Although I've lived on Chicago's North Side, less than two miles from Wrigley Field, for more than 30 years, I've never been much of a Cubs fan for three reasons.

The first is that I grew up on the far, far Southeast Side--Gary, Indiana--where we were partial to the White Sox. The second is that the Sox integrated its player roster a full two years before the Cubs did. Minnie Minoso became the first black with the Southsiders on May 1, 1951. Ernie Banks, now Mr. Cub, wasn't hired by the Northsiders until September 17, 1953.

My third reason for not caring about the Cubs is that I'm a bad-to-the-bone fair weather fan. Life's too short to waste it watching a losing team. And, in case you missed it, the Cubs' playoff loss Saturday made them official losers for a full century. The last time they won the World Series was in 1908.

Because I've been smart enough to make better use of my time than watching the Cubs lose again, neither of my two grown sons have wasted any of their time watching the Cubs lose again either. So I think it's safe to say that there will be another generation of Andersons who aren't disappointed with an inevitable home team loss at venerable Wrigley Field.

But there are tens of thousands, one generation to the next, who are not so lucky. One of those poor souls sent me an exasperated email confessing as much. Here's what Gerald Shinn, whose comments are published occasionally on my blog, had to say in his email:

My grandfather was born in 1914 and became a Cubs fan when he came to Chicago from Minnesota around 1940. He didn't get to see them in the World Series in 1945 because he was still in Europe, having fought there in WWII. He died in 2000, having been a fan for over 60 yrs without ever seeing the Cubs in the Series.

My father was a Cubs fan. Born in 1941, he was too young to have any memories of the 1945 series' appearance. He died in 2001, having been a fan for over 50 yrs without ever seeing them in the Series. I am a Cubs fan. I was born in 1967 and therefore have never known a pennant winning Cubs team despite being a die hard for 32 yrs.

I tried to quit after last year's debacle to no avail.

Like so many fans I talk to, I can no more separate myself from them than I can separate myself from me although after this latest catastrophe I have no doubt that no matter how long I live, I will die without ever seeing the Cubs in the World Series, as did my father and grandfather before me.

There is but one saving grace: Thankfully, I have no children and thus have not encouraged any young innocents to be Cubs fans and squander a huge amount of time, money and emotion the way I was.

We current Cubs fans have to make sure we are the last ones. I'm not saying don't have children. I'm saying don't let them become Cubs fans and follow the hopeless path we took. Just because our parents inflicted this cruelty on us is no justification to have it continue.

Intentionally making innocent little kids miserable and depressed is child abuse and in the final analysis, being a Cubs fan is all about being miserable and depressed.

Oh, Gerald, don't be so pessimistic--Wait 'til next century.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. He is a contributor to EbonyJet.com and The Huffington Post.

It's looking more and more likely that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will appear on ''Saturday Night Live'' -- to have some fun with Tina Fey.

As the comedian's impressions of the GOP vice presidential candidate draw laughs from Republicans and Democrats alike, a top honcho from the John McCain campaign tells me there's a debate going on about how to respond.

I decided to reflect my thoughts about this show in the form of a letter. A letter to MTV. In case they actually read it.

Dear MTV,

I remember when you used to be a music video network. That was a long time ago. Sometime since then you morphed into a "reality" television network. In fact, you started reality television with the Real World. Somewhere along the line (probably the Flavor Flav dating show The Flavor of Love) you began to delve into Surreality television. But now you have gone too far. With your new program Model Makers you are looking to actually create a new reality. A reality that is dangerous and destructive to the young minds of your target demographic. While trying to cash in on America's impressionable youth, you are edging closer and closer to absolute moral and ethical bankruptcy.

Let's take a close look at Model Makers. This is not just another modeling show interested in pretty faces and young women in turmoil. Yeah, you've definitely kept the "young women in turmoil" part, but you are also imparting a more direct and nefarious message: Transform young women into "high fashion" models by urging them at all times to lose weight.

If you have your way:

MTV then promises to award the winner of this contest: "$100,000, a professional modeling portfolio, a personal trainer for a year and the chance to jumpstart the career of your dreams." Do the watchful eyes of your experts include an ounce (how about a gram?) of responsible, nurturing supervision? Most importantly, while the winner gets a nice chunk of change, what is the real cost of Model Makers? Well, here's a page from the diary of a teenage girl that recently died of bulimia. After your show airs, I'll keep you abreast of others that I receive:

Whole outlook of life is altered when you're overweight.

Look what Oprah goes through and Al Roker, Randy Jackson, Dolly Parton. All celebs had to have gastric bypass surgery, so how can I be successful without it...

I'll risk death to be thin. I understand, I'll try anything to be thin. I've tried all the diets, fin fin, etc. If I had the money, I'd do gastric bypass.

The battle never goes away, unless you lose weight of kill yourself.

I don't know my exact weight, if I did I'd kill myself.

I'd die to be thin.

Signed -- XXXXXX

Even though all of the celebrities in her letter didn't have gastric bypass as she stated, you get the point.

You want reality MTV? Let's take a sobering look at the reality of eating disorders in America. It is estimated that there are 1.3 million women with Anorexia Nervosa, 2.25 million women with Bulimia nervosa, and 5.25 million women with Binge Eating Disorder. If you don't have a calculator handy (I'm assuming you shipped those out with all of the videos you got rid of) I'll go ahead and provide the running tally -- Well over 8 million women in the United States suffer from an eating disorder.

These are not just numbers MTV. There are dire consequences for perpetuating the myth that women can't be beautiful or successful unless they are a size 0, or preferably, less. Young women are inundated with images of the perfect woman, and for some reason, they never seem to look like real people. Maybe that's because casting directors, the modeling industry, fashion magazines and now your network has forgotten that the average American woman is 5'4'', weighs 144 pounds and is a size 12-14. Hell, Marilyn Monroe was on the high side as a size 14.

Did you take that into account when you allowed Model Makers to develop the following casting guidelines?:

Thanks for supplying an email address but I've got a better idea of what we should be sending. More letters like this one. To you, MTV, and the producers of Model Makers.

By the way, were you aware that a psychological study in 1995 found that three minutes spent looking at a Fashion Magazine caused 70% of women to feel depressed , guilty and shameful! Incidentally, that is exactly how I felt when I found out about your new show.

Sincerely, Darryl Roberts Director -- "America the Beautiful"

When a play like Michael Weller's Fifty Words (at MCC in New York City through October 25) dissects a relationship, it's hard not to take sides. A married couple, two lovers, indeed a relationship of any kind that gets put through the wringer is invariably going to draw you in. Who's in the right; who's wrong? Your sympathies tend to ping-pong back and forth with each new revelation. But as Adam (Norbert Leo Butz) and Jan (Elizabeth Marvel) bicker and fight the night before he goes away on a business trip and while their unseen son is away on a sleep-over, it's not your sympathy that skip back and forth, it's your antipathy.

This far too routine story of domestic strife, with accusations of cold lovelessness on the one hand and serial unfaithfulness on the other doesn't reveal any great truths -- it just reveals two people who don't seem to belong in each other's company and certainly don't belong in ours. The most intriguing character is that little boy, a kid with a protective love of his hamster, a kid who has virtually no friends and a kid who tends to go hiding by piling up clothes in a closet and burrowing down to the bottom.

Fifty Words would like to burrow down as well to the heart of the matter, but that center is hollow. Two fine actors aren't shown to their best because of that. Marvel admirably plays Jan without any soft touches; she doesn't try and win our sympathy, thereby earning some. And Butz is rather high-pitched, the sort of performance one gives when you sense the material you've been handed isn't quite enough. This was my first chance to see this Tony-winning actor who's made a name for himself in musicals like Thou Shalt Not, Wicked and his star-making turn in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I kept thinking of Richard Dreyfuss and just like Dreyfuss -- or any good actor -- Butz can seem to be straining when the character is paper-thin. I look forward to seeing him in something more substantial.

What others are saying:

The New York Times' Ben Brantley said: "I don't know how engrossing I would have found this protracted apache dance if it hadn't been brought to such authentic and unsparing life by Mr. Butz, Ms. Marvel and [director Austin] Pendleton. The tirelessly physical performances here are unerringly dictated by the fierce, contradictory impulses of people who want to repel and magnetize at the same time."

The New York Daily News' Joe Dziemianowicz said: Two stars out of five. "It's never a good sign when a review begins by praising a play's set. So let's get right to the superb scenic design of "Fifty Words," the unimpeachable aspect of Michael Weller's disagreeable marriage drama...."

The New York Post's Frank Scheck said: Two stars out of four. "Unfortunately, the play never quite convinces, due to endless, quicksilver tonal shifts: This is one couple that can veer from post-coital bliss to brutal attacks within seconds."

Theatremania's David Finkle said: "Granted, Weller writes convincing dialogue for two smart and accomplished people who know each other so well they can quickly locate every pushable button. But convincing dialogue doesn't necessarily equate with a convincing play.... Fortunately, Marvel (who's eventually required to appear topless in an extended scene) is mesmerizing in her ability to resemble a tightly-wound spring tightening, and Butz, whose dancing skill in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has clearly prepared him for a different kind of compelling choreography, is a couple dozen springs sprung from a confining box. If the situation Weller puts them in is only passingly realistic, their performances are so real that the audience's temptation to turn away from the pain is all but constant."

Bloomberg's John Simon said: "...this exhausting two-hander.... Why do two accomplished actors and one multitalented director -- Pendleton is also a fine actor and acting teacher -- go for this stuff? Because it lends itself to an unbridled display of acting and directing exercises."

THAT OTHER WOMAN'S CHILD: A BLUEGRASS MUSICAL

As part of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, I checked out That Other Woman's Child, as much for the subhead "a bluegrass musical" as any other reason, since I love bluegrass music and thought any show rooted in that genre would at least feature some nimble music. Not quite.

In this over-stuffed comic melodrama, the step-daughter of the man that dumped the family matriarch -- Granny Loomis -- has returned to town upon his death and everyone assumes this city woman (red-headed, no less) is out to stake her claim to the failing family farm. When the giant Knob extended family isn't terrorized by Granny, they're pushed around by the family preacher (Allan Ledford). There's also a daughter unhappily engaged to a brutish suitor, a son who wants to leave home and become a country singer and enough in-laws and outlaws to keep the tiny stage this show was performed on bursting at the seams.

All of this is played at the level of a skit on Hee-Haw. Listening to characters called Leviticus Numbers and Matthew Mark or Luke John or Corinthianne gets real old, real fast. Of course, Hee-Haw had lame jokes but it also had GREAT music. If this show had great music, too, no one would care about the straining plot. Unfortunately, the music is not up to Hee-Haw standards and rarely bluegrass to boot. (Throwing in a banjo doesn't mean a song is immediately bluegrass -- you need a jazzy, improvisatory feel to achieve that.)

The show ends with enough weddings to make Jane Austen seem miserly in comparison. And the large cast does its able best, helped along by choreography (Mark Knowles) and direction (Sherry Landrum, who also co-wrote the show with George S. Clinton) that deserves credit just for keeping folk from bumping into each other. But too many songs fall back on banal lyrics and the few that don't (such as the modestly clever "True Partners," which looks at couples from the Bible) are chained to flat melodies.

Only a few times does someone break out of the noisy story to hit a real emotional note. The perenially knocked-up Song of Solomon (yep, that's her name -- told you it gets old) sings "Honeysuckle" and in her one moment in the spotlight, Erin Parker delivers this tune with the high lonesome ache one associates with bluegrass. Later, tall glass of water and would-be singer Jimmy John (Quinn VanAntwerp, which has to be the least country name imaginable) delivers the fairly anonymous "Wings of Freedom" with a little bit of Elvis and then really scores with "All About Mama," a genuine (or if you prefer, "gen-u-wine") bit of country hokum that would indeed kill on the Grand Ole Opry. Others have their moments, but rarely musical ones and a musical without good songs is like a bar-b-que without beef.

Drew Barrymore told the November issue of Bazaar that Barack Obama made her cry.

"When I heard him speak about a gay person never having to sit outside the hospital room with their loved one sick inside, I burst into tears because so many people I care about are homosexual and it was profound to have someone be sensitive to that. That's the kind of world I want to live in, where we're not holding our own principles in judgment above someone or against someone."

She added, "It's the first time I've really admitted I'm a Democrat."

She also calls Republican candidate John McCain "is a good person, and he does care, but he has voted against things that are shocking as far as people's liberties and economic choices."

On Sarah Palin: "I think people realize the intention of the choice."

On voting: "I was raised in a family -- well, no family, really, so no one talked to me about politics or why voting is important. So my way to educate myself was driving around America and filming all sorts of people with different mind-sets.... I became an avowed voter and feel it is really important to engage other people in it."

On dating: "I've been single for months now, and I've turned my attention towards my passions, my friends and the causes I believe in.

"I've learned to put myself second. I've had a couple of fun, frolicky relationships, but really, I got out of five-year-relationship and dated a few people here and there. Mostly it's been about learning who I am, not through a man, but for myself.

"I've been spending more time with my friends and doing more traveling with the U.N." -- she's been to Kenya twice -- "and challenging myself with work. I'm so happy with where my priorities are right now."

My mother loved Paul Newman, whose most memorable characters were a rebellious, disreputable 180 from the faithful, respectable man she married. My father was secure enough in their marriage that would last nearly 60 years that he wasn't jealous when she joked about running away with him.

When Mr. Newman passed away Sept. 26, the third anniversary of her death, my siblings and I exchanged "how about that" emails. Years ago, my oldest brother ran into Newman at the airport, and, on behalf of my mother, asked for his autograph. He politely, but firmly declined, telling him, "Sorry, pal. Tell your mom that I don't sign autographs but I'd be happy to buy her a beer." Years later, I had a chance of my own to obtain his signature for her while interviewing Newman during a publicity junket prior to the release of "Nobody's Fool." Asking for an autograph in these tightly controlled circumstances is a serious breach of junket etiquette and immediately brands the offending journalist as a rube, so, sorry mom, I played a cool hand. I did, though, relate to him my brother's experience at the airport. He said that he remembered the instant he stopped signing autographs. "I was standing at a urinal in Sardi's," he recalled, "and this guy came though the door with a piece of paper. I thought this was inappropriate. It wasn't just an invasion of privacy. It was an invasion of purpose."

I'd like to think that somewhere up there, my mother might finally run into her screen idol, and that he will buy her that beer.

As a young feminist activist working in Washington, DC, I've had the opportunity to achieve many of my life goals: obtaining a graduate degree, becoming a writer, and serving as an advocate for women's rights. Last week, however, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of a different sort: I finally saw my favorite childhood band, the New Kids on the Block, perform live. And I did it in concert with about 20,000 other screaming twenty- and thirty-something year-old women.

I was 8-years-old when NKOTB rose to fame with their Hangin' Tough album and I became an instant fan. When I think back to 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, I mostly recall my intense crush on the band. I listened to their music, watched their videos and Saturday morning cartoon, became an official member of their fan club, and bought their merchandise. And, boy, did I have their merchandise: a NKOTB sleeping bag, T-shirts, posters, action figures, buttons, and tapes.

Outside of the stuff that came with my devotion to the pop group was a real love for their music. It was something that I shared in common with all of my female peers at the time. I have fond memories of sleepovers spent listening and dancing to their music, creating a fake radio show with my cousin where we talked about and played their songs, and banding together with my female classmates to defend ourselves from the boys in class who teased us for our dedication to the band. And the wholesome songs--with lyrics like "you got the right stuff," "baby, I believe in you," and "girl, you're my best fri