One silver lining of the Red Sox vanishing playoff hopes is the resurgence of knuckleballer Tim Wakefield. It’s also fun watching Derek Lowe win 20 games and Pedro almost certain to (in his next outing). Manny Ramirez meanwhile is in contention for his first batting title in spite of missing six weeks earlier in the… Continue reading

Andrew Sullivan gives the cadaverous Susan Sontag a beating in Salon. Reprinted on his web site here. While Sontag has endured the wrath of many moderates and conservatives for her tacit approval of what happened on September 11 and her general hatred for her own country; and while she and other leftists have sparked a… Continue reading

Observance for the day. Couldn’t put this better than Teresa Nielsen Hayden, consulting editor for New York-based Tor Books where she goes to work: Some of the stories getting told now are the ones people couldn’t bear to tell or to hear told last fall. They lodge in the mind. I’ll never be able to… Continue reading

Thought for the day: Just sold my first short story since…well, longer than I’d like to admit. Other writers have commented on the comparative ease of getting non-fiction published compared to fiction. I agree. And it is much worse now than it was ten or twenty years ago. And yet, I’ve also noticed that the… Continue reading

Martin Peretz’s excellent piece in this week’s New Republic deserves more notice. Peretz has always been a big supporter of Al Gore, and he came under some fire over the past couple of years for using his magazine to boost Gore during the presidential campaign. Indeed, to the point of firing at least one editor… Continue reading