TOMORROW I have lots of work to do, and I’m going to at least stop by the March for Life (why is their web site so LAME???), but I will try very hard to post a long thing on Iraq for which I already have a detailed outline, and I also hope to post very scattered thoughts on affirmative action and Constitutional interpretation (these are separate posts), springing off of some stuff said by The Goblin Queen and Jack Balkin... Read more

“ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL”: Now that I’ve finally read that play, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to use the phrase again. Almost as creepy as “Measure for Measure,” a play Harold Bloom rightly labeled “rancid.” Oh look! let’s do hideously stupid, self-mutilating things for no reason, then get treated horribly by our beloved, then laugh and smile and dance when he takes us back in the final five minutes! [insert Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake noise…]... Read more

THE GAMBLER: Short, sharp little story from Dostoyevsky. It made me think about the attraction of gambling–the narrator describes the way his heart would start pounding and his thoughts racing when he was still rooms away from the roulette wheels, as soon as he could first hear their clatter. I don’t really know what the fun is, since I’ve never gambled (I’ve bet on various events, but it’s not the same thing). The Gambler made it seem like a big... Read more

“THE PIANIST”: Saw this movie with Russo on Saturday. It’s based on the autobiography of a Jewish pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman, who spent WWII in Warsaw. There’s a lot to recommend this movie, and if you were considering it, I do think you should go. It is truly affecting, and not just because all Holocaust movies are powerful. There are three things, I think, that differentiated “The Pianist” from other Holocaust movies (and yes, I am treating that as a genre,... Read more

CREATED EQUAL: A pro-life blog, just getting started. Read more

GOOD, IF FLAWED, book review in the Weekly Standard, looking at three books on abortion. The author, David Tell, has a keen eye for the interesting nuggets that complicate the oversimplified stories preferred by both supporters and opponents of abortion. Flaws: His tone is way too strident for my taste, and in my opinion veers into condescension; and in emphasizing the sharp difference between contraception and abortion (a difference in kind, not in degree*), he glosses over the causal (contraception... Read more

OH WOW. Gaudi at Ground Zero? Via The Corner. I don’t really know whether this is the absolute best thing to go on the WTC site, but Gaudi is truly amazing, and this is clearly among the best proposals. Read more

MUST-READ POST from Lynxx Pherrett on sex trafficking around the world. Via Unqualified Offerings. Read more

JOHN LOTT GETS A BREAK: A respondent to his 1997 defensive gun use survey speaks up. Read more

THE RAT’S Desert Island books (and desert island authors!). Read more