How horrible, you say! A parent not caring if their child dies in an unjust and pointless war! How is this possible?

Because this is the Me Generation, the one Tom Wolfe talked about, but whose implications he never had the desire or the foresight to figure out. Just as every day's news is filled with parents who blithely and almost instinctively kill their children through torture or abuse, just as girls dump their newborn babies into the school dumpster, there are parents who blithely send their kids off to war knowing they will probably die. If Jimmy or Susie dies, it's no skin off MY nose, is it?

Kamiya approached the base cause, but didn't quite get there. People are disconnected from each other on a fundamental level. For instance, the outrage over the Bush Adminstration's fumbling of Katrina is outrage over people having to care about those lost and drowning people. Inwardly people thought, "I shouldn't have to provide supplies or aid or even concern over all these black people I don't know and shouldn't have to care about. That's FEMA's job. That's what I grudgingly pay you taxes for. Because they were incompetent, I have to get all...clingy."

I wouldn't normally stoop to responding to such a petty attack, but I'm in a nasty mood after having worked overtime for no other reason than management's insecurity over a new newscast.

Y'know, although Havrilesky's supporters are a foofy lot (foofy doesn't mean "gay," it means "would-be gay but that would take too much effort and committment") they couldn't understand a bit of hyperbole. That is, hyperbole intended to make a point, rather than intended to boost Havrilesky's deservedly low self-esteem.

The gay FBI agent and gay drug dealer in "Weeds" was a hypothetical invention. It was intended to point out how some people see every gay character on TV as either a great advancement in gay culture, or a betrayal of that culture. It's almost as if having a blonde attorney on "Boston Legal" was something intended to affect the potential of all blondes everywhere, until the end of time.

I'm considered a geek and a nerd because I like comics, science fiction, comedy music and animation. I am thought to be intellectually bereft because of my affections, as if I didn't read or do anything else. But when I read letters like the one by tvnourishesme, I feel as adept and versatile as Benjamin Freaking Franklin by comparison. How limited is your perception, dude?

And hopefuly, this will be the last post in this thread, so we can all await whatever bit of backwash Havrilesky will produce next Saturday. Unless that other foofy person wants to ask what "Google" is, and how it's spelled.

And this is an occasion for which I can't say anything nasty about Havrilesky. She did the messy part of her job. Covering these events is the worst part of TV journalism, even worse than sitting through an episode of "House." After all, that show only has one egotistical jerk of a character, portrayed by one uncontrolled actor. The red carpet at awards shows has hundreds of 'em.

Problem is, like the Bush Presidency, awards shows are irony-proof. You can praise the event to the skies, like that annoying gay reporter on "The Insider." (I think his name is Mojo or Jojo or Hojo or something.) You can spew contempt on it, like a Pauleen Kael might. You can try a middle path - contemptuous praise - like Havrilesky seems to have done. It doesn't matter. Award shows are what they are. Not even the Second Coming would change them.

And we keep watching, hoping to pierce the veild of celebrities and see their common humanity underneath...and we keep failing to see it, because it isn't there.

The only sensible comment on awards shows was made by the Firesign Theatre, on their album "In The Next World You're On Your Own." They had a homegrown terrorist who was supposed to hold the Oscar ceremony and everyone in it hostage. He was supposed to shout the words, "Eat flaming death, facist media pigs," in the manner of a Weather Underground operative.

But when he stood on the stage, shotgun in hand, ready to blow away Jack Nicholson, Sidney Poitier and everyone, he made a Freudian slip - or rather, a significant alteration. He gave away the character of terrorists like himself, and the character of celebrities. He yelled, "Eat facist death, flaming media pigs!"

Being a dealer in facist death isn't much of an accolade for Havrilesky, but she should take comfort in the fact that nobody else, even really good writers, could do any better than she did.