to rewatch in slow motion plays/fouls/steals/moves that just happened, since ABC/Disney/ESPN is apparently incapable of showing what just happened when there is a stop in the game's action. Instead we see what happened two to five plays ago. Just another way that their airing of the NBA is not up to snuff.... Any halfway decent announcing team would have called Jeff Van Gundy on his first-quarter pronouncement that the series would be 2-2 at the end of the night.

Matthew Weiner has said that Mad Men does not literally portray the 1960s--so despite the attention to period detail, we really can't watch the show and think either "Wow, so this is what life was like in 1960!" or about how much better/worse we are in 2008. Hey, people may be more gun-mad now, but remember how easy it was for Pete to exchange the chip-n-dip for a rifle? No waiting period for that phallic symbol!

As Heather Havrilesky's review articulates beautifully, the show is about the search for identity in the era of self-absorption and rampant consumerism, an era that continues unabated today. The characters on the show are all lonely yet utterly self-interested, unable to get past the surface. Don has (almost) convinced himself that he and other Madison Avenue execs invented love, desire, and belonging, yet all of Season 1 shows his difficulty balancing his deliberately fatalistic, nihilistic philosophy with his unsatisfied need for real human contact, which he momentarily finds with Rachel. Yet appearances and lifestyle are just as important to Rachel as to everyone else--and she reminds Don how pathetic he ultimately is for revealing his vulnerabilities.

And the use of "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" at the end of the Season 1 finale was quite deliberately anachronistic. The Mad Men epitomize the cynicism that Dylan exposes in that song. The music just took a couple of years to catch up. (What 1960 song could the producers have chosen that would have been a similarly meaningful parallel to Don's emotions at the end of the show?)

Religious right says to McCain: Choose this person, and you'll get our influential voting bloc.

McCain says to religious right: Okay. Whatever you say, boss. As an added bonus, she'll appeal to all those Clinton voters because they're only interested in her female sex characteristics, not her actual positions on actual issues.

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Some maverick. I didn't think I could be more disgusted than I already was.

some College Republican from Ann Arbor, MI--of course!*--called in to claim that Bristol Palin's pregnancy is a good thing because "at least she won't be on welfare." If that comment doesn't typify the hypocrisy and selfishness of the GOP, I don't know what does.

*In full disclosure, I'm an Ohio State fan, so this guy was already on my bad side.

"I really like what I've seen of Sarah Palin, she's personable & colorful."

Until she's disagreed with or contradicted. Ask those in Wasilla who supported her mayoral opponent or who disagreed with her attempt at book-banning; I doubt that "personable" is the adjective they would use.

I live in Nashua and teach freshmen students at predominantly male Daniel Webster College; I work with both the nerdy video-game players and the strutting jocks. I can tell you, re: the indifference toward the potential offensiveness of "fag" and "gay," that the problem is just that--the indifference toward others' potential to be offended. A lot of guys (and girls, to be fair) don't think. Learning to look outside onself is a hallmark of maturity, and this maturity is becoming more and more delayed. This generation, men and women, seems frightfully self-absorbed.

Boehner didn't do his job and is now blaming Pelosi. McCain blames Obama's "lack of leadership." GROW UP!

You have the correct info right below it, but it was the '04 Cards, not the '05 Cards, that won the World Series.

You must not be a real Tards fan, or else you have selective memory loss. As any New Englander worth his or her salt can tell you, the Red Sox swept St. Louis in 2004 after coming from 0-3 to beat the Yankees in--wait for it--the only time an MLB team has come back from 0-3 in the postseason, thereby avenging their 2003 ALCS to the Yankees.

I think that the Red Sox are toast, unless they turn it on like they did in the 2004 and 2007 ALCS. This time they'll have do to do it a round earlier, though. However, I am loath to voice that opinion in these parts.

I'd be shocked if the Brewers don't try to roll out CC Sabathia three times this series. They've certainly not been shy about working him to death. Oh well--I guess his long-term career health doesn't matter. What do I care? I'm a Cubs fan, and CC hasn't exactly been awesome against the Cubs.

If the Cubs beat the Dodgers--as they should--and the Brewers surprise the Phillies, the Cubs will demolish the Brewers.

P.S. Great game last night--but predictably pathetic offensive performance by the Twins. MLB has got to rethink this coin flip scenario. I'm all for a tiebreaker game, but it should have been played in the Metrodome due to the head-to-head record.

Those Ohio voters seem to be falling asleep at key moments as well. They really hate some of things that Palin is saying.

switch the conversation to Darfur--a human rights catastrophe that we enlightened Americans can all point to, no matter what party.

My status: I have a crush on Joe Biden.

I do think that he, for one night at least, embodied What Women Want. He was strong, knowledgeable, sensitive, caring, and humorous without being condescending.