Miscellany

Op-Ed Columnist: Who Gets It?

This link gives all of you access to Paul Krugman's latest article about the Democratic race, which Brian mentioned in the comments about Carol Moseley Braun. It's pretty astute and sort of brings me back around to Dean again.

Other miscellany:

Ellen will be on Six Feet Under this season. Yes, that Ellen. So will Mena Suvari, she of rose petals in American Beauty fame.

John Shoop is out as Bears offensive coordinator. (The sound you hear is an entire city cheering.) I hope Lovie hires someone willing to throw the ball whose name can be part of the new Gilligan's Island theme.

John Kerry, of all people, is in the lead in Iowa. We could have skipped the last year of campaigning, evidently. I'm still skeptical that he'll actually win the caucuses. All those Rolling Stone readers in Iowa will doubtless be swayed by Howard Dean's appearance on the cover this week.

If you missed Friends last night, you may have missed the last Monica-is-a-clean-freak joke of the series. "If only there were a smaller one to clean this one!" she shrieked as she used a Dustbuster to clean her industrial-strength vacuum cleaner. The writers are mocking their characters, but it's still bittersweet to watch the final episodes of a show that feels like an old friend.

The Friends and Frasier finales will be two hours each--an hour of retrospective and a one-hour final episode. They'll run on consecutive Thursdays: May 6 and May 13. Don't plan on calling me between 7 and 9 PM those nights.