There's no accounting for creativity

Actually, wait, yes there is. If you're a professional writer, you account for creativity with a paycheck.

Which is why the Writers Guild strike makes perfect sense. The ideas at the root of everything Hollywood creates spring (sometimes fully formed, like Athena, and other times half-baked, like a box of cheap brownie mix) from the minds of writers. And the writers would like to be compensated for that--can't say that I blame them.

Here's the crux of the issue, though. New technology has given way to new media on which their work (shows, movies, etc.) are presented. It's clear what direction we're headed; the Internet is, I'm told, the future. Yet the studios don't want to give writers a piece of the action in media such as the Internet. Huh. That sure seems to be setting the writers up for some unpleasant accounting--there's that word again!--down the road.

The writers of "The Office" put it thusly:



Anyway, I stand by my enormously creative brethren and hope that they get what they're asking for. If not, be prepared to watch a lot of crappy reality TV and funny movies that, as my friend Clark puts it, are "the other kind of funny."