Yes, there will be many different opinions about the DGA deal and whether we should take it or not. But that is not what is being reported. You would think that Jim Brooks, Steve Gaghan, Eric Roth, John Logan, Robin Swicord, Susannah Grant, Aaron Sorkin, Callie Khouri, Tony Gilroy, Ron Harwood, Diablo Cody and a coterie of other highly-paid, award-clutching scribes are circling the Guild offices in black Priuses, waiting for the right moment to pounce and pressure us into taking the DGA deal verbatim.

Those are top screenwriters, no doubt, but I would find it strangely ironic if they were plotting subversion while picketing, working tirelessly on various Guild boards, and openly expressing their support for the strike.

So here is where my mind started to go: Could this reporting have anything to do with a well organized and very expensive PR campaign to convince WGA members that we should shut up and be grateful for what we got? But then I thought, "Come on, these are The Trades and other very reputable newspapers -- top media sources that we rely upon not just for local news, but for well-researched and independent reporting on international events. Whether it is Burbank or Baghdad, they speak with integrity, they check their sources, they get things right or they don't print it.

Seriously, what would this town be like if we couldn't trust our newspapers, our well-meaning agents and producer friends?

So, you have my apologies for questioning this undisputable fact that is so well reported. This powerful group of influential screenwriters not only exists, we should be very, very afraid of them.

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

This is not the first time you have seen Hillary Clinton seemingly at her wits' end, but she has always risen, always risen, don't forget she has always risen, much to the dismay of her adversaries and the delight of her friends.

Hillary Clinton will not give up on you and all she asks of you is that you do not give up on her.

There is a world of difference between being a woman and being an old female. If you're born a girl, grow up, and live long enough, you can become an old female. But to become a woman is a serious matter. A woman takes responsibility for the time she takes up and the space she occupies. Hillary Clinton is a woman. She has been there and done that and has still risen. She is in this race for the long haul. She intends to make a difference in our country. Hillary Clinton intends to help our country to be what it can become.

She declares she wants to see more smiles in the family, more courtesies between men and women, more honesty in the marketplace. She is the prayer of every woman and man who longs for fair play, healthy families, good schools, and a balanced economy.

She means to rise.

Don't give up on Hillary. In fact, if you help her to rise, you will rise with her and help her make this country the wonderful, wonderful place where every man and every woman can live freely without sanctimonious piety and without crippling fear.

Rise, Hillary.

Rise.

"Perhaps no one in our time has done more than J.K. Rowling to inspire young people to experience the excitement and sheer joy of reading," said Drew Faust, the president of the university, in a statement. "Harvard isn't exactly Hogwarts, but I am sure that her visit with us next June will be a moment of magic for J.K. Rowling's many admirers across the university."

Not all academics speak glowingly of the U.K. author. Harold Bloom, the literary critic and professor at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in April 2005 that Rowling and horror author Stephen King "are equally bad writers, appropriate titans of our new Dark Age of the Screens: computer, motion pictures, TV."

Wage Increases

Compensation for all categories except directors of network prime time dramatic programs and daytime serials increases by 3.5%, each year of the contract.

Compensation for directors of network prime time dramatic programs and daytimeserials increases by 3%, each year of the contract.

Outsized increase in director's compensation on high budget basic cable dramatic programs for series in the second and subsequent seasons:

For ½ hour programs: 12% increase in daily rate and increase in guaranteed number of days to 7 days.
Results in show rate increasing from $9,009 to $11,760.

For 1-hour programs: 12% increase in daily rate and increase in guaranteed number of days to 14 days.
Results in show rate increasing from $18,010 to $23,520.


Residual Increases
Residual bases increase by 3.5%, each year of the contract, except for reruns innetwork prime time. Residuals for reruns in network prime time increaseby 3%, each year of the contract.


Healthcare
Employers continue to make health care contributions at specially negotiated rateof 8.5%, secured in the 2005 Basic Agreement to address the impact ofthe growing cost of health care on the DGA Plan. Provisions permittingdecrease in contribution rate by employers removed.

Other Provisions
Second Assistant Directors to manage locations in New York and Chicago.
Establishes a wrap supervision allowance of $50/day for the Second Assistant Director who supervises wrap on local and distant locations.
Increases incidental fees and dinner allowances for Unit Production Managers and Assistant Directors.


New Media

Jurisdiction over:
All new media content that is derivative of product already covered under current contracts.


Original content:
All original content above $15,000/minute or $300,000/program or $500,000/series, whichever is lowest.

Original content below the threshold will be covered when a DGA member is employed in the production.

Electronic Sell-Through (Paid Downloads)
More than doubles the rate currently paid by the employers on television programming to .70% above 100,000 units downloaded.

Below 100,000 breakpoint: rate will be paid at the current rates of .30% until worldwide gross receipts reach $1 million and .36% thereafter.

Increases rate paid on feature films by 80% to .65% above 50,000 units downloaded

Below 50,000 breakpoint: rate will be paid at the current rates of .30% untilworldwide gross receipts reach $1 million and .36% thereafter.

Distributor's Gross
Payments for EST will be based on distributor's gross instead of producer's gross, a key point in our negotiations. Distributor's gross is the amount received by the entity responsible for distributing the film or television program on the Internet. We would not have entered the agreement on any other basis.

Companies will be contractually obligated to give us access to their deals and data, enabling us to monitor this provision and prepare for our next negotiation. This access is new and unprecedented.

If the exhibitor or retailer is part of the producer's corporate family, wehave improved provisions for challenging any suspect transactions.

Ad-Supported Streaming:
17-day window (24-day window for series in their first season).
Pays 3% of the residual base, approximately $600 (for network prime time1-hour dramas), for each 26-week period following 17-day window, withinfirst year after initial broadcast.
Pays 2% of distributor's gross for streaming that occurs more than one year after initial broadcast.

Clips
Provides the companies with limited windows where they can distribute clips of feature films and television programs in new media to promotea program. Provides for payment for all other uses in New Media.

Sunset Provision
Allows both sides to revisit new media when the agreement expires.

The force majeure ax swung wide Monday as four TV studios -- CBS Paramount Network TV, Universal Media Studios, 20th Century Fox Television and Warner Bros. TV -- tore up dozens of overall deals.

All four issued similarly worded statements blaming the writers strike for the terminations, which are expected to save the studios tens of millions of dollars. But none came close to the nearly 30 overall deals axed at ABC Studios on Friday. CBS Par and 20th TV each dropped half that number. UMS and WBTV stayed in the single digits, with WBTV's termination tally said to be less than five deals. Like ABC Studios, CBS Par, UMS, 20th TV and WBTV mostly went after writers, producers and directors with no active projects.

CBS Par's force majeure list includes some high-profile writing and nonwriting producers: Hugh Jackman, whose Seed Prods. inked a multiyear deal at the studio in August; "The Chronicles of Narnia" producer Mark Johnson; veteran writer-producer Rene Echevarria, who co-created CBS Par's USA Network series "The 4400" (he will continue his services as exec producer on the studio's NBC drama "Medium"); the Emmy-winning "Sopranos" writing duo of Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green; Barry Schindel ("Numbers"); and John McNamara ("Fastlane").

The 55-year-old from Newcastle, who has won the Forward Poetry Prize a record three times, was presented with a cheque for £15,000 at a London gala.

Peter Porter, chair of judges, called O'Brien's work "fierce, funny and deeply melancholy". Previous winners of the prestigious prize have included Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy. Mr Porter also called O'Brien, who is a professor of creative writing at Newcastle University, "a major artist".

Terms of the Weinstein deal were not released. But a person familiar with the agreement, speaking on condition of anonymity because it had yet to be completed, said it was similar to the interim deal reached by Worldwide Pants.

A central demand has been compensation for projects distributed on the Internet. Contract talks broke off on Dec. 7.

The studio alliance has downplayed the significance of the United Artists agreement and said "one-off deals" would not lead to a permanent solution of the labor dispute.

Brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein founded Miramax, which became part of the independent film movement in the 1990s and has produced a number of high-grossing movies. The Walt Disney Co. bought Miramax in the early 1990s, but the Weinstein brothers continued to run the studio until 2005, when they left to form the Weinstein Co.

The Weinstein name has been attached to award-winning films including "The English Patient," "Good Will Hunting" and "Chicago."

"The show must go on, that is one of the tenets of everything," Hanks told Reuters in London. "I am a member of the board of governors of the Academy, and we definitely want to put on a great show and honor the films that have come out in the course of the year," he said on the red carpet at the premiere of his film "Charlie Wilson's War."

Hanks said corporate bosses should remember that many people, from carpenters to caterers, were suffering as a result of the strike by about 10,500 Writers Guild of America members over their dispute with major film and TV studios. "There are caterers and carpenters ... and electricians and gaffers," the 51-year-old said. "There are a lot of people out there associated with the industry, for whom the sooner this work stoppage is over the better. "I just hope that the big guys who make big decisions up high in their corporate boardrooms and what not get down to honest bargaining and everyone can get back to work."

The star of box office hits "Forrest Gump" and "The Da Vinci Code," and twice a best actor Oscar winner, added that a shift in the way screenwriters were rewarded for their work was needed in the Internet age. "The delivery systems, the revenue streams, just the very presentation media is now going to be a brand new place," he said in a brief interview on Thursday.

The 500 affected employees -- who work in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago, in both TV and radio -- must vote on the contract. Positions covered by the contract range from desk assistant to producer, with average base salary between $20,000 and $70,000. The union urged its members to ratify the deal. The preliminary deal struck between CBS and WGA will give the union staff raises of 3.5 percent annually plus a $3,700 contract bonus. The contract would run through April 1, 2010.

*****

"We are gratified that a tentative agreement has been reached so that CBS and its valued WGA news employees can put this chapter behind us," CBS said in a statement. "This is good news for newswriters," Patric Verrone, president of the WGA West, said, adding: "We ask CBS to come back to the table with the will to make a deal with striking film and television writers."

On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John Shook denied a motion by Cussler to use a portion of the jury's May special verdict form as the basis for an $8.5 million judgment in Cussler's favor. The judge ruled the jury's answer was advisory and not a basis for a judgment.

In May, after more than three months of courtroom sparring and eight days of jury deliberations, an L.A. Superior Court jury awarded Crusader a total of $5 million in damages for past and future economic loss. But the jury's special verdict form also stated Crusader was obligated to pay Cussler about $8.5 million for the rights to the second of two Cussler books in the Dirk Pitt adventure series.

In a statement, Crusader attorney Marvin Putnam of O'Melveny & Myers said: "This court order and the jury verdict are an overwhelming -- and well-deserved -- victory for our client. The attempt to misconstrue the jury's findings into a claim that Cussler somehow was still entitled to the $8.5 million for a second book were rightly deemed absurd by the Court."

Fields, however, vigorously denied the case was over or that Crusader, now known as Bristol Bay Prods., had won. Fields acknowledged that the motion based on the verdict form was denied. He said, however, that Crusader strategically dismissed its claim that Cussler was not entitled to the $8.5 million with prejudice after the jury's verdict. As a result of the dismissal, says Fields, Cussler is entitled to the money. The court also has not decided who is the prevailing party, Fields said.

In a federal lawsuit, Missy Chase Lapine alleges that Jessica Seinfeld "brazenly plagiarized" from her 2007 book "The Sneaky Chef" in the writing of Seinfeld's own cookbook (both volumes focused on how to prepare healthy meals for finicky young eaters). When news stories appeared detailing similarities in the two books, Jerry Seinfeld launched a "malicious, premeditated, and knowingly false and defamatory attack" on Lapine, the complaint charges. As part of that campaign, Seinfeld went on Letterman's show and described Lapine as "angry" and "hysterical." He then compared her to the kind of "wackos" that had previously stalked Letterman. The comedian then added that Lapine was a "three-name woman" and "if you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins." The complaint, an excerpt of which you'll find below, adds that Seinfeld also described Lapine as a "nutjob" in a second television interview. Lapine's lawsuit, which does not specify monetary damages, was filed this afternoon in U.S. District Court in New York.

I'm told that, like Letterman's company, UA has accepted the very same proposals that the WGA presented to the media conglomerates when the Alliance Of Motion Picture & Television Producers walked out of contract negotiations back on December 7th. "It's the same kind of agreement that the guild made with [David Letterman's] Worldwide Pants. But 'interim agreement' is not the right word," a WGA insider explained to me. "At the end of the day, once an overall agreement is done between the WGA and AMPTP, if the terms and conditions of that agreement are more favorable to UA, they will be able to enjoy that. This essentially means that UA has the ability to be in business with the WGA."

*****

Guild sources said it definitely helped during negotiations that Cruise is a longtime SAG member and Wagner also started out as an actress before she became an agent then producer and then UA studio mogul. "They said, 'All we want to do is make movies. And we know that you can't do that without the artists, especially the ones that create the stories. And those are the writers.' "

*****

I've just been told that the Hollywood/Big Media CEOs who belong to the AMPTP are furious at MGM chairman Harry Sloan for "allowing" this WGA-United Artists deal to go through.

I want you to tell me your secrets of success.

With "Samantha Who?" [ABC's] head of comedy development, Amy Hartwick, got in touch after reading "P.S., I Love You." And she asked if I'd like to do a TV show. I knew she'd liked the way I wrote the stories I'd told, and the positive side that comes through, and all my stories about women on journeys about self-discovery -- but every week? So I came on the idea of someone who knows nothing about themselves. . . . I figured out [Samantha] was a terrible person too. That's the twist. She figured out she was a horrible person.

*****

I left college to write the book. I got my degree but -- and my mom and dad were like great, brilliant, write a book. I had a story to tell for myself. I think a lot of parents would be: "Do something where you get paid, do a proper job." They're very open-minded and that's been very helpful. I could have gotten embarrassed and put my pen down and gotten a job that I'd hated.

Did your father ever worry about what you might write?

No -- he knew I was writing fiction. I told him all along what I was writing, but it was a very private thing. I wrote "P.S., I Love You" in three months. I hibernated and wrote all night and slept all day. They just let me go with the flow. . . . It was a funny time looking back on it. When I got my book deal I rang him up and told him and he said, "What's it about again?" And I said, "It's fiction, don't worry, I'm not revealing any secrets."

They called for children to be taught to read for an hour a day, adding that "no child should be left behind". Crime writer Ian Rankin said literacy rates were falling, and that this "shouldn't be happening in the UK". A government spokesman said there was a commitment to bring a "sharper focus" to the basics of reading. The letter has been signed by 545 writers including Nick Hornby, Joanna Trollope, Kate Mosse, Jackie Collins and Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.

*****

The letter was delivered to Downing Street this morning by Trollope, Mosse, bestselling author Sophie Kinsella, Tony Parsons and Amanda Ross, a television producer who is credited with creating Richard and Judy's Book Club.

The letter reads: "As authors, we are deeply concerned at the low levels of childhood literacy across Britain. In a complex world, reading has become increasingly important - if not crucial. The reality is that the issue of childhood literacy transcends party politics and ideological divisions - and unites all of us who care about the future of our children.

The prime minister has said that 'every child is special, every child precious and therefore no child should be left behind'. It's time to focus on the push to get all our kids reading in order to make this happen."