But you know what kills me about "The Bachelorette"? That horrible music they play. How in the world could they feel that such hideously cheery Muzak, which sounds as though it belongs on some low-budget home-makeover show, should be the signature sound for "The Bachelor/Bachelorette" franchise? It was a bad choice years ago when the series first hit the air, and now it feels so dated, it could fill anyone within a three-mile radius with shame.

Honestly, try it. Turn on "The Bachelorette" this Wednesday night and close your eyes. You won't believe it; no other show I can think of has such a gag-inducing soundtrack.

Now switch over to UPN's "America's Next Top Model," and treat your ears to a soundtrack that's so funkified and sexy, it'll make you want to put on some black pleather stiletto boots and cry your eyes out in the arms of an uninterested photographer while a bunch of back-stabbing Bettys look on. Tyra, you're a genius and I love you more each and every day.

Broken wing
Apparently die-hard fans of "The West Wing" are hating that show more each and every day. As one friend put it, "They fired the guy who does mushrooms, and now it's like 'E.R.' set in the Oval Office." I can't imagine being a cast member on a show that changes so dramatically overnight. And, was it my imagination, or did Allison Janney look really depressed at the Golden Globes? You can hardly blame her. The cast of "The West Wing" usually takes up a few boisterous tables and gets drunk until it's time to herd onto the stage for all of their awards. Cut to Janney sitting with the cast of some Hallmark movie nominated for "best lonely housewife tearjerker of the year."

The brothers grim
Speaking of the Golden Globes, how crazy was it that "24" won for best TV drama? Whatever, I'm just glad that Hector and Ramon are dead. Will somebody please kill Nina now? She knocked herself out to make this virus deal happen, and then she blows it all by falling for the old sleight-of-hand trick? She must've been trained at the same CTU facility that glued Kim into a blazer and bangs and robbed her of a pulse.

In other news, how obvious is it that Chloe is up to no good? And why is she the only one who can operate the cellphone in order to field calls from Chase? Yes, it's great to have Sherry Palmer back, but why should we care whether or not President Palmer's healthcare bill passes? If Milliken ends up having purchased the virus, is that supposed to justify this meandering subplot?

Release the stupid virus already. We need mysterious symptoms, innocents falling ill, mass hysteria, riots. If raw terror doesn't enter the picture soon, how can we possibly invest in this story? I want to get that old feeling back, that sweaty palm, jittery, heart attack feeling I got last season, when the nuclear bomb was still at large, and at the end of each broadcast, the local station would break in with news of the latest menacing tapes from al-Qaida.

Ah, sweet anxiety! Nectar of life!

Hello, titty
You've read so much about Tittygate in the past week, it's hardly my place to chime in. Or, at least, I thought it wasn't my place, until I received a handful of letters demanding to know what I thought about Justin and Janet and jiggling jugs in general. Never one to ignore the call of the dogmatic blowhard, I shall dutifully lay out my own arbitrary and utterly baseless opinions on the matter.

Friends, Romans, members of the FCC: Breasts are beautiful and exciting, particularly when bared unexpectedly. By pairing the bare breast with the element of surprise, womankind has, for centuries, bent weak-minded men to her will. By combining our natural talents with the occasional, almost subliminal flash of flesh, we gain that extra edge that keeps us knee-deep in backrubs and tasty dinners out on the town.

That said, like any other powerful weapon, the boob flash is known to elicit a wide range of responses, from confusion to fear to anger, and therefore should not be abused or wielded in mixed company or unleashed among unruly mobs. Since time began, the spontaneous bare breast has left a swath of chaos and unwitting victims in its wake: the flustered, red-faced married man, the cackling, pointing teenager, the six-car pileup, the hungry infant, the unexpected FCC investigation...

Thus, the current uproar should come as no surprise. Even though Boobs Out is a clearly established trend, Boobs Out & About is still beyond the pale for the American family, which, as a group, likes to pretend that it's as pure as the driven snow, while separately, its members behave like the perverted little monkeys that they are.

And powerful as the boob flash is today, just think about how thrilling breasts used to be, back when they weren't propped up and pushed in our faces around the clock. Back during the Boob Flash Decade, preteens would rewind the same dumb shower scene from "Porky's" over and over again, thereby transforming the bare breast into a thing of rare beauty, shrouded in mystery and best glimpsed through a little hole in the wall. Remember that scene in "Piranha" where the hot girl flashes her boobs in order to distract a cop, and also in order to give her movie an "R" rating so that kids nationwide would bust their asses to see it? Seemingly purposeless boob-flashing was part of the rich fabric of our culture back then.

Just look at how far we've fallen. Thanks to technologically cutting-edge fabrics, breasts are clearly visible everywhere we go, from the boardroom to the bar. Thus, our finest entertainers must stoop to mouth-kissing their rivals and installing rip-away panels on their clothing just to get our attention. But even when it all works, even when millions of viewers are replaying the same moment on their TiVos over and over (I did this myself at least four times), even when the FCC is talking lawsuits and CBS is blaming MTV, and Justin is spouting blatant lies about wardrobes malfunctioning, and pundits are describing Janet's perilous childhood, the whole thing is a little sad. Because we know, and they know, and you know, that despite the fire and brimstone and intensive investigations, what's really shocking is that Janet's boob isn't shocking at all. Breasts are, in the new millennium, what sun-dried tomatoes were in the mid-'90s: utterly commonplace.

So women: Put those boobs away! Tuck your tits into an industrial-strength bra and a heavy wool sweater, recognizing that the strength of your weaponry will increase exponentially with its invisibility. Just look what it did for Saddam!

One small impenetrable cup for man is one giant leap for boobkind.

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