"There are some things that can never be forgiven."

Hey, I'm from Georgia. Any reasonable person, no matter what the state, would have Chambliss, Isaacson, and Gingrey turning tricks on street corners for pocket change.

They have no merit, they have no conscience, they have no morals, they merit nothing from us except to be used as toilet targets in every mens room from coast to coast.

Gingrey in particular needs to be sentenced to a lifetime's bathroom slave duty for Rush after Rush finally gets convicted of something, say drug abuse again or high treason, and sentenced to lifetime incarceration.

I was expecting a Spy Versus Spy expose, featuring the pedophilic Rolling Stone's arguments against fellow traveler Roman Polanski. Oh well, while that might be capable of throwing off a few sparks, my heart probably couldn't stand the strain of all that rationalization in action.

Polanski, like Chaplin, fled to avoid censure and/or jail time for what our culture defines as the most heinous crime possible against the living. He's guilty as hell. All the conversation with the victim proves is that throwing millions at a poor person will get almost anything forgiven. If Roman wants to come back so badly, he should castrate himself as a mark of apology and take his chances.

As for Byron, whatever his crimes, his WIFE was not a drugged 13 year old girl. BIG DIFFERENCE!

Americans, artistic vision CAN coexist with moral evil, just as patriotism ala Cheney can. Let Polanski die in exile, and then all the little damaged children can file over his forsaken grave and urinate on him. It's not what he deserves, but it's a start.