Before I get into this, let me address a few things:

I don't usually keep up with plots on television shows. My approach has always been to let the writers and producers take me for a ride. It's a matter of trust. My attitude is that, if I'm going to deliberately suspend my disbelief, I won't do myself any favors by looking at the details too closely.  If they want to surprise me, I'll let them try. I trust my instincts and they've served me pretty well. I can tell if something is jumping the shark or insulting my intelligence.

Also, I scoff at predictions as a general rule. The words "I don't know" are heavily underrated. I see no purpose in continually trying to predict what will happen, when the unpredictable is far more entertaining. However, predictions serve a useful purpose when they are preceded by thorough, thoughtful insight. The prediction doesn't have to be right, but it should at least be based on facts and logic.

So I decided to have some fun and try to predict where the leak is in Major Crimes on TNT's "The Closer."

Assuming there is a leak within the Major Crimes unit, providing unsavory characters outside of the LAPD with advance and/or classified information, an obvious question is whether the leak is accidental. Regardless of who is responsible, is there a computer vulnerability or some other weak link that is unintentional and undetected? Is it a matter of loose lips without malice, but with prying eyes and ears intercepting all the details? Or is it a deliberate attempt to sabotage Major Crimes?

Commander Taylor goes helpful to sinister to goofy and all points in between, usually within a single episode. Taylor is not part of Major Crimes but is either involved with them at certain points or hanging around on the perimeter. After all these years, it's actually more difficult to imagine Taylor as the leak, because he sees Brenda's dedication to her work, her obvious talent and training, and her success. It could be Taylor put something in place early on that feeds information outside the department, and has either forgotten about it or forgot to plug the hole. 

Lieutenant Andy Flynn was an early enemy of Brenda's, but it seems she won him over long ago. He's part of the family. I don't see him as enough of a klutz to leak things by accident. Early on, he deliberately leaked information to a reporter about Brenda's ethics inquiry in Atlanta. Otherwise, he seems suspicious enough not to open his yap unless he means to.

Lieutenant Mike Tao is a family man and a geek. He is too busy trying to please Brenda to suddenly turn around and have some unknown ax to grind against her. Doesn't make sense.

Sgt. David Gabriel is Brenda's protege (for lack of a better term) and for that reason is closer to her personally than anyone other than Will Pope and Brenda's husband Fritz.  Again, hard to imagine what he has against her.

Detective Lt. Louie Provenza is perhaps the funniest and most likeable character. He's constantly in and out of relationships with women, some of who have actually visited Major Crimes. This puts Provenza higher on the suspect list. While it's difficult to imagine him deliberately sabotaging the unit, he may have allowed himself to give a scheming woman unauthorized access, where it goes to some mastermind criminal or whatever.

Detective Julio Sanchez is the only subordinate to personally discuss the leak with Brenda. And he was convincing that she should not tell him things because he thought she should not trust anyone in the unit, at least at certain times. In my book, Julio is higher on the list because of a possible misdirection, but it would have to be a well-hidden hostile motive.

Agent Fritz Howard is Brenda's husband but also works for a federal agency that specializes in spying. How can he NOT be a suspect, whether by accident or design?

Assistant Chief Will Pope has the longest and most complex (and awkward) relationship with Brenda among everyone involved. Give a reason he can't be the leak and I can give you a reason he must be the leak. 

Captain Sharon Raydor has damn well better not be the leak if she has her own spinoff show following The Closer finale. Or if she is, she'd damn well better have a brilliant and beneficial reason for it.

There are a number of other recurring characters. Leave it to me, the trusting and unthorough analyst, to drop them cleanly through the cracks. ZIP, there they go!

Then there is the classic misdirection in whodunnit fiction: The character you know least about flies under the radar and is nearly forgotten until it is sprung at the last moment as the culprit. There are at least two:

Buzz Watson is a "Civilian Surveillance Coordinator." In other words, he is the technician for the unit's surveillance and recording needs. He provides some comic relief but we don't really know much about him other than the fact that has a totally hot weather-babe for a sister (who doesn't believe in Santa Clause!). Problem is she didn't enter the picture until the leak was already in play.

Forget that Detective Irene Daniels hasn't been around for years. She was dating -- excuse me, I meant "dating" -- David Gabriel. They fought, she left. Or is she still in the background? Would it be so over-the-top for Irene to surface at the end with some weird attempt to blow David's career away like this? Hey, suspect everyone and trust no one. That's what Hercule Poirot says.

We haven't talked about Drs. Crippen and Morales. Shouldn't leave them out, although I'm not sure why.

If we're going down the unintended consequences route, may as well sweep Brenda's parents (Willie Rae and Clay) into the picture, along with Fritz' sister Claire and Brenda's niece Charlie.

Bill Croelick is far and away the most appealing, compelling villain the show ever produced. His motives seem so self-obsessed that it's difficult to imagine what he would hope to accomplish by leaking things to someone else.

We haven't talked about the computers. It's possible someone has simply hacked into the system. Who would do that? I'll say, though, that there's always a computer or smart phone that could be listening, with or without the consent of someone in Major Crimes.

I guess I should put Brenda on the list. Done. It could happen.

Dessert comes last, right? So let's serve up the tasty and villainous Philip Stroh. We know we're not done with him, yet. Brenda is obsessed with bringing him to justice, and Stroh can't help but know how much of a threat she is to him. He's unpredictable, shrewd, clever, malignant. He has means and motive. He has every reason to try to discredit Brenda and remove her from a position in which she could put him away. 

My prediction: Philip Stroh is your guy. And he did it by bugging the department.

No, I don't expect my prediction to hold up. But at least I went through the whole lineup...and my conclusion was not what I thought it would be. So I like it.

How can so much great television this year come with so much disappointment? I'm not even sure I can remember all of the shows I enjoyed so much, partly because they are no longer on the air.

It started with "Pan Am," one of the retro shows about the 60s. At first, I thought it was some ripoff of "Catch Me If You Can." It had the look and feel in the previews, but it took only one episode to sell me on the concept. I cared about the characters; the plots were consistently good, and the eye candy was a worthwhile guilty pleasure. (Kate's the best! No, Laura! Wait, it's Collette!)

Meanwhile, "Unforgettable" cranked up on CBS. I loved Poppy Montgomery (in part because of her name) on "Without a Trace." Now she's a redhead, a precocious bad girl. It's an OK show. I don't really care about the characters, and frankly I spend the show waiting for a Britt Lower sighting -- the most exquisite young face since Winona Ryder. Alice and I almost stopped watching it, but we still record it for mindless Friday night viewing.

[As an aside, we stopped watching "NCIS". It's a shame, but I got so tired of waiting for Tony to grow up and the chemistry between Tony and Ziva to blossom into...something. It's like watching the same episode every week! Then CBS tells me it's the most-watched show on television? Meh.

More's the pity because I called the show my "Ziva fix" and now I have to disown it.

We also stopped watching "The Mentalist". Now there was a huge disappointment. First Jane kills a feller what must have been Red John. Then he is acquitted in a vigilante justification, afterward to confide that the man he killed was not Red John. ARE YOU KIDDING?! That's the dumbest plot ever, and we stopped cold right there.]

"Person of Interest" came along, with Jesus playing John Reese...or something. I care about Finch, and Reese, and Carter, and even what's-his-name, the bad cop. Alice appreciates the eye candy, and Veronica Mars' dad plays a delicious bad guy. It had a decent season finale and looks like it will stick around.

Then the last two are the saddest.

"Awake" on NBC stars the wonderful Jason Isaacs from "Case Histories" on PBS. I love plots that dink around with time, and a mystery with alternate timelines is just about my favorite device. This is a doozy...and it's been cancelled.

Over on ABC, "Missing" aired at the same time. Perhaps more remarkable than "Awake," It brought Ashley Judd to television as a retired kick-ass CIA agent. Absolutely everything about this show was at least very good if not sensational -- acting, locations, photography, stunts, plots, pacing...everything. It, too, was cancelled.

I was really angry at how "Pan Am" was treated -- showing shows out of sequence, and finally just dumping it unceremoniously before we see anything resolved. We really looked forward to it. (I really looked forward to Kate...I mean Laura...or was it Collette?)

But "Missing" and "Awake" are more problematic to pick up for another season. Both are almost miniseries, and it's difficult to draw those plots out too far without using up our patience. Fortunately, neither show did it. "Missing" was brilliantly paced, and we held our breath through each episode. But once Becca Winstone found Michael (i.e. once he was no longer missing), what do you do? Even before the dubious abduction in the final aired episode, I felt that almost anything would jump the shark. So the cancellation didn't bother me too much.

With "Awake" the problem is different but equally perplexing. You have two parallel timelines that keep Detective Britten comforted, or sane, or something. Yet they cannot both be real. Are both Hannah and Rex dead? Neither? Is one of the timelines the real one? Are they all dead? Just Michael? ("What the hell!...GODZILLA!") 

But I digress. This is not an aggravating problem. The way you treat a story like this is they way you treat the UK's version of "Life on Mars"...you end it. You won't have a happy ending without discrediting the entire premise of the show. Use your imagination, do your best to catch your audience with its collective pants down, fold up the tent, and get out of Dodge.

Finally, a few words about "The Killing". How many times did we nearly give up on this one? Detective Linden is just about the least likeable character with the most beautiful hair and kissable lips on television. (How does she do it?) She's dishonest with her son, surly, nearly psychotic. I want her to solve the case so she can, you know, shut the heck up. Same for Mitch, played by the stunning Star Trek alum Michelle Forbes. She's a copout, she's selfish, has forgotten she has two other children who need her. OK, she lost her daughter, and even if I can't imagine how that would affect me, this is neither believable nor pleasant. Mitch's husband, Stan, is involved in organized crime, her sister is involved with I-don't-know-what...WHAT IS IT WITH THESE PEOPLE?!

"The Killing" is the Seattle version of "Seinfeld". Everyone is a jerk, but it's not funny and it rains all the time.

Still, I care about Linden. I care even more about Holder, her partner. I want Mitch and Stan's children to be OK so they won't grow up to be drug addicts and murderers. I want Jack, Linden's son, not to join the Larsen boys on a drug-riddled murderous rampage. And I want Holder to grab Linden, plant a big kiss on her gorgeous mouth, and take her out of the Pacific Northwest before her lousy attitude gets even worse.

This summer, I can't wait for the last six episodes of "The Closer". I'll catch the pilot of "Major Crimes" but Kyra Sedgwick is a tough act to follow. 

In the meantime I'll re-watch "Zen", the absolute sexiest detective show ever made. I mean it. PBS' "Masterpiece" has somehow sold its soul to the devil for a year of television that has blown the doors off everything I saw in the past. And I've watched it religiously for some 30 years.

"Zen" is, what, three episodes? The music, locale, actors, the whole lot, are seductive, clever, thrilling, you name it. PBS must have sold its soul to the devil, because only the devil would put the kibosh on filming any more episodes of a program this good.  Helen Mirren and "Prime Suspect" have nothing on Aurelio Zen. Yet, another totally brilliant product...CANCELLED.

"Closer" reruns and Texas Rangers baseball will not get me through the next six months. I need more than one episode of a dumb cop show where William Shatner plays a drunk driver...no matter how well he does it.

I hear much about how great Dwyane Wade and LeBron James are, yet how their games are so much alike perhaps they don't fit on the same team together; that they cannot figure out, because of that, how to close games when both of them could be taking last shots.

It sounds plausible, but I think the truth is simpler than that.

Teams that want to win adapt to the situation, assume necessary roles, work together. It's what great players always do. The San Antonio Spurs are a perfect example, with Duncan taking a much different role from previous years and Ginobili -- in some ways the most dangerous player in the game -- coming off the bench. They, along with Tony Parker, have been together for a decade. When they can't win, they come up with another way to work together. At the moment, they seem nearly invincible.

About the Heat: let's start with Chris Bosh. Very little to say except he is not an underachiever. He's about what you expect him to be, and he pulls his weight.

Dwyane Wade has tremendous talent and great athleticism. He has his moments of explosive play, stunning effectiveness. But his only championship ring is tarnished by coming at perhaps the zenith of public distrust of NBA officiating, including comments from players and fans not associated with either the Heat or the Mavericks -- opponents in the 2006 NBA Finals -- that Wade benefited from what are called "phantom fouls." Without those controversial calls, at least two of the Heat four-in-a-row wins arguably go to Dallas, instead.

Since then, Wade has been brittle and inconsistent. His moments of brilliance are still there, but he has never exerted the sort of consistency and leadership that define a true champion. In fact, his exploits on either side of the 2006 title run are typified by his alma mater's showing in the 2003 Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament.

LeBron James, on the other hand, demonstrates significantly more leadership. The curious thing about James is that, while he is perhaps the greatest athletic talent the NBA has ever seen, his maturity and ability to close out games falls far short of those physical skills. In particular, I have always suspected James is not serious enough about his shooting skills. His physical talent and game experience are important. But having a shooting technique that is honed the way Larry Bird's is, or Dirk Nowitzki's is, gives a player the confidence that rises above physical talent.

What the world saw in the 2011 Finals -- and again so far this year -- is that Wade lacks leadership and James lacks maturity. They fade in the face of adversity. Frankly, their playoff runs in both years have been disastrous, not because the combination of their greatness could not mesh well but because the combination of their shortcomings have so far rendered the Heat incapable of winning when it counts the most.

Institutional religion and individual religious practice are not the same thing. The two are often so different that one can imagine an individual subscribing to institutional orthodoxy and living one's own religious principles -- and that the two might not have a lot in common.

I sort of promised Nathan Williams (@Vanearl, a total stranger to me) a few thoughts on the subject...as opposed to a much longer essay I could easily write and that would cost me many hours/days/weeks of delay. Technically I did not promise it, but I don't like mentioning I'll do something without actually doing it.

If one admits the statement that institutional and individual religion are not mutually inclusive, pondering its implications should reveal more sensible answers to some vexing questions about the role of religion in politics in particular and society in general.

With any institutional religion -- Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- the organization insinuates into politics. It is inevitable. Thus there is in some form a political movement to each of these institutions. It is particularly true of Islam today, whose deliberate worldwide reach is a modern version of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. It is not an exact parallel; but its aggressive spread and its violent antagonism toward competition bear a striking resemblance to the ancient RCC.

Individual practice is different. It is easy for Jews, Protestants, Catholics, and Muslims to be brethren (or at least to profitably coexist) without an overbearing institutional influence. This does not make a Christian less Christian, or a Muslim less Muslim. To the contrary, it frees the individual to fulfill the obedience and the promise of his practice because true religion is inherently an individual thing.

I do not condemn religious institutions, but I understand their intrinsic flaws. Orthodoxy does not come from the Bible; it comes from an institution that adopts the Bible as the basis of its platform. Orthodoxy is like cement. It dries quickly, sets in place, and doesn't move without enormous consequence. When orthodoxy becomes proscriptive, it is easily corrupted.

Religious institutions do not all suffer the same. Some are more liberal than others. But they are not society's problem with religion. The difficulty is in failure to recognize individual practice as imminently approachable and usually surprisingly tolerant and beneficent.

The non-religious individual who operates from this standpoint will be less likely to alienate religious people, able to easily distinguish the institutional imposition, and be ready to promote harmony without first drawing enemy lines.

There is much more to this. I hope these thoughts will suffice for now.