Blogwatch and coffee, maple syrup and jam…

OK, today and tomorrow are chock full o’ work (reading endless studies of prostitution, what fun), so although I have several things to say I have no time in which to say them. Monday will also be nutty, but by Monday evening I should have posts for you on: war, rhetoric, and socialism; ambition, Elvis, and the American Founding; Germans; monsters; and, as usual, random whatnot. For now, here are some other places you might want to visit while I’m trying to sort through the totally conflicting, often ideologically-contaminated world of academic studies of prostitution. Gah.

If you’re going to be in New Haven on the 17th, check this out! Goldberg and Lynch are both fun guys, and the Yale Federalist Society is a really rockin’ crowd.

Amptoons gives a fine homage to the glories of “Peanuts,” but is, in my opinion, unfair to (earlier) “Garfield.” It’s obviously not as good as “Peanuts”–what is? But “Garfield” is subtler than Ampersand admits, for one thing–we’re meant to both laugh at and empathize with the hapless Jon. Sort of like Cliff Clavin on “Cheers.” And “Garfield” both expresses and ironically punctures the self-image of that id-ly thing within–the slothful, gluttonous, cruel, pushed-around, sentimental, whim-ridden thing. The thing that wants. “Garfield” lets the idly thing have its day, while rendering it ultimately harmless. We get to plunge our face in the lasagna, kick the dog, befriend the mice, sleep in, rant about Mondays, woo the lady cat, and keep a sense of self-deflating humor about it all. I also really like a lot of the “Garfield” drawings, especially in the earliest books. I’m picturing Garfield leaping from above onto an entire turkey (with leg bones poking out), enveloping it with his mouth, and then, mouth wrapped around the vast turkey, throwing Jon a hopeful, roll-the-dice, maybe-he-won’t-notice look. I’d never compare it to “Peanuts”; but “Garfield” has its own charms.

Ted Barlow: “Baby maid” = urban legend; and more on rent control. Oh, and did you know that “the war on terror is being used as a ruse to justify all sorts of spending“?

The Rat: Terrific post on New York’s 9/11/02 snub of Taiwan.

Unqualified Offerings: On the Munich massacre.

Excellent article on college essays. OK, it’s a standard “why must I display self-pity in order to get into the college of my choice?” article, but it’s made fascinating by the list of questions set for Oxford and Cambridge applicants. Any one of these is worth a blog post, or three, or seven. Good mental gymnastics.