So the Hollywood writers are winning the public relations war against the major media companies. As an actual Hollywood writer, upon hearing this vital and timely news of our psy-ops victory I could not help but ask the question ... so what? I mean, first of all, how hard is it to win a PR war against giant, soulless corporations? I think even Michael Vick could do that.

And honestly, in this tug of war over hearts and minds, what difference does it make how the public views the writers or even the studios? Is the gen pop really going to consume more or less entertainment based on which side they favor? Not according to that Pepperdine survey that declared the writers media darlings. The survey also found that 75 percent of the public isn't particularly concerned about the strike reducing their entertainment choices. And a Rasmussen poll found that nearly 60 percent of the population felt the writers' strike had no impact on their lives whatsoever.

So while the populace might favor one side over the other, basically they don't really care. And why should they? What's happening in Hollywood isn't a labor action by coal miners fighting for safer working conditions or migrant farm workers trying to earn a living wage. The writers' strike basically shapes up as a couple of third cousins at Thanksgiving dinner arguing over who gets a slightly larger slice of the billion dollar pumpkin pie: the writers who create the movies and shows, or the corporations who actually take all the financial risk that allows us Hollywood writers to write in Hollywood in the first place.

And are we really winning the PR war? The writers I've talked to are concerned about the way the picket lines and those videos have been portrayed in the wider media — with a snarky undertone that has cast the writers as elitists in "arty glasses and fancy scarves" and engaged in "the funnest strike ever." And that's a quote, too, 'cause I ain't having any fun.

The feedback I'm starting to get is that high-spirited picketing isn't for the public, but for the writers ourselves. It's writer crunch time, baby. Now may be make it or break it time for union solidarity. On Monday, Hollywood was flying high after toking on an Internet rumor that a deal to end the strike was imminent. But the rumor turned out to be just that. And should no deal be reached in the next week, the writers are facing a long, cold winter of inactivity. There's already some fracturing among the once-solid mass.

Some of the Hollywood showrunners are back to work on their shows from Dick Cheney-like stealth locations. Carson Daly is the first late-night host to go back on the air — oh joy. And there's reportedly at least one high-profile writer who's crossed the picket line to do rewrites on film scripts ... and no, it's not me.

With no end in sight and personal debt mounting by the day, those funny YouTube videos might be the only thing the writers have to show for all their high-minded collectivism.

Verbal boxing between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama enlivened the first few minutes of the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas on Thursday night.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

There are a couple of ways to come at Las Vegas. You can be part of the nickel slot/shrimp cocktail crowd, or you can be a playa: go big, live large and dig the spectacle.

I wanted the Democratic debate to show some playa politics.

Playa politics is no stranger to The Meadows. My favorite example: It was at the Sands casino where $1 million in a satchel was said to have been transferred from Joe Kennedy to Sam Giancana via Frank Sinatra to buy votes for Jack in the 1960 presidential election.

Nothing nickel slot or shrimp cocktail about that.

Las Vegas has never been a one-ring circus, and the debate had plenty to contend with. Over at Caesars was the HBO Comedy Festival headlined by Jerry Seinfeld. Over at the courthouse was a preliminary hearing headlined by O.J. Simpson.

When I told the cocktail waitress who brought my white chocolate martini while I was playing baccarat that I was in town for the debate, she asked: "Really, who are you debating ..." That kinda says it all.

So, I head over to the Cox Pavilion at UNLV to watch the matchup. Only, they've got all the journalists herded into a basement room where we're supposed to watch it on a bunch of flat-screen TVs.

No. Sorry. If I can't watch the debate on the floor, I'm not watching it in a basement. Not in Vegas. That's not playa style.

So, with half an hour before the show starts, I make a call to my casino host Richard over at the Hard Rock Hotel, tell him I need some helping out.

My driver for the night — Joey from Brooklyn — whisks me to the Hard Rock. And Richard hooks me up with in a suite with a pool view for the two hours. I'll tell you this, even in Vegas it's a little embarrassing to have to ask to use a room "just for two hours."

But we quickly gather up a small, informal, non-scientifically arranged group to rate the action. And man, was there action. For the first few minutes of the debate, anyway. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama going back and forth, people yelling stuff from the audience. To extend the boxing metaphor, the other four candidates were pretty much reduced to corner men. And Obama and John Edwards, realizing they weren't going to score a knockout punch early, tried to go the distance. But that's no way to win a prize fight.

As far as I'm concerned, the second half of the night proved that though regular citizens deserve a voice in politics, they shouldn't necessarily be the ones asking the questions.

The winner of the debate? A poll of my small, informal, non-scientifically arranged group gave it to Clinton. The consensus: that she pretty much killed it with her "they're attacking me 'cause I'm ahead" quip.

Me, I score this one to the city. You can call it chance or happenstance, but I don't think it was just by the grace of Lady Luck the best debate so far happened to be in Las Vegas.

Michelle Obama, shown speaking at a fundraising event in March, says her husband, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, is lagging behind Hillary Clinton in polls of black voters because of a "fear of possibility."

Michael Nagle/Getty Images

There could be any number of reasons that Barack Obama trails Hillary Clinton among black voters. It could be Clinton's name recognition or her political experience. It could also be as simple as the fact that blacks are not automatons who will unthinkingly vote for a person of color.

To Michelle Obama, the wife of Sen. Obama, the reason that her husband is lagging in the polls is the "fear of possibility" owned by those blacks who are holding out — scared flesh in their racial memory from being told too often that we are "not ready" to achieve. Mrs. Obama holds, however, no fear. In an interview with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, she said she believes that soon the straggling blacks will "wake up and get it."

I don't disagree with the notion that for some people of color, there is a "fear of possibility." When Harriet Tubman ran the Underground Railroad, she used to carry a gun with her. It wasn't so much to use against bounty hunters. She used it occasionally to dissuade blacks so frightened by the journey to freedom that they wanted to run back to the plantation, thereby endangering all. But I would not say that fear of possibility or change is limited to blacks, nor is it the prevailing attitude among us. Were that true, we would all still be, at best, sharecropping — and, at worst, having our teeth checked prior to sale to the highest bidder.

For Michelle Obama to claim that one day black America will "wake up and get it" and support her husband is to imply that any person of color who does not vote for Obama is somehow slumbering or stupid. That Obama need not earn the black vote, but rather our votes must be given out of racial fidelity.

I would add that earning the black vote does not mean pandering to the idea of "black issues," as any issues that affect blacks — hate crimes and discrimination and lack of housing — are not restricted to a particular race. And to suggest that those are "black issues" is to intimate that the credit crisis and the war on terrorism and the rise in oil prices are of no interest to or do not affect people of color.

Instead, I would say that Obama needs to earn his votes through consistency of message. He can't pass himself off as an agent of change, then pander to the homophobic crowd. He can't claim to stand against the war, then continually vote for its funding. He can't send mixed messages as to whether America would actually use its nuclear arsenal to protect itself.

Like most black people, emotionally I want Barack Obama to be president yesterday. However, also like most blacks, I'm awake enough to know that Obama deserves to be evaluated on his merits, not just on the color of his skin.

So, this is the day. Day four of the writers' strike. This is the day that all the previously working members of the Writers Guild of America are required to submit outstanding works to the guild's Script Validation Program. And, yes, I confirmed this with a guild lawyer. All writers — well, again, the writers who were working — must submit scripts or face possible (unnamed) sanctions.

That's on one side.

On the other side are those strongly worded letters from studios and production companies reminding writers that those outstanding scripts are their intellectual property and cannot be shared with a third party without permission.

The studios claim they are controlling what is rightfully theirs.

The guild claims that it is taking proactive measures to protect writers from future false accusations of "scab" work. And isn't that frightening: that when this is all over, we may be pointing fingers at each other.

I was told by the guild lawyer, who was very pleasant and took her time in explaining the guild's position to me, that though the guild expects the scripts to be submitted, theoretically the VSP may never be activated.

I was told by an entertainment lawyer that although the guild's position was inducement to breach contract with the studios and was therefore unenforceable, the chances of a studio wasting time and money after the strike trying to figure out who slipped whom crappy first drafts of next season's crappy sitcoms was — again — theoretically unlikely.

And that, to me, is why this day of reckoning is so intriguing: It exists in a speculative place. Away from the baying of the picket lines and the denouncements of ex-and-disgraced media company CEOs, the formally working writers of the union — as opposed to the perpetually non-working ones for whom all of the strike and its resolution will always be a matter of theoretics — will have to make a solitary choice: Alone with myself and my conscience, am I a collaborator, or a resister?

And I'm not saying which side is the oppressor and which is the liberator.

I will say this: Very serendipitously, I started reading Ayn Rand's Anthem for a literature and politics conference I'm attending later this month. The last lines of the first graph describing Rand's dystopian future are: "The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven."

With that, my decision regarding the Script Validation Program was made.

Striking writers picket outside Universal Studios in Burbank, Calif., after contract talks between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers broke down this week.

Charley Gallay/Getty Images

There's a Jimi Hendrix song, "Woke Up This Morning and Found Myself Dead." Well, I woke up the other morning and found myself unemployed. The Hollywood writers are on strike. Now, I'm guessing for most of the NPR audience, you're mildly interested in this labor dispute, but until somebody cuts off the flow of Ken Burns docs, you're not going to lose it.

But here in Los Angeles, we're learning to live in the new normal: a house divided. One exec, who's a friend outside of work, wondered if it was legal for us to even have a conversation. The fear being the talk might touch on creative endeavors, an area of discussion now banned between studio types and writers. And believe me, in Hollywood, where all we ever talk about is entertainment, taking that topic off the table leaves a lot of people just sitting around staring at each other over sushi.

But if we can't talk, we writers can certainly advocate, and do so with high spirits. Another friend told me he was going to base his decision about where to picket on which location was closest to his favorite bar. Now that's a writer! And with every writer expected to man the lines 20 hours a week, each and every week, it's good thinking, too. By the way, 20 hours — that's more time than I actually, physically spend writing.

But even in these heady first days before the pain of trench warfare sets in, there are realities of this new normal to be dealt with. Realities like Strike Rule No. 8, or as it is euphemistically referred to, the Script Validation Program.

The SVP run by our union, the Writers Guild of America, requires writers to submit copies of all literary material in progress to the guild at the outset of a strike. It supposedly ensures that no further work is surreptitiously done. Writers are given four days from the start of the strike to comply or face penalties. Wednesday would be day three.

And like many in the working membership of the WGA, I got a pleasant, nicely worded but very legalistic letter from a production company I have a deal with — cc'd to my lawyer — reminding me the scripts I'm working on are the property of that company and cannot be disseminated to a third party without prior permission.

Rock. Hard place.

Now, seriously, the Script Validation Program — which is just a tad Orwellian for my taste — is also at the heart the eternal question of who owns intellectual property: the production entity that pays for it or the guild that takes it upon itself to protect the writer.

What's most interesting to me is that neither side seems to feel the writers as individuals can protect their own creative property when it is in their possession.

Now this is a question I vow to ponder for the remainder of the strike at my favorite bar ... in Las Vegas.