“A DEFENCE OF RASH VOWS”: I was originally going to post this over at Questions for Objectivists, as G.K. Chesterton’s take on our contemporary custom of replacing “as long as you both shall live” with “as long as you both shall love” in the marriage service. But it seems tangentially relevant to some of the points Sullivan raised today (in which he’s defending not just same-sex marriage, but nonmarital sex), so I’ll throw it in here as well. “The man... Read more

IMPORTANT EDIT: That Inferno reading in NYC is tomorrow night. Sorry! Read more

ANDREW SULLIVAN CONT’D. He posted something on March 21, which I now can’t find in his archives (about a week is missing–if anyone can find it I’d be grateful). Here’s my response. Here’s him today. (If the links don’t work, go to AndrewSullivan.com and scroll down.) Here’s what I sent him in response: First email: 1) Thanks very much for the kind words and the response. (And the link.) 2) I wasn’t claiming that your arguments against Church teachings were... Read more

WELCOME TO MY BLOG, NOW GO AWAY!: Some other good things you could be doing with your time. Unqualified Offerings: Lots of good stuff today, mainly concerning Israel. He is a principled isolationist and I’m not, but his posts are always perceptive. Virginia Postrel and Brink Lindsey: It’s just barely possible that some people reading this site might not know how cool it is that Postrel and Lindsey have weblogs. Trust me: It’s very cool. Postrel has a sharp analysis... Read more

POETRY WEDNESDAY: Dave Tepper turned me on to this great idea: Post a poem each Wednesday. Here’s his. Here’s mine. A diver does not abandon a seaweed-filled bay…. [clipped, sigh] –Ono no Komachi Read more

“I’ve got a little room upstairs that’s too small for you to fall down in. I can bounce you around off the walls, that way we won’t be wasting a lot of time while you get up off the floor.” –William Bendix to Alan Ladd, “The Glass Key” Read more

RAW, GRAPHIC PROPERTY RIGHTS ACTION!: It is very, very cool that the Washington Post‘s Sunday books section included a page on graphic novels (aka post-Maus comic books). It is even cooler that this sentence appears, in a generally favorable review: “As in Dixie Road, however, the author’s pat liberalism sometimes robs the work of political balance: Seen from the (equally) black-and-white world of a 15-year-old, landlords’ legitimate desires to protect property rights receive no equal time in The Birthday Riots.”... Read more

BEATS WORKIN’: No immigration post until I do a lot more work. So for the moment, this is all you get. Matt Welch: Racism and murder in sunny Florida. Summary: “It’s great to watch trashy-looking public defender Pat McGuinness slice up the witnesses, and his partner Ann Finnell talk about capital-J justice … but it’s absolutely horrifying to think that people can still be locked up and tried for murder just because one (or more) cops lie, their supervisors &... Read more

“Here’s looking at you.” “I don’t want to look at you, you’re a heel.” –Alan Ladd and William Bendix, “The Glass Key” Read more

CLARIFICATION: Email from a grad student friend caused me to remember that this post was written in too much haste, and was unnecessarily dismissive of actual problems faced by grad students. (The WSJ article I linked details some of those problems.) Some grad student unions or unionizers might be forces for good at their universities. GESO, on the other hand, was like an ivy-league version of “On the Waterfront.” Mortarboard goons. Read more