REEFER MADNESS FOR A NEW GENERATION: From the same mindset which brought us Lifetime's Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life (which attempted to demonstrate the dangers of online pornography without actually showing any nudity, or hinting that its viewing might lead to Onan's transgression) comes the Ad Council's new anti-MySpace PSA, Everyone Knows Your Name.

As a friend pointed out to me, the ad basically tells teenage girls that whatever happens to them online is their own fault, placing no responsibility on all the boys and men around them to not be jerks. Instead of telling women "think before you post," why not have an ad campaign that tells guys not to be assholes? There must be better ways to heighten awareness of online privacy issues than this.

e.t.a.: Okay, Lindsay said it online herself, and better than I just did.

THAT FELT GREAT. THAT FELT SO GREAT. AND IT FELT SO . . . LOUD: Ten years ago tonight, ABC aired the historic "Puppy Episode" of Ellen in which Ellen DeGeneres' character came out of the closet (transcript here), and so this feels like a good moment to note how far the culture has come in terms of portrayals of gay characters on tv, even if we may still have a bit to go in terms of actors and actresses feeling free to say that yes, they are gay.

Television has come a long way since only having Sad Matt on Melrose Place as a representative of gay and lesbian Americans, and much of the credit IMHO goes to reality tv. Between Tim Gunn, Pedro Zamora, and Richard Hatch, from Oswald and Danny to Reichen and Chip to Team Guido to the Queer Eye guys, the gay male experience has been well-represented. Not so much for lesbians on reality tv -- except, of course, for Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen DeGeneres remaining among the most popular hosts on late-night daytime tv.

Scripted tv, not so much. For every stereotype like Lloyd on Entourage, Jack on Will & Grace or Stanford and Anthony on Sex and the City, there aren't enough Willow Rosenbergs and Omar Littles and Davids and Keiths from Six Feet Under to balance them off. Eventually, Dr. Kerry Weaver just got to be happy but, man, was she a walking (assisted) stereotype for a long damn time. Yes, there's The L Word and Queer As Folk, but I don't get the sense that many straight folk like me actually watch them.

How would you grade tv's efforts over the past decade?

Popwatch | Blog | Movies | Music | TV: Entertainment Weekly

THE NINA! THE PINTA! THE SANTA MARIA! Okay, so I may not be as excited about this past week's Rage Against The Machine reunion as EW's Whitney Pastorek was...

And then we waited, and waited, and waited... and then the lights went out, and I screamed, and Tom Morello’s magical mystery guitar kicked into the first strafing, chilling notes of “Testify.” And from that point on, I saw very little outside of my tunnel vision to the far-off stage where, for about an hour and a half, Rage Against the Machine was finally playing a concert, one I was at. Yes, it’s true, PopWatchers: I’d never seen Rage before tonight. It’s a long story, involving symphony musician parents, abject poverty, bad timing, crabby siblings, and Mike D from the Beastie Boys falling off his bike, and I’ll spare you the details (for once). Suffice it to say that this was a very, very special experience for me, one which I enjoyed thoroughly, much to the amusement of those around me. (One of the guys we were sharing a picnic table with turned to me mid-show and said, “You seemed so mild-mannered before.” Yeah, not so much.)

... Then a short break, and a two-song encore of “Freedom” and, inevitably, “Killing in the Name,” an event whose power I cannot put into words. It was perfect. Except for the fact that, in general, everything was about 200 times quieter than I thought it needed to be. If my ears aren’t bleeding, it’s not loud enough. So who turned the speakers down? Respect for the neighbors ... or government conspiracy? Don’t be fooled into thinking the latter isn’t possible. WAKE UUUUUP! WAKE UUUUUP!! Oh, wait. There I go again. Sorry ...

...but that's not to say I'm indifferent.

ALL THAT ENTRAILS: If last week's Sopranos episode came too close to the Virginia Tech tragedy (for me, but not most), this week's hour instead more closely tracked Leslie Bennetts' much-buzzed new book The Feminine Mistake, about the need for married women to keep working and maintain their own financial security apart from the husbands' income. From Carmella to Marie to Blanca to Dr. Melfi, the women this week all had to deal with the question of whether and how to chart their own lives apart from the Soprano family.

Meanwhile, I have an obvious soft spot for actor Jerry Adler, who plays Hesh Rabkin, but man did he bring it this week. Tony's going downhill, which is bad, but the Muslims are back, which is good (I think) (for the show). And the Ojibwe are back, which is awesome.

e.t.a.: Alan has more, including an explanation of that Twilight Zone allusion, as he observes: "All I knows is that it feels like the giant piano Carmela talked about isn't just hanging over Tony's head, but everyone's."

THE TELETUBBIES GO TO WAR: From a production and construction standpoint, the penultimate leg of TARstars in Guam was everything you'd want it to be -- a unique and well-designed roadblock and detour each relying on mental acuity and attention to detail rather than physical speed or strength, a decent but not overwhelming amount of driving/navigation issues, and almost a complete absence of racers complaining about each other's morality.
Pure, fun racing with four teams that stayed fairly likable across the episode, and there's not much more for which you could ask. Except . . .

BECAUSE ONE OF THE DAD-BLOGGERS HERE HAS THE MATURITY OF A TWELVE-YEAR OLD: I'm posting this on behalf of one of us here, so that we each have plausible deniability, but as the story was related to me one of our bloggers was at a little league/tee-ball practice this weekend, where the blogger's child wound up throwing the ball near one of the mothers attending the game. Upon reaching the woman to retrieve the errant ball, she remarked to Our Anonymous Blogger, "I just seem to be a magnet for balls."

Is there, he asks, any appropriate response to this line?

ALSO, WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH AIRLINE FOOD? Something I always notice when travelling then promptly forget--why don't more hotels have overhead lighting on a switch in the main part of their rooms? Frequently, there'll be a small overhead light near the entry door, and you then have to wend your way to a lamp on the other side of the room to light the main area. This was particularly annoying last night at my hotel here in Chicago, as the lamps would not turn on, because they were (without explanation or indication) linked to a second switch in the foyer. Now, if that switch had been marked and the lamps set to turn on when the switch was flipped? I'd be a happy man. But in a hotel that advertises itself as one of the world's 700 greatest, shouldn't it be easier to get to the desk without stubbing your toe?

(Also, is there a city with a worse convention center setup than Chicago? Sure, the space is gorgeous, but there's absolutely no good way to get there from most hotels or the downtown area.)