The current moguls understand that true media power lies not in firing up our outrage, as Hearst did, but in befuddling it or tranquilizing it with new toys. The idea is to render us passive so that they can exercise their power to sell us a bunch of stuff we mostly don't need and mostly don't want.

Luck always favors the comely.

There is a limbo of the lost through which American males of a certain age and status almost inevitably must pass these days.

Any dramatic series the producers want us to take seriously as a representationof contemporary reality cannot be taken seriously as a representation ofanything - except a show to be ignored by anyone capable of sitting uprightin a chair and chewing gum simultaneously.

He who does not like you will defame you in jest.

That common cold of the male psyche, fear of commitment.

The law of unintended consequences pushes us ceaselessly through the years, permitting no pause for perspective.