Professional media prevaricator Howie Kurtz has long bent over backwards to balance anything that might be construed as a "viewpoint" with an equal, opposite viewpoint. It comes from working in Washington too long. But sometimes, it gets out of hand.

Ticket sales for all the concerts in the country combined has dropped to a new low, and many big-name acts are under-performing. How could this happen? Maybe because all the bands are old and no one wants to see them.

Mia Farrow turns 65 today. Joe Pesci is turning 67. Model Amber Valletta is 37. Actress Mena Suvari is 31. Alice Walker, the author of The Color Purple, is turning 66. Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee is 70. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is turning 67. Columbia physicist and author Brian Greene is 47. Chinese actress Ziyi Zhang is 31. Virginia Senator Jim Webb is 64. Retired TV news anchor Roger Mudd is 82. Singer-songwriter Carole King is 68. And Judith Light of Who's the Boss fame turns 61 today.