Even as I write on Thursday night, a screening of "Bully" is taking place in Washington that may or may not result in the film's MPAA rating being changed from R to PG-13. Jen Chaney suggests in her Washington Post blog that a compromise might even be possible. The film is a documentary about how bullying affected five families, and led to two suicides. It was slapped with an R, because of its use of the F-word. Chaney asked Lee Hirsch, the film's director, "whether there was any chance he would consider bleeping out one or two of those expletives if that guaranteed a PG-13 designation for the movie, thereby allowing teen audiences to see it."

Sarah Palin lacked the preparation or temperament to be one heartbeat away from the presidency, but what she possessed in abundance was the ability to inflame political passions and energize the John McCain campaign with star quality. That much we already knew. What I didn't expect to discover after viewing "Game Change," a new HBO film about the 2008 McCain campaign, was how much sympathy I would feel for Palin, and even more for John McCain.

I commissioned this chart to make my position clear. I've avoided the subject until now because, while I instinctively felt I must be in favor of the Occupiers, I wasn't sure what the movement stood for. I support most populist uprisings on matter of principle, and would perhaps even support the Tea Party were it not demonstrating in favor of the very things that are wrong.

The Tea Party and the Wall Street demonstrators share the same conviction: They are the victims of theft by powerful institutions. The Tea Party blames government taxation. The demonstrators blame corruption in the financial industry.

The concern about taxation is perplexing, since U.S. tax rates are at a historic low. Indeed, there seems little chance that we can ever begin to pay off the American deficit without raising taxes. Many millionaires, led by Warren Buffet, have volunteered to pay higher taxes. A belief persists, however, that the middle class bears an unfair tax burden. In repeating this charge the other day, Mitt Romney included himself in the middle class.

A reader named Zig writes me from Cliffside Park, New Jersey: "What is your opinion of Amy Kaufman's LA Times piece about animal use in films, the subject in general, and whether digital technology, like in 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes,' can currently capture the natural personalities of individual animals, or will we have to wait for technology to advance just a little further?"

"The Undefeated" is a documentary about Sarah Palin made by and for the faithful, who may experience it in the way believers sit through a rather boring church service. At nearly two hours, it's a campaign advertisement in search of a campaign.

But that's not surprising. What astonished me is that the primary targets in the film are conservative Republicans. Yes, there are the usual vague references to liberals and elitists (although I heard the word "Democrat" only twice). But the film's favorite bad guys seem to be in the GOP establishment. This seems odd, considering that the target audience is presumably Republicans.

All I know is just what I read in the papers. -- Will Rogers

Me too. Or hear on TV, or see on the net. That's all most of us knows. I'm sure the President and Senators and government officials know more, but we elect them, they don't elect us. And I'm sure the CEOs of powerful corporations know more, although the Murdoch testimony indicates he didn't know as much as he could have read in the papers.

What I read,and hear is that the Republican Party is abandoning its hopes of speaking for a majority of Americans. It will still win elections. It controls the House. Perhaps it will elect the next President. But steadily and fatally it is moving out of history.

Mike Royko called Rupert Murdoch The Alien. He landed on the Chicago Sun-Times like a bug-eyed monster from outer space and extruded poisonous slime. I was an eyewitness.

Under the leadership of publisher James Hoge, the paper had won six Pulitzers and should have won another one (for the ingenious idea of opening a bar named the Mirage and baiting it to attract the flies of Chicago corruption). Hoge had just overseen a redesign of the paper that made it then (and in my opinion still) the most elegant tabloid I had ever seen.

The Sun-Times was poised on the edge of something great. The Chicago Tribune remained tethered to its hidebound past. Morale was high.

"The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation's income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent.

"Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent."

I should have used the actual N-Word. Then I wouldn't be in the middle of what Huffington Post calls "an N-Word" controversy. By N-Word, I mean, literally, "N-Word," that sly usage that goes along with "F-Word" when we want to say a word without saying it.

By its coverage of this "controversy," HuffPost demonstrates its roots in Old Media and an almost deliberate cluelessness in its struggle to lure meaningless page visits.

It appears that not a single TSA agent has declined to perform a full-body pat down of airline passengers. That includes patting down small children. They're not patted down on a routine basis, but on some occasions they can be and they are. A child under 12, sometimes way under 12, may be required to remove outer clothing and be touched on such areas as the genitals.

Would you take this job? I don't believe I would. But it's worth reflecting that employment as a TSA agent is a good job in these hard times of high unemployment. The starting pay is $12.85 an hour, better than Wendy's for an employee who doesn't need a high school diploma. Wages go higher. The 40 hours of training are paid for by the government. Agents are given uniforms, badges, "a choice of health care plans," and power.

Everywhere I go, as much as I can, I listen to National Public Radio. It's an oasis of clear-headed intelligence. Carefully, patiently, it presents programming designed to make me feel just a little better equipped to reenter the world of uproar.