I don't mind reading lots of people I've never heard of - I live for that! I was that!- but I mind reading lots of people I've never heard of because they very much deserve their obscurity. And the celebrity obsession...what's up with that? The content provided by the actors could have been produced by any competent third year journalism student. I'm not saying stars aren't smart enough to be political analysts.

I'm saying that HuffPo isn't publishing those who are. I know they're busy but I refuse to feel grateful that Dr. McDreamy or the cast of American Idol took the time to dash off a few childish paragraphs for the cause. The comedians? Fine. Funny is always fine especially political satire. But the D listers competing to see who can call George Bush the foulest name? Not fine. I'm offended that someone as smart as Huffington thinks we need all that navel gazing and T&A, since it's so lacking in the rest of the blogosphere. I feel annoyed, manipulated and slightly soiled reading it. The world doesn't need help lowering our common denominators any lower, especially not from one of its smartest thinkers.

I have the same problem with HuffPo that I did Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl. Watch HBO and know you're going to see lots of naked people and hear lots of profanity. Watch the Super Bowl and know you're getting 'family' entertainment. Read People.com, see Britney's privates. Read a political website, get politics. But not at HuffPo. Is it just me who needs a break every now and then from the mf's and f you's and the thongs? Now, you never know where you going to be confronted with a shaking rump and enough profanity to peel your skin. Give a sister some notice. I don't read celebrity stuff and I don't read gratuitous profanity. But, if I want to stay in the political know, I need to read HuffPo but can't avoid being assaulted by lightweights, foul-mouthed cretins and vapid movie stars. And novelists who should stop believing the HuffPo editors trying to convince them that they're political analysts. Many are. Erica Jong isn't.

Here's an example of what I mean (Jong on the "Hilary-haters"):

I give up. If I have to watch another great American woman thrown in the dustbin of history to please the patriarchy, I'll move to Canada -- where they live four years longer than we because they have universal health care. Or Italy -- where Berlusconi played at being Mussolini but life is sweet anyway and people take vacations in August and at Chanukah (Christmas or Diwali or Kwaanza) and Passover (Easter).

Ok folks, stick your heads in the sand like Maureen Dowd who thinks we're not against women but just against Clinton "baggage." Or Barbara Walters who seems to have forgotten how viciously she was attacked when she got her first million dollar contract -- worth only half a million in Euros today.

Or Oprah who forgets she wasn't always Oprah -- I knew her when she had two names. She was always really smart, but she used to identify with women. And now she's joined the Obamarama. I get it. I understand. People want their own color in the White House (pun intended). And nobody said Barack wasn't brilliant.

It's gets so much worse, it exhausts me.

OK. Didn't we settle the whole "I'll move to Canada if the GOP wins" thing last time? The National Review crowd just had too much fun with that one when not one liberal census household turned up as having immigrated? It's silly.

As for the notion that white women who won't vote for Hilary are traitors while black women, the silly dears, have to be forgiven for voting for Obama (read: any black person)...well, I'll just let Hanna Rosin, at Slate, take the baton.

I see where Huffington's going - huge volume, pablum to either distract or educate the celeb-loving masses and, most of all, to subsidize the serious stuff. Brilliant, hard headed business model. I see it and it depresses me for the future of our discourse.

(And, while I'm being all media critical, hey Slate: how 'bout a permalink for the blogs so we don't have to scroll all over creation.)