There's a very simple reason why the broad sung "The Star Spangled Banner." It's in the public domain. The show doesn't have to pay for music clearances for it. This same economical choice of music was done on the late, damned Jenny Jones Show whenever they wanted to show off a little kid's "singing talent." They never thought of varying the PD repertory, but then, maybe singing "Old Black Joe" might be considered too edgy a choice.

Again, Havrilesky's lack of common knowledge blows it. This Navy doctor was doing his best to sound like Will Stockdale, the part played by Andy Griffith on Broadway and on film in No Time for Sergeants. I was half-expecting him to arrange the gadget that would let all the toilet seats "salute" at the same time, in his work as Permanent Latrine Officer. In the movie, in an early version of political correctness, Stockdale felt he was not supposed to deal with the sex of an officer (in the play it was the race of the officer), and when asked to look at a WAAC officer, he said "Sir, I don't see a woman." This sent him back to the shrinks. In the case of this particular Lt. McDouchebag, MD USN, he just seemed to be informed by official memo that women existed, and was aghast and confused at their existence.

The awfulness of The Bachelor this season may finally kill the show. The original concept was to find somebody who was rich, glamorous and a fitting object over which predatory, greedy gold-diggers could compete. Because somebody decided to suck up to the Bush Administration and provide a military "hero," the show parodied itself. Imagine these glamorous whor...um, ladies...fighting for the right to inhabit cockroach-infested base housing, live off food stamps and charity because military salaries are so low, and have childbirth in Walter Reed. (Again, a real-world situation that the Cappucino Queen would know nothing about.)

And speaking of childbirth, Notes from the Underbelly is due to become a future trivia question that few people will answer. People don't watch sitcoms to see situations, they want people in situations. From the endlessly-run promos, there are no people in this show, only cliches. Which is scary, because the promos contain the best parts of these shows. Six weeks, no more.

And no, that's not a call for censorship. That's a call for introspection.

If you like seeing women cut up, you might ask yourself why. Do you really hate women? You don't have to be a gay man to hate women, you know. Some men like women as punching bags. If you like seeing women smashed to bloody pulp, you might want to consider it a career; there are beginner positions available at Guantanamo.

Censoring art is not the question. Censoring the people that like this nauseating stuff is. And I don't mean "putting them in mental hospitals," since we all know psychiatry doesn't work. I mean keeping the hell away from them and make sure you're always armed in case they approach. Because they WILL get tired of seeing people killed on screen and want to do it for real. If they didn't, there'd be no reason for the 11 o'clock news.

I never thought carrying a weapon all the time would become a necessity outside of Iraq. Seeing that people like you exist, though, is making me reconsider.

Ready to go in a very short time, the perfect complement to a pundit meal...I won't go as far as saying "fun to make," but you handled your end of the conversation well.

I am wondering, though, if these talk shows are seeking spokespeople on the left that they can abuse and trip up. Years ago I worked on a cable talk show with a guy named Steve Kane, a disciple of the original crapmeiseter of cable, Joe Pyne. He pounded the pavement trying to find right-wing preachers whose beliefs he could mock on his show, seeking those who didn't know they were walking into a shooting gallery and not a discussion.

Seems to me that today's right-wing versions of Joe Pyne are trying to find anyone who might possibly embarass the left, and use that remark to tar and feather whatever Democrats run for office in 2008. I fear that not everyone will be as prepared as Ms. Walsh.

Years ago, ABC showed a few scenes from this play. It was bare-bones, with a mocked-up cockpit and several actors in airline and military uniforms, repeating the dialog recorded on cockpit voice recorders from six disasters. (I recall there were more than six; there were supposedly several more shorter scenes, some lasting only thirty seconds.)

The excerpts have made me hungry to see it. But it never made it to community theatre, or the Fringe Festival, or any other small-venue facility. It was supposedly filmed for the military as a training aid, but never released to the public. And its last apparent public performance was in 2004, according to its web site (probably a dead page).

I don't know what the play's authors are charging for the film rights - probably a freaking fortune - but it would be a tremendous experience as a video play on HBO or IFC. A small investment might even let them use the interiors of cockpit trainers for realism. (If I were directing - yeah, dream on! - I would use closeups of hands flipping switches and trying to run controls, similar to the shots in Dr. Strangelove.)