So here's a question. Clearly Stewart and Colbert (& likely the majority of the viewers of the shows) support the writers in their efforts to get a slice of the internet pie. The writers for both of the show are terrific and for those of us who count on the shows to provide a bit of humor and unique perspective in an otherwise generally drab and depressing political media sphere, the quicker the shows return, the better.

So the question - what can the average viewer actually do in order to lend support and add pressure to the powers that be to bring parties back to the table and help the WGA strike a deal?

My hunch is that watching the show isn't going to help anyone - higher ratings for the networks mean more ad revenue coming in through the show and if they can continue to cash in while the strike is going on, what incentive do they have to make a deal? I was surprised the neither host advocated an action to take - without that, it doesn't particularly matter what the rest of us think. What can we do?

I'm entertained at the notion that Stewart and Colbert should be criticized for being scabs. They may be members but in effect they are also middle management, and middle management always goes back to work.

As for the broader context: the writers are certainly entitled to strike, but we're not talking about a fighting a deliberate campaign to eliminate an industry and break entire communities. (UK Coal miners' strike, for instance?) An equitable distribution of the enormous spoils from the entertainment industry doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance of class warfare / standing up for the little guy (delete according to preference). The upper middle class against the obscenely rich doesn't have quite the same narrative punch, which is a bit ironic for writers.

Funnily enough, you could argue that the writers are in fact better able to justify their demands than a bunch of coal miners who wanted above market prices and pay, and were emblematic of the destructive nature of shop-steward-led general strikes in the UK in the 70s. Well it's funny to me, anyway.

But back to the original point - if someone wants to call Stewart and Colbert scabs, that's fine, in the strict sense I suppose they are - but seeing very well compensated talent go on in the absence of their writers just doesn't have the emotional resonance of rank class treachery.

I agree with Kelly Joyner that Jon Stewart's opening bit was really good and thoughtful. He managed to get across the craziness of the studios "rationale" (the bit on Viacom vs YouTube was brilliant) while also noting that the whole situation isn't as dire as the multitude of problems facing our nation and world. At least that's what I got out of it, along with a few laughs -- even if those laughs weren't as often or full as normal.

We now consider sports part of the entertainment industry and a big business, so we do not begrudge athletes their exorbitant salaries even if it means paying $75 for a ticket to a baseball game and shelling out $100/month for sports cable channels. "Let them get what the market allows," goes the argument.

Writers don't get that same consideration because this country sees physicality as rarer than intellect and creativity. People read and write every day. We write notes to teachers, fill out complaint forms, post to blogs, read blogs, magazines, books.

Because we do a bit of it, a lot of people believe writing is easy. Writing a note is easy. Writing well is difficult.

It is attention, emotion and time consuming work. It is good work, sometimes fulfilling work, work that doesn't involve physical labor, but it's hard work. The difference between writing and writing well is the difference between first aid and medicine. It is the difference between me taking cello lessons and Yo Yo Ma practicing. It is the difference between Matt Drudge and Edward.R. Murrow.

No one imagines becoming an architect, a steel worker or a contractor without training and for compensation. The structure of a plot or a character depends upon the skill of a writer or writers. Writing is an occupation that requires particular, relatively rare skills.

Somehow we've been coerced into believing that market value represents our choices rather than our acceptance of what we've been offered. Market value is not social value or moral value. Market value doesn't indicate anything more than how the topmost tier distributes attention.

It's easy to target the writers of popular shows as being greedy because people imagine they make enough to live well in Manhattan or LA. In fact, most writers write live on less than teachers' wages (and we know how little that is) and write in hope of striking it big just once doing what they love. Isn't this what most of us want? To be conpensated well for doing something we enjoy rather than spending 75% of our lives doing something we hate so our boss can make a bonus equal to our entire year's salary?

The hosts of popular shows, like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, do a make good money, but not on the scale of executives who control the production of those shows. Those executives are compensated well beyond the wildest dreams of Tiger Woods or Kobe Bryant or Derek Jeter or any of us. Writers, the people who make the product the rest of the the entertaiment industry relies upon for generating income, are at the bottom of the pay scale and do not share in the revenue made off their work.

Workers, like writers, are not an afterthought to economic process. They are the foundation of all economies and should be treated as the vital elements they are.

No. But kinda.

According to what I've read, both of them (as well as most of the other late-night hosts) are members of the WGA, but in terms of their hosting duties aren't covered by that contract, but by their individual contracts. Under WGA rules, they can write their own stuff, but aren't supposed to do any bits that would normally be written by a staff writer, which led to questions about whether Steve Col-BURT would be able to go on as Stephen Col-BEAR, the primarily-written character he portrays on the show.

As for why they'd cross the picket lines, there are a lot of other people employed by those shows- editors, directors, stagehands, assistants, etc- who Viacom would have pink-slipped if the hosts didn't come back to work. So, go back on the air, keep the staff employed, but don't do the same show and make it clear who you really support in the strike.

I think they did about as well as anyone could be expected to do in an incredibly difficult situation.