Of course Sarah Silverman has a very strained sense of funny. Although she's younger, and willing to be more disgusting, she's doing the same comic rap as the late Joan Rivers. Rivers, before her death, and before she was turned into a walking animatronic figure, based her comedy on bitterness and hatred unmatched by anyone who claimed to be a comedienne. Look at the movies Rivers wrote like Rabbit Test and the ugly TV-movie The Girl Most Likely To... and you'll see a level of anger masquerading as humor only matched in newsletters by the Klan and right-wing religious cults.

Which begs the question, why does Havrilesky "admire" her? Perhaps it's jealousy; Silverman's bile reaches more people, more people know her name and she's making significant money with it. Perhaps she's jealous of Silverman's relationship with Jimmy Kimmel; certainly Havrilesky doesn't have anyone who can bring her to broadcast TV on a regular basis the way Kimmel does (although Kimmel has somehow convinced Silverman to tone down the puke level when she appears on his show).

Wiseass, smug comedy, like that of Silverman, Kimmel and Letterman, has peaked. It's been king for a long time, since it first hit the big time when Saturday Night Live became popular. Unlike the string of comedy that sought to outrage for a reason, that ran from Lenny Bruce through George Carlin, wiseass comedy was always intended to show how smart and cool the comic was in comparison to everyone else. Including the audience. After enough exposure, the audience has finally figured out they're not "pals" of the cool comedian, but his targets. Very much like this column's writer and many letter posters like me.

The first sign of the changing age was Bobcat Goldthwait, who self-destructed in a much more dramatic way than his associate Sam Kinison. Instead of a sudden death, Goldthwait destroyed his own career with a pointless cable game show, then by setting Jay Leno's couch on fire, and finally by getting "released" as a producer on Jimmy Kimmel Live, a job which looked like what they call a "mercy booking" in the business.

Mind you, "kinder and gentler" comedy isn't making a big comeback. But "angrier and egotistical" comedy is getting really tired, really fast. Whatever comedy will evolve into, it doesn't look like it will involve the three generations of mean: Rivers the grandma, Silverman the daughter, and Havrilesky the mom.

I'm certain that many people read Havrilesky's stuff...yes, I'm not going to call it anything worse than "stuff"...because they want to be entertained. Entertained by what? By some pseudo-sophisticate slamming popular culture? That seems to be the operating process of too many critics. That is mostly a "look at me, I'm so witty" game.

What I want to see is someone who actually looks at TV and is concerned about it, and who knows about it and thinks about it. In other words, someone who believes TV matters. Those of you who want to see pretentious wit at work have all sorts of venues for it; The Insider, but you'd better look quick because Pat "I'm Not A Drunk" O'Brien loses his contract at the end of this year; anything written by Rex Reed; Blind Date.

And if you think TV should only be watched by rednecks and RE-tards, there's always National Public Radio. Enjoy your pledge drives.

Kill Bill isn't a fantasy. Anyone who thinks women are the weaker sex is welcome to go two rounds with my ex-girlfriend. The only thing holding women back are some silly gender indoctrination things.

And yes, the gizmo looked like a scrotal sack. You could say Ms. Lay "has balls" and uses them, too. I don't know if that was intentional or not. I just know that using a "scream sack" is impossible sonically; you can't hold sound that way.

My only concern is that the guy hitting on her was so incompetent. "My wife doesn't understand me," indeed. He was whining for sex. I learned that tactic doesn't work in junior high school. In fact, for me, no tactic works, but compared to him I'm freakin' Favio. He deserved to be clobbered by two titanic testicles wielded by a witty woman. (I can't get laid, but I can do alliteration. No, it isn't much of a compensation.)

I've never been able to be angry at Mr. Kellor, even when he attempts something I don't think he has any ability to do; get angry or discuss politics. In fact, I feel sorry that he stumbled into this situation without really understanding what was making his Hush Puppies stick to the floor.

Just as Republicans demonized Democrats, or anyone else who disagreed with the Bushies, so have Democrats become irreconcilably split from Republcans. And calling them cute, slightly insulting names like the "Democrat Party" isn't helping. Worst of all, while he sees Clinton as a uniting figure, all she is doing is uniting lots of people in both parties against her. She is too tarnished, too self-interested and too easy a target for anything else.

Yet, Kellor is right. We need a uniting figure. There just doesn't happen to be one in either party that has made an appearance. That person would have to be a Democrat, because the Republicans marched in lock-step behind Bush too long to think independently. But it couldn't be a Democrat with any support for the war; Lieberman, not strictly a Democrat any more, is also too compromised a figure.

The country needs someone who can appeal to the healing process, someone who is charismatic and human, someone who thinks of people rather than inflexible ideologies. But there isn't a Franklin Delano Roosevelt anywhere in sight. If memory serves, even Roosevelt didn't look like a great figure until he was actually elected; his "fear itself" speech was a shock and a uniting moment for the country. Who could such a figure be? Obama? Clark? Dean? Will we have to roll the dice and hope for the best? God help us. Please.