Year's end wrap-up

TV has become pretty awful. Michelle Cottle writes the piece I wish I had done by diagnosing Dr. Phil's bullying style and his popularity.

On the bright side, Heather Havrilesky writes about how comedy drew blood this year.

For drama, the only show I'll watch besides the Wire, while vegging out and relaxing is Law and Order SVU. Alessandra Stanley places it at the #2 spot on her year's end list:

2. 'Law & Order SVU' The sex-crimes spinoff has displaced the shopworn original as the best Dick Wolf cop show. Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay have a humane stoicism that contrasts nicely with the show's backdrop of murder and sexual perversion.

In the real world, things aren't so bad as people often make them out to be. "People power" won out in Ukraine and Afghanistan (with helpful assistance from the West). Democratic reform is on the table in the Middle East and the autocratic governments there are on notice.

At least outgoing Secretary Powell acknowledged genocide was going on in Sudan.

President Bush signed into law a bill authorizing $82 million in grants aimed at preventing suicide among young people.

General Pinochet was indicted in Chile. (I happened to catch the searing Roman Polanski/Sigorney Weaver film Death and the Maiden last night on IFC. It's based on Ariel Dorfman's play and the script was co-written by him and Matthew Yglesias's father, Rafael.

No doubt there's stuff I'm forgetting.