TSG:
Now I’m wondering if I avoided “The Wire” because its central themes — drugs, corruption, urban decay — were realities that I simply wanted to ignore. Instead of being haunted by a show like this, it was easier and safer to skip it entirely. Most people feel this way, I’m guessing; it’s the only conceivable […]

ESPN Last Call:
Wide receiver Chad Johnson was so disoriented after the game from a late-game hit that sent his helmet flying that he didn’t do interviews. For No. 85, that’s being out of it.

I got this joke from Cameron. He told it at the dinner table tonight:
Q: Why did Tigger stick his head in the toilet?
A: Because he was looking for Pooh.
Of course, Gretchen thought it was horrible and inappropriate. And I thought it was hilarious.

No, not porn. Organs. From Dubner & Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) comes Flesh Trade:
Alvin Roth, even though he is an economist, is smart enough to realize that repugnance will keep Americans from embracing a true market for organs anytime soon. So, along with several other scholars and medical personnel, he has helped design […]

Gingrich:
By late summer, 1862, Lincoln agonizingly concluded that a third faction had the right strategy for victory. This group’s strategy demanded reorganizing everything as needed, intensifying the war, and bringing the full might of the industrial North to bear until the war was won.
The first and greatest lesson of the last five years parallels what […]

From page A1 of today’s WSJ, in an article about how Rick Warren’s “purpose-driven movement is dividing the country’s more than 50 million evangelicals”:
The Rev. Bob Felts, pastor of Brookwood Church in Burlington, N.C., says his former congregation seemed enthusiastic about the purpose-driven approach in the 1990s. So he eagerly introduced the concepts to his […]

So CBS did some digital cosmetic surgery on serious newsjournalist Katie Couric. Sounds like a great idea to me, so I tried it on myself. Thought maybe I’d go for some hair plugs, maybe a little facelift, some digital botox around the eyes. Didn’t quite come out the way I hoped.