I think blasphemy has more power if you address the sacred cows of your own culture. Few Americans worry God will strike you down for drawing Muhammad. But if you toy with their fears of divine punishment for cursing imaginary Jesus, that has much more of an impact.

Don't know what you quite mean by "straight-up humor". Usually my writing has some kind of pointed edge, but I try to be funny.

Nope. I grew up where Jewishness was super uncommon, too, and didn't know any Jews until I went to college, believe it or not.

No, but I contribute to a couple of humor ones. Try to guess which ones!

Which one? Formspring? I was out to dinner with my boyfriend.

Well, I've believed in conspiracies, but not conspiracy theories. There are a ton of real, demonstrable political conspiracies. The Bush administration, for instance, conspired to get us into the Iraq War.

What you learn from looking at actual conspiracies is that they don't resemble the conspiracies of CTs. They're far less devious and organized, and a lot leakier. How many people have talked about witnessing the Iraq War conspiring? Dozens, right? And how quickly was it all exposed? Pretty quickly, right? CTs always paint human beings as running a tighter ship than they really could.

Terrible. It's loud and unsubtle, the opposite of the book. Nabokov was right that it was immoral to film it as written, but having an older actress play Dolores erases the moral awfulness of it.

I don't care. I don't really believe you can improve the reputation of an idea by changing its name. "Progressive" doesn't fix people's low opinions of liberals. Only education can do that.

So many, but probably Elvis Costello with the original Attractions.

It has been awhile! Maybe!

In junior high, I tried to pick up percussion and learned quickly how much talent I don't have.

No.

For sure.

I wish I had an answer. Usually you have to go through the courts for those kinds of citizen protections, because the voters simply won't support them because most voters think that the unjust treatment only affects other people. But right now the courts are really conservatives. It's a real conundrum.

Nope!

Same. I also think Max has some weird psycho-sexual desire to feel ownership of the patients going into Planned Parenthood, a weird extension of his desire to fuck 'em all.

Neither, really, but I am more familiar with Star Wars, and like most non-committed people, I like "Empire Strikes Back".

No, I haven't. I'll have to check it out.

No.

Against it. Rule of law and all that.