Don’t… don’t you watch blogs?

You know I can’t believe it when you say that you don’t need blogs…

Den Beste: Peace is the absence of an evil, not the presence of a good (great stuff).

Zonitics: Small businesses need Living Profit laws! (This is one of the points I’ve been trying to make over at The Farm Dole; but this Zonitics fellow is much more creative than me. Unfortunately for him, Wendell Berry has already proposed this law.)

Amygdala: Star Trekkin’ throughout the universe… A takedown of the Minkowitz Trek-bash that’s better than mine because he’s, you know, seen the new show and all. He also has some good comments on Minkowitz’s starry-eyed socialism, and some funny stuff about how “Enterprise” is not Freudian… and if you think it is, you should see your doctor. The one depressing thing I noticed in his post: The episode titles for the new series are muy lame. Compare “Broken Bow,” “Strange New World,” “Terra Nova,” “Unexpected,” “The Andorian Incident,” etc., with The Original Series’ “Balance of Terror,” “City on the Edge of Forever,” “A Private Little War,” or “Plato’s Stepchildren”; not to mention the numerous allusive titles.

A local hotel celebrates Pride Week (and Wrath Week, and Gluttony Week)…

A somewhat snooty article about famous last words, that nonetheless gets in a few good anecdotes. (I’ve heard at least one other version of Oscar Wilde’s last words, though–“This yellow wallpaper is horrible. One or the other of us must go.”)

Executioner’s Hymn: A National Catholic Register symposium on the death penalty, featuring Justice Scalia, Father George Rutler, Charles Rice, and Avery Cardinal Dulles. Haven’t read yet but am looking forward to it.

“Sweet Smell” stinks: That’s the verdict of this Village Voice review on the new musical production of “Sweet Smell of Success.” Sounds accurate. I am a huge fan of the movie–it grows on you, like a fungus–but have absolutely no desire to see the musical. The movie was a nasty, dark piece of work about needy characters knuckling under to their worst impulses. An overripe script, some hard acting from Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, what more do you want? The musical, apparently, is almost okay. Not hard to understand its failure–it was missing one of the vital elements of the movie from the beginning: “In Glorious Black and White.”