Sorry, I’ve been so remiss around here. A convergence of family and professional considerations have pulled me away and will likely continue to do so this week. However, I do want to catch up on a few things.

First, the Top Chef finale, much like the whole end of the season, felt rushed and anti-climactic. They tried to humanize Marcel with minutes left to the season and it didn’t quite work, save to make the storyline of the season feel like a bait-and-switch. It was clear to the end that Sam should have won.

Second, on BSG, I stand by my view that Starbuck will be proven to be a Cylon. I didn’t like the latest one that much because it was a bit too navel-gazing. But , thankfully, those well-crafted dramatic tensions are back.

Third, I did not watch the Superbowl and I would not have much of interest to say about it if I had.

Fourth, it’s very, very cold.

Fifth, everyone should know that I am an enormous fan of David Brooks, personally and professionally, but his column yesterday about the rise of non-ideological pragmatism among “the youth” bothers me immensely. First because David in his writing and on-air punditry has, for years, been expressing a deep-seated yearning to get beyond left-right squabbles. As a result, he always seems to be seeing what he wants wherever he looks. And that he finds what he wants in the voices of the next generation is too much of a cliche to let stand without comment. Left-right disagreements are, and will remain, a permanent fixture of the human condition and Western discourse, forever. They needn’t be as nasty as they are now, nor as acute, and the specific issues and where they reside in these contests will evolve, but you cannot “get beyond” ideology because human beings are ideological creatures.

Sixth, It’s worth noting, yet again, that 24 continues to depict America’s most-liked TV action star as a routine torturer, willing to brutalize and dehumanize his own brother without losing his own humanity. If the moral issues were remotely as clear-cut as some anti-torture obsessives claim, we should be hearing some protest about the show. After all, if racism came to Jack Bauer as easily as torturing people for information, the show would be off the air by now thanks to all the protests.

Seventh, Relatedly, it’s interesting that HBO’s Rome — Rome! — has taken a more high-minded attitude toward torture. In the latest episode a Jewish henchman finally refuses to torture a victim any more because — after the victim’s speech about how torture demeans the torturer — he doesn’t want to be an animal. Interesting contrasts there but, alas, no time.