On a similar subject, I felt awful all weekend for making fun of Howard Stern’s childhood of silence and deprivation last week. (He has said that his dad never listened to him.) And of course, if you consider Stern from the standpoint of his suffering, you can find his hidden Buddha, as well as your own compassion. What was I thinking? Better still, what wasn’t I feeling? Poor man.

He’s doing well now, though. Sirius has promised him and his staff a $500 million budget to transform his current four-hour radio show into two channels that will broadcast around the clock. And Stern’s audience is already in the millions.

I’m no expert in this stuff, but it will be fascinating to see how the volume of his audience controls him. If he’s too obscene, aligned with his evilest, ickiest Freudian “id,” will the public follow him? I’d like to think not. So he’s already got a built-in censor. It’s not the FCC, it’s us. I’m guessing his program may become more subdued than what he’s now promising, and that the good people around him will guide him towards a higher plane.

Let’s surround the dear man with white light, shall we? Hello, Howard! Are you listening?