That would be acceptable - barely - if it were a Fox network feed for broadcast. Local affiliates often have station breaks in the middle of news coverage. But the networks have traditionally not given local affiliates breaks in political coverage like debates, considering them "continuing news coverage."

By inserting those breaks, Fox News gave away the ballgame; this wasn't a debate or of political importance, it was a reality show. Also, it was a heavily-weighted one; from the description, it's clear that Giuliani is the anointed Republican candidate, and the rest are going to join Fox News to support him and echo Republican talking points after he's awarded the nomination.

And while I wouldn't watch Dancing with the SARS, I'd have rather watched the local weather radar than this debate. Unlike the Republican nomination, weather is reality-based and hasn't already been decided by rich white guys.

I say "technically" because of all the exemptions. On public radio, he didn't have to be responsible to sponsors, only to the educational-intellectual-complex guys who run those stations. His show, that I often used to hear, were pleasant reminders of the Pepperige Farm commercials. A nice thing for old folks to listen to before dinner. And that is not an insult; there is, and should be, room for such shows.

The point is, while you might believe his show was the anti-Imus, he was a broadcaster, and subject to the same pressures and problems Imus had to face. Howard Stern once called his old radio show a four-hour blank canvas he had to fill with something. Stern and Keillor didn't talk about how hard it is to fill that canvas, what happens when one of your planned elements doesn't show up, how bad it is when a guest is drunk or insulting or just plain bombing before the audience. Anyone who ever did a podcast or a show on college radio knows that a little bit. Anyone who works in TV or radio lives with that agony every day, every show.

So why didn't Keillor allude to it in this article? Was he afraid to "break the fourth wall" and speak about how hard it was for Imus to fill his air time, and how that might excuse his miserable remark? He might have said that, since Imus was supposed to prepare before he went on the air, he might have exerted a few neurons about what to say beyond a cruel remark. And that the remark wasn't as evil for its racism as it was as an insult to people he'd never met and didn't have a real reason to hate.

Is Keillor afraid of being known as a broadcaster, a pro in Imus's own business? Does he want to keep that illusion of sitting on a grease-stained box of Powdermilk Biscuits in a Cracker Barrel restaurant/store somewhere? Doesn't he realize that by getting involved in real-world politics, he has already broken that illusion?

I have a friend who treats veterans from the present conflict, back, in a veteran's hospital. I haven't yet asked him what he thinks of this therepy, but I wonder myself.

I wound up with PTSD myself, from a robbery and near-rape years ago. What would they do to treat me? Tape me up with duct tape in a bed? Project images of Hispanic teenagers screaming curses at me in broken English on my eyeballs? Stick a knife to my throat - and then have some bored therepist ask, "How do you feel about that?"

God help me, what would they do to a woman or a preteen suffering PTSD from a rape? That sounds like porn for the most offensive parts of the Internet.

And people keep insisting that psychiatry is not a shell game, that they know what they're doing, that their little parlor games can actually help people. Bah.

DreamWorks has always been very opaque about its upcoming projects; they've put up displays at conventions with lots of pictures and cheap giveaways showing the characters, hosted by interns who have no knowledge (I think deliberately) of what the film they're promoting is about.

It might be claimed as protection of unique characters and material, as if Goodtimes Video (the world's premiere idea thieves in animation) was going to churn out a movie in weeks about a suspiciously familiar-looking green ogre. I always thought DreamWorks was hiding how shallow their material was, and how little they had thought out their stories in advance.

Zacharek was dead-on about the use of music in the Shrek films. The little "extra" put on the DVD of the first film sent the wrong message. The second had a "Far Far Away Idol" show with various characters singing pop songs - badly, with no relevance to their characters. I know I'll dread the recycled pop songs in this film - wherever I end up seeing it, although probably not in a theatre.

I'm seeing reports that the Justice Department intend to arrest Moore the second he lands back on U.S. soil, and his film will be seized. If it ever gets released, it'll have the Cuban footage removed by governmnent order.

And right now, some people are talking "Why not release it to the Internet?" That would be fine...if Moore made a film for free. He has to make back his costs, which means a theatrical run, not an extravaganza on YouTube...which the government would probably block anyway.

So, just like so many foreign and independent movies mentioned on Salon and in magazines, it's a name to bandy around on a tongue to show your sophistication. But unless you go to illegal means to download those movies, you'll never see them. And in the case of something deliberately controversial like Sicko, you won't even be able to do that.