There's an op-ed today in 365gay.com--a site I don't really know anything about--concerning last week's E.R.

Oh, boy, did I see this coming.

The character of Kerry Weaver has been low-profile so far this season (which has been much improved over last season, though the show is still far from its former heights). Backstory: Weaver and her female firefighter lover patched things up, got serious, and had a baby. It's been really nice. Then this week, out of the blue, bam, they killed off the lover and then had the show end with Kerry being denied access to their baby by her late lover's family. Boom. On this subject alone, the 365gay.com piece is dead-on: esp. the probable motives of the writers (i.e., to highlight serious prejudice faced by lesbians and gays). The storyline is clearly aimed at non-gays, but, man, it's just awful to make lesbian and gay fans of the show go through this. I know they have the best intentions, but come on. If they had any awareness, they'd know that lesbian characters are always beeing killed off in dramas. I disagree with the writer's take on the Willow/Tara storyline of Buffy. Yes, Tara died, and Willow did lose it, but her love for her friends (and theirs for her) saves her. It was never simple, or propagandistic. It always fit perfectly into the logic of the show and was very well done, very unique. In contrast, the E.R. move seemed obvious and propagandistic. This twist reeks of the same blunt shock approach the writers have been resorting to way too often in the last 2 or 3 seasons. Boo! I can only hope they'll handle things more senitively from here on. Lighten up, already! Seeing some meaningful happiness for gay characters on tv would also be a good way of contributing to social progress.

Been studying up on Google, and found their zeitgeist page. One discovery: who's this guy the Brits have been pestering the great oracle about more than any other bloke? Kind of a hottie, if the top search result is any indication.

I was a little disappointed at some of the info in this profile of Aaron McGruder: for example, he's already turned the drawing over to someone else? McGruder does his cynicism shtick well, and I would have hoped that he could take as good as he gives. Turns out he can't take it any better than Eminem. The lesson here is this: the Michael Moores of this world are funny, and often intelligent, and often right, but you really want to watch how close you get to them: not exactly team players--or sophisticates. Oh, well, Boondocks is still just about the only daily comic strip with any life to it.

Lastly, I was reading my daily dose from the really excellent site todayinliterature.com. I'd always heard Dorothy Parker was know for her scathing wit. A couple of great examples from her theater reviews: one production elicited the comment, "if you don't knit, bring a book"; with another she didn't review the play at all, but wrote mainly about the performance of the woman next to her who spent the evening surreptitiously searching for her missing glove. I love it! Another great zinger I read recently was passed along from Stuart Klawans of The Nation. Of 29 Palms, a new film by Bruno Dumont, he shares: "As my dear friend Stephen Harvey used to say, 'If it were any worse, it wouldn't have sprocket holes.'"