There are many who deserve that title, but according to Michael Feingold in the Village Voice, perhaps none moreso than Romulus Linney, who died on Saturday. Don’t know anything about Mr. Linney? Perform a Google search and you’ll find that his daughter was the actress Laura Linney, but you’ll find comparatively far less about the playwright himself, and his work.

In his piece for the Voice, Feingold notes that Linney was a practical stranger to Broadway (only one production, largely unremarked), that he didn’t write for television or film, and that his interests were catholic. The latter in particular may have been difficult to overcome — we expect our writers to represent something, in the way that the plays of David Mamet and Harold Pinter and Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco represent singular points of view and recurring themes and situations.  It sounds as though Linney’s range of interests and lines of attack were broad, making him difficult to categorize, and therefore rendering him less immediately memorable.

Why do I say “it sounds as though”? Because as relatively well-versed as I am in contemporary American playwriting, and with all the theatre I’ve attended in 30 years of playgoing, I’ve never read or seen a single play by Romulus Linney.

The Republican party has an interesting set of opportunities and challenges right now. While a fervent grassroots movement helped them seize an unprecedented number of seats in the House, the seated Republican establishment doesn’t like a lot of these new people or their new ideas, and is figuring out what to do about it. It’s notable that John Boehner was a relatively late convert to the Tea Party cause, and now must reconcile its directives with those of his mainstream.

It was with this in mind, as well as the recent calls for more probity in public discourse, that I recently came across this piece from conservative writer David Frum. Personally, I’m not a fan of Mr. Frum’s credentials — to wit, chief speechwriter for George W. Bush — but I find a lot here to agree with. Key takeaway #1:  the danger of closed information systems.  What was the difference between Barack Obama the candidate and Barack Obama the president? A closed information system:  The former got plenty of input and personal experience out on the road, while the latter relied on an inner circle that believed its own perceptions. This sort of isolation calls to mind President George H.W. Bush marveling over how a supermarket scanner could magically ring up his purchase of white tube socks without the cashier having to punch in the numbers. From posits that the GOP is becoming an ouroboros, simultaneously feeding itself and eating itself.  I actually find all five of the lessons he seeks to impart to the GOP interesting, the other three being:  “the market” must be distinguished from “the markets,” i.e., capitalism is important, but the wants and needs of Wall Street should not be paramount;  the economy is more important than the budget, and so restoring employment is more essential, now at least, than budget-balancing;  “the welfare state is not all bad”; and “listen to the people, but beware populism.” You begin to see why among so many in the GOP he’s become an apostate. Which is unfortunate. Purges should be the exclusive province of the extremist leftist states (think “Soviet Union” and “China”), not of mainstream American political movements.

Here’s another sort of purge going on:  that of the political parties losing their moderates. In Arizona, three moderate Republicans have stepped down, citing venomous attacks from Tea Party rivals. In the November elections, by and large which House Democrats lost? The moderates. I wonder how all those people telling pollsters that they’d like to see the parties work together feel about this.

Given the drubbing Ricky Gervais is getting for his turn Sunday night as host of the Golden Globes, you’d think he had turned up with a semiautomatic and bizarre notions about genocide. As someone who didn’t watch the show (I don’t care about awards — not even much about the ones I’ve won), I had to turn to the internet to see what the fuss was about. Below you can find clipped together the 10 minutes that comprise Gervais’ contribution to what in my mind was probably otherwise another endless awards show. After watching it, this particular Gervais fan finds himself sadly in agreement with LA Times television critic Mary McNamara, who writes that “The opposite of dull and deferential is not snotty and abusive.” I followed both of Gervais’ shows, the UK “Office” and “Extras,” and have seen his movies, and saw his live standup act a couple of years ago in Los Angeles. I think he’s terrifically funny. But context is everything, and most of the jokes below seem ill-fitted to the event — especially the snide remark at Steve Carell’s expense; it seems too genuine an attack, and Carell’s response seems fittingly genuine as well, as he gives Gervais a shove. As uncomfortable as it is to watch this from the safety of my laptop, imagine the vibe in that room.

I will say this, though: A lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise be talking about the Golden Globes, including me, are talking about it now. I suspect that one person who won’t be talking at the Golden Globes next year is Ricky Gervais.

But I think Cotton Mather preached this first.

I predicted further fallout, at least short-term, for the Republicans from the Arizona shootings. (Even though — let’s be clear — they aren’t the ones who showed up and sprayed the crowd with bullets.) So here’s the latest:  Speaker Boehner is backing off referring to HR2, the pointless and doomed vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, as the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” In place of “job-killing,” he’s tried out “job-destroying” and “job-crushing.” “Maiming” is no doubt far behind.

If I had the time, I would search SO HARD for an error on this site. Because I’m sure there must be one somewhere.

It’s good to have volunteers. It’s not so good when they’re disgraced public officials accused of looting poor people of millions of dollars.

Which is another way of saying that Robert Rizzo has lost another job.

Here’s what I predict will be his next job:  making license plates. (And once again, the public will be paying for it.)

Finally, an answer to one of the most pointed questions around:  “Why do boys (including my own) like sticks?“

I know a lot of Americans are out of work. So it’s comforting to know that at least this one person is back hard at work, although for less money and in a new field. See?  There are jobs out there.

If, like me, you’ve been on hold seemingly forever waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon, this might interest you:  the differences between the Verizon offering and the existing AT&T iPhone.