What's sexier than having enough moxie to perform, as Ms. Smith did, in a ratty t-shirt, or singing with a silver, hilly-billy mane, ala Ms. Harris?

I suggest a new title for this piece: On "Hard Candy," the 49-year-old unvirgin queen ungracefully stretches her prenaturally tightskin for the sake of sex. Pooh on motherhood and aging.

The average street musician has a richer voice than Madonna, but we've listened to Madonna for decades because she sits with her legs akimbo and latex stretched across her hoo-ha.

...and the singer stopped mid-song and said, "You look like Annie Lennox."

May I age as well as that Goddess.

I write for print media and I wrote on the Internet. My former Internet column got a million-plus daily hits. I quit that column because the Internet is too often a verbally violent place.

The old media law, "if it bleeds, it leads," is distorted on the Internet into, "if you bleed, it's glee!"

Whereas a newspaper reporter might have waited by a police scanner to locate the bleeding, too many Internet users don't bother; they wound rather than wait.

I visited Mr. Leitch's site and read the germane thread. It was vile, a mash of ad homs and the very profanity that seems to have you searching for a fainting couch, or, as they say on the Internet, clutching your pearls.

You seem to cast yourself as The Kid, Mr. Kaufman, one of the young guns come to town to take out the old dog. Well, that old dog wrote, "Friday Night Lights" and whereas your Salon column is impressive, drawing a bead on Mr. Bissinger is premature. He might be "dad" to you and you might "roll," but here are the facts: you're a father (You might even drive a mini-van.) and whereas you cast yourself in your column as a dude ridin' the Internet wave, it's all words and yours, although frequently fine, don't equal his. So, holster that six shooter and consider how vile the Internet often is.

Anonymity ain't pretty and many don't merit this meritocracy.

perhaps I do prefer the sheltered cage to freedom. Or perhaps, as I do with my tap water, I prefer to have a water purification plant out there that filters the piss and shit from my drinking water. I'm wondering if you understand that editors want invective. They want the verbal violence. I requested some deletions, but they declined. People click for the conflict. As it does on tv, violence seduces us into abutting commercials.

I had your ability to self-filter, I'd still be writing that column. However, I wonder if you have that ability to self-filter. You see, until your park your true name beside your words, rather than a concoction, like "Lynx," and until the responses that your words incur are preserved forever in cyberspace, you're speaking hypothetically. However, I'll assume the best and believe that you can self-filter and encourage you to test your hypothesis, if you've the backbone that I lack.

To return to something I alluded to earlier, Mr. Kaufman is using Mr. Bissinger badly. Mr. Kaufman called Mr. Bissinger, "dad." That's slang for some variant of codger, but Mr. Kaufman is also casting himself as the hip son and just never you mind that Mr. Kaufman is a decade or two away from being broadly seen as "dad" and is specifically seen as "dad" on a daily basis in his home. Still, we ALL entertain our fantasies that we're not just the cool one, but The Chosen Cool One. At least Mr. Leitch, in the confrontation, had the foresight to see that one day, he'll be the defender of the soon-to-be, allegedly archaic Internet. Rather than casting himself as the novel rebel, Mr. Kaufman's energies would be better spent on recognizing that his role is a hoary one and writing the equal of "Friday Night Lights."

...and suddenly everyone who saw it (or parroted what someone else said) is smarter than Buzz? Did I ever tell you about the time I strolled with Albert Einstein? There was a silver maple that had heaved and split the sidewalk. I saw it. Mr. Einstein didn't. He tripped. I strolled on. I'm smarter than Albert.

...is the way many people behave when anonymous. Anonymity is fine as long as you merit it by behaving as you would if you were to meet someone in your meat.

..."brave new world" into "cowardly new world." I don't count you as a coward. You write under your real name, as I do. And I don't count people who write anonymously, but with decency, as cowards. It's those who cloak their ugliness with anonymity that I consider cowards. At least those who heaped invective on you when you were a cop had the decency to attach a face to their indecency.

I wish I had a thicker skin. Maybe I should be a cop for 5 years.

"Oh, and my real name is Eric Adams, I do live in DC, one can find me some days at the Lucky Bar on Connecticut Avenue, and I stand behind these comments."

Well played.

And, of course, there's wonderful stuff on the Internet, but go to a site like tmz.com and read any thread and you will despair.