Took Kate to her first PG-13 movie over the weekend — “Dreamgirls.” I was willing to risk the corrupting influence of bad language, drug use and some sexuality for her to get a sense of what Detroit was, once upon a time. I don’t know if the lesson sunk in; I suspect for her it felt the same way it did for me when my parents brought up James Thurber. Yeah yeah, the night the bed fell, it fell in Columbus, but…yawn. Thurber didn’t come alive for me until I read “Newspaperman,” his essay on Gus Kuehner, city editor at the Dispatch. I don’t think Detroit will be Motown for Kate until (and if) she falls in love with “Dancin’ in the Streets.”

Whenever we go into Detroit, there seems to be a moment to discuss the 1967 riots. They’re depicted in “Dreamgirls” in sort of a montage-y way, using old news footage and stills. Last night at dinner I said, “Did you get a sense of what the riots were like?” and my little media consumer said yes, she did, but “I don’t know how they could set a whole block on fire. Did they use green screen?” Green screen. I ask you.

No, I said, that was a real news clip of an actual city block on fire, but I kept thinking about green screen. I avoid those “making of” documentaries; I want to preserve what little magic moviemaking still has for me, and knowing that some actor spoke all his lines to an empty soundstage later peopled with aliens and a 25th-century city skyline just makes me sad. If only the Detroit riots had been green screen.

“Dreamgirls” was OK. It’s hard to catch lightning in a bottle once, let alone try to duplicate it with Broadway versions of Motown songs. It’s one of those movies where you’re supposed to spend the first few beats of every scene marveling at the clothes and hairdos, and you do, but little moments I liked best are not the ones in the trailer — most involving Eddie Murphy, who can really really sing. I got a little tired at how heavy the roman a clef stuff was — naming the Florence Ballard clone “Effie” just for starters. And how amusing to see Murphy’s character turn from James Brown to Marvin Gaye, and just in case you didn’t get the message, they gave him Marvin’s knit skullcap. Still. A worthy holiday musical, green screen or not.

Only one bit o’ bloggage today, because it’s such a long read: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean the government isn’t trying to beam voices into your brain.

One of the best seminar speakers of my fellowship year was Bill Miller, a UM law school professor. I mentioned him before, and we don’t need to get into it all over again, but he said something funny about the nervousness of today’s parents with their children’s physical safety that amused me:

“You know those stories about knights in the Middle Ages, how they wore so much armor that they had to be hoisted onto their horses? That’s a 5-year-old kid in Ann Arbor learning to ride a bike.”

I thought of this Saturday, when I watched Kate at her latest improvement activity — ice-skating lessons. She’s good on skates but she needs to learn some technique, like how to stop without running into the boards, crossovers and so forth. She takes them in a vast group divided by ability, and the age range starts at 3. In this hockey-mad town, that means the group is lopsided at the low end, with pint-size tots in tiny skates who can probably still remember learning to walk, now learning to skate. It’s pretty funny. They give them these little frame things like walkers, and they spend 50 minutes falling down and crashing into one another. They make Kate, with her relative competence, look like Nancy Kerrigan.

The flyer said “bike helmets recommended for the tots,” and about half wear them, the other half already in their very own wee-small hockey helmets. I understand this, even as I recall the words of the very first skate instructor Kate had, at McMillen arena back in the Fort: “Learn to skate correctly and you don’t need a helmet.” Children that young are lightweight and top-heavy; all you have to do is watch them fall a few times to see they do so like cartoon characters — the feet go way up, the head tips back precipitously, and it’s even money which hits the ice first, the noggin or the butt.

But it’s the extra padding I find amusing. Several of the kids wear kneepads, which seems silly on ice. (First of all, how often do you fall knees-first? And if you do, you fall and slide; it’s not a sidewalk.) One kid seemed to be skating with a drinking straw in his mouth, and I thought, well that’s pretty foolish, and then I looked closer and realized he was wearing a football-style mouthguard, and the drinking straw was actually the loop that attaches to the helmet’s face mask. Only it wasn’t attached to anything, because he was wearing a bike helmet. What are the chances a kid’s going to go face-first onto the ice in a long-billed bike helmet and land on his teeth?

On the other hand, I remember all those pictures of Bobby Orr, missing several of his lateral incisors. I can see where moms get nervous.

Kate got skates for Christmas, which she asked for in hopes that it would be a nice cold winter and she could skate at our local park, which has two low-tech rinks, which is to say, they rely on Mom Nature for ice. She’s normally pretty reliable in a Michigan winter, but not this one. Or the last one. The weather ninnies are barking about “Arctic cold” expected later this week, so I checked the long-term forecast. To me, Arctic cold is defined as single-digit highs, subzero lows. Today’s revised definition, at least to judge from the forecast: Highs in the 20s, lows in the teens. Please.

Meanwhile, once again, it rained all night last night. At least now the rinks will freeze, though.

So what did Barbara Boxer really say to Condoleezza Rice that made Rush Limbaugh call her a “rich white chick with a huge, big mouth, trying to lynch … an African-American woman right before Martin Luther King Day”? You know, it must have been terrible for America’s foremost deaf drug addict to come to the defense of “an African-American woman” (although maybe he was just high). I looked it up in the communist New York Times. Winston Smith must have been hard at work that night, because this is all I found:

“Now, the issue is who pays the price, who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, within immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families, and I just want to bring us back to that fact.”

While I’m sure Rush, like lots of wankers, loves a good cat fight (rOWRrrrr…), this is ridiculous.

Finally, some fun bloggage for a slow Monday — the trailer for “Black Snake Moan.” Suggested discussion topic: Is Samuel Jackson committing career suicide (I mean, two movies with snake in the title, back-to-back?) or having the time of his life? I’m leaning toward the latter.

One of Kate’s friends was over yesterday, and when her father came to pick her up, he committed the cardinal sin of male rudeness: He pulled into the driveway and honked.

I went outside to scold him. He said he didn’t want to leave the comfort of his heated seat. Then he told me about his friend’s 1986 Mercedes, which has two horn settings — standard and, with the flip of a switch, “polite,” for driveway honkers, I suppose. We talked about the neighbor across the street, who had all four of his 2006 Escalade wheels stolen one morning last week, from his driveway and in early daylight. They left it precariously balanced on landscaping bricks, one of which collapsed, giving the thing the look of an elegant, chrome-trimmed dinosaur drowning in the La Brea Tar Pits. Then we discussed whether his friend with the 1986 Mercedes should get the Michigan Heritage license plate for classic vehicles of a certain age. You pay one price and never have to renew again. Then his daughter came out and got in the car to go home.

Detroit: Where all the small talk is about cars.

(After the Escalade wheel theft last week, some of the neighbors gathered on the sidewalk and talked it over. It took approximately 40 seconds for the discussion to shift to whether GM should make locking lugnuts standard on all models above a certain price point. After living in one place where all the small talk was about the weather, and another place where it was all about the Buckeyes, it’s a nice change.)

I told Alan the other day that I want my next car to be an American-made minivan with a pumpin’ sound system and spinning rims. That ought to confound ‘em in the carpool lane.

OK, then. Detroit will soon host one of those plastinated-body exhibits (at a rather staggering ticket cost, I notice — $70 if all three of us go). It looks simultaneously fascinating and repellent. I have no objection on religious grounds, but whenever I hear “all the bodies were freely given” and “in China” together in a sentence, I just don’t quite want to swallow it whole. It’s rated PG-13 as well, which makes me wonder why — genitalia? I suppose so. Gruesomeness? Most likely.

Ever been to one? What was it like? How did it make you feeeeeel?

…they turn to YouTube. TwoTube, today. First is a little inside-newspaper baseball, some “I’m the Tribune/I’m the Sun-Times” spoofery:

And because I kinda feel bad about their pain, and because someone mentioned it in the comments yesterday, a good, high-quality Script Ohio, including a great i-dot:

Just switched off a radio interview so boring it could peel paint off the walls. (Really. I was getting paint chips in my hair.) Broadcast interviews are difficult, and I’m not one to throw stones, but making one this bad is a two-person job. There’s a certain sort of talker (and writer) who is never content to say “October” when he can say “the month of October,” or better yet, “the month in autumn that falls between September and November, which is to say, the month of October.” The only way to get these people to the point is to step in when they’re drawing a breath and redirect them a bit, but that’s a tricky business — be too abrupt and you sound rude; even the bored audience starts thinking, “Jeez, let the man finish his sentence,” although the sentence was meandering around the room with no period in sight.

Terry Gross has a well-deserved reputation as a skilled questioner, but I’d love to hear one of her raw tapes sometime; I would expect she has the benefit of some good editing. And even she can’t work miracles. I once heard her confess to being so bored in an interview that she actually fell asleep, and woke up when her lolling head hit the microphone.

I’d like to hear that one.

The person in the interview today was talking about Islam, and was distinctly American. But he had that tic you hear sometimes where a person tries to give a foreign word the native pronunciation. So Koran becomes “K’urahn,” etc. Spare me. Did you ever see the video of the initial interrogation of John Walker Lindh, the Taliban kid? Raised in NoCal, when he was questioned by the CIA he put on this preposterous Arab accent. “My fahther’s name…is Frahnk.” Talk Amur’can, kid.

Notice how many reporters say “Neek-a-rah-gwah” but never call the capital of France Par-ee?

Low-intensity rant over.

Here’s one I’m even less enthusiastic about: The iPhone. Oh sure, as a Mac-head I assume the usual kowtowing position in the direction of its elegant design, intuitive interface, blah to the blah. I won’t, however, be an early adopter. I blame my mom.

My mother never carried a big ring of keys. Her car keys were on one fob, house keys on another. She never fell for those all-in-one wallets, either, that holds all your cards, all your money and your checkbook, too; she carried all three separately. It’s obvious why: So when you lose one, you don’t lose everything. As it is, it’s terrifying to think of all I’d lose if my laptop were nicked, but even worse to imagine my laptop fitting into my pocket, too.

On the other hand, how wonderful it would be, as a journalist, to carry your one-man-band in a shirt pocket — to be able to write, take pictures and send the whole shebang back to the office without having a 5-pound device digging into your shoulder.

As for the phone, all I can say is: It’s Cingular. Beware.

Someone once wrote about the language of technology on the big screen, how there’s something about slamming a phone down that becomes part of the conversation, and the cell-phone era just doesn’t have an equivalent. Or rather, it didn’t, but the popularity of the folding phone sort of gave it one — snapping it shut is a gesture that can be performed quietly or angrily. When I saw the iPhone’s flat surface, my first thought was, great, another keypad that’ll have to be locked, and my second was, gotta get a new gesture for hanging up.

“Light Sleeper” was on last night, a film I ordinarily have a great deal of affection for. However, after last night, I see Alan’s point when he said, “Boy, is this pretentious and depressing.” The Call/Michael Been music on the soundtrack may have been the tipping point, especially since the budget seemed to have only allowed for one song, and so over and over the score told us that it feels like the world’s on fire. OK, OK, we get the point. Actually, the setting indicated that New York City was going through a garbage strike, but “it smells like the world’s an old rotting piece of fish” isn’t nearly as romantic-sounding.

Nice cast, though — Willem Dafoe, Susan Sarandon, Victor Garber, David Clennon (!!! my fave !!!), with Sam Rockwell and David Spade in bit parts with character names like Jealous and Theological Cokehead. (They’re the worst kind, aren’t they?)

As you can see, I’m plainly tapped out. Discuss the Surge if you’re so inclined. Throwing more good lives away, or something worse?

Today’s cruel taunting of the already wounded comes to us courtesy of regular commenter Basset, who forwards this photo of the Ohio State University Marching Band’s postgame show Monday night:

Funny, but sloppy Photoshopping; I can see the cloned areas. Although I’m an alum of the smaller, less well-known Ohio University, with its own excellent marching band, I have to say: I always enjoyed Script Ohio. Early in my career I had to do a lot of “first woman” stories. That is to say, “Miss X is the first woman to do whatever” stories. Among them was one on the first woman to dot the i in Script Ohio, a big honor for the sousaphone players. I recall only that my lead called it “something to toot your tuba about.” How thrilled my editors must have been, to see this early promise of the writer within.

Gah, a long day lies ahead. I hope I have all my obligations written down. The night before last was a stressful one, with two middle-of-the-night phone calls, followed by a busy day. In late afternoon I tried to catch a nap. I was lying on my bed with a paperback, trying to relax, and the next thing I knew it was dark outside and the phone was ringing. Foolishly, I answered it. Of course it was someone who wanted to talk to me about a job. I’m sure they won’t want to hire the aphasic idiot they spoke to, who said “uhhhh” a lot and seemed to be communicating from the bottom of a Placidyl binge, but you never know. I appear to have made an appointment to speak with them later. Note to self: Use lots of under-eye concealer.

One thing before I forget: Is anyone out there flying on Northwest Airlines this month, at least before the in-flight magazine changes to February? If so, grab the January issue. Kate’s in it. Really. This was yesterday’s excitement. Her birthday party in November was a repeat of last year’s, with a small group of her friends invited to ice-skate at Campus Martius Park downtown. A photographer was lurking around the edges of the rink, snapping photos. He was obviously a professional — he held his camera like one, anyway, and he wasn’t wearing skates — and we struck up a conversation. He said he was shooting candids of the rink for Northwest Airlines’ magazine. The girls went insane, of course, thinking their next step would be America’s Next Top Model, so I explained about how photographers shoot dozens of photos and only one or two get used, if that, so don’t get your hopes up and blah blah blah. Then we had pizza and everyone forgot about it.

Until yesterday, when I had to go over to Kate’s school, and she shows me the magazine, and whaddaya know, there’s her birthday-party ice conga line. Everyone’s in profile except one of the girls in the middle, who had turned to look at the photographer, resembling this sort of serene blonde ice angel. One of that girl’s mother’s friends was flying somewhere, opened the magazine, said, “I know that girl,” and the rest is a bunch of phone calls and checks sent off for extra copies. If you’re on an NWA flight, though, grab one (there’s a snorkeler on the cover, enjoying the many benefits of a vacation to Cancun) and drop me an e-mail. You can never have enough extra copies of Baby’s First Appearance in a National Magazine.

I guess next year I’ll have to invite Vanity Fair.

Yes, I heard Bob Greene’s stupid commentary on NPR last night. No, I don’t feel like taking it apart. If he’s still fooling editors and producers into believing he’s some sort of Bard of the Midwest, well, it’s out of my hands. I will say this, though: It made me think that OSU losing wouldn’t be the worst way to end the day. And whaddaya know?

And with that, Bucks fans, I will say no more. OK, I’ll say just a little more, a quote from an e-mail that arrived just seconds ago: The Scarlet and Gray once again proved that the Big Ten conference is one of the most overrated in the nation. Given the performance of the Big Ten teams in their various and sundry bowls – Michigan also was beaten to a pulp – I’d love to think the fans of these schools and this conference would sip from a tall, frosty glass of STFU, but that is probably not in the cards.

Now I’ll say no more.

Actually, I think I’ll really say no more. Does that qualify as having a tall, frosty glass of STFU? Maybe just Schadenfreude pie.

Last year’s Detroit auto show wasn’t the first I’d attended, but my first as a working journalist. I freely admit to being a total country mouse about these things, but the most satisfying word in the event, for me, was “show.” You don’t have to suspend your journalist’s skepticism about the b.s. you’re being fed in the press conferences to appreciate the entertainment factor. The car companies go to great lengths and even greater expense to make their product roll-outs special, and I’m happy to appreciate them. Only 6,000 people — journalists, most of them — get to attend the press preview. By the time the public is admitted at the end of the week, the buffet lines will be gone, the liquor will be packed up and the celebrities will be back in Los Angeles. I think it’s important to let your readers know what the rollouts were like.

Nevertheless, there’s always someone who’s too cool for the room. Say, “I loved how they drove that Jeep through the front window at Cobo,” and he’ll say, “Oh, they did that 10 years ago.” Say, “Those cappuccino-flavored yogurt thingies at Maserati were delicious” and he’ll say “They totally ripped off that idea from some place in Milan.” And so on.

This year, Mercedes installed an ice-skating rink in Cobo. Really. Ice. With skaters twirling around the cars. Many reporters act as though this is simply the most boring thing they have ever seen. Oh, an ice rink. They did that in Berlin five years ago, didn’t they?

So when I saw this picture, taken on that very same ice rink…

…I thought, “At least the photographers aren’t afraid to smile at the amusing sight of Emmitt Smith and Cheryl What’s-Her-Name, reprising their ‘Dancing With the Stars’ gig.” And then I looked closer. All the “photographers” seem to be carrying the same camera. They’re also holding them wrong; you’d think someone could instruct someone pretending to be a photographer in how real photographers hold cameras. And they’re wearing ice skates! They’re shills, dammit.

No wonder reporters get cynical. I guess the real pros were on the other side.

(The guy in the upper right-hand corner, dressed in a suit? He’s a real photographer — correct grip, no skates. But I bet he’s not news media; looks like corporate PR to me.)

By the way, for the best mise en scéne reporting, I recommend the NYT auto-show blog. For car pix, Jalopnik. The Freep auto-show page is getting most of the breaking news, but seems to be having intermittent technical problems. Best all-around goes to the News’ blog, but they have no pictures; apparently those are all on the main auto-show page.

Meanwhile, as I seem to be working on a minor in alternative-energy vehicles, I paid close attention to the roll-out of the Chevrolet Volt concept, positioned as GM’s bid to reassert itself in the alt-energy field and something of a mea culpa for killing the EV-1. Wow. What a woulda-coulda-shoulda this thing is, even for a concept:

…a hybrid that could get as much as 150 miles per gallon of gasoline. From the hints GM has dropped, the Volt could be on the road in three or four years.

…The automaker faces a major hurdle in finding a supplier that can build a battery system GM wants.

You know? I’ll be a billionaire once I accumulate as much as a billion dollars. However, I face a major hurdle in finding a supplier. Stay tuned.

So I got “Hannibal Rising” out of the library Saturday, expecting it to be a fine, sucky read in the model of “Hannibal.” (If you don’t understand how something can be fine and sucky, get outta here. It’s the same impulse that makes me want to call my friend Ron whenever the commercial for “Freedom Writers” airs, and say, we are so there.)

Twelve hours later, I closed the book, having read it more or less straight through. I didn’t stay up until 3, because nothing can keep me up until 3 anymore, at least not when I have the option of going to bed at 11. It didn’t suck. Too much. I was astonished.

In this opinion, I noted that I have very little company. The Amazon reviewers are savaging it, as are most professionals; Terrence Rafferty in the New York Times is fairly kind. But I don’t care who knows it: I kinda liked it.

“Hannibal” was such a shock to the system, taking the imprisoned monster of “Silence of the Lambs” and turning him loose in the world, where he promptly reveals himself as, well, a big ol’ fairy. People always speak of the ending, where he makes Clarice Starling his love slave and they live happily ever after in Buenos Aires. They say, “That was so out of character for her, I felt robbed.” Out of character for her? What about him? He’s arranging flowers and fussing over his table settings like Mr. Gay from Gaytown, population you!

Doubt me? Ahem:

Early in the morning the doctor laid his table carefully for three, studying it from different angles with the tip of his finger beside his nose, changed candlesticks twice and went from his damask place mats to a gathered tablecloth to reduce to more manageable size the oval dining table.

I could have bought this guy as merely a serious table-setter, but the changing-candlesticks-twice part was, how you say, the tell. Not to mention the finger beside his nose.

The rest of the book was larded with ridiculous details, all of which were rich fodder for Martin Amis’ takedown of the book in Talk magazine when it came out. I can’t find a copy online, but trust me when I say that after reading it, I thought Harris wouldn’t dare write about Hannibal again. A character is described as having “a rank smell, like sausage from an animal improperly gelded.” (You know, that smell.) There’s a lot of foofraw about the proper reduction of a stock, the outfitting of a picnic basket from Hammacher Schlemmer, and most absurd of all, the really creepy villain who makes martinis from the tears of weeping poor children. How would you order that in a bar?

A lot of that stuff is in “Hannibal Rising,” but either I’m more used to it or it just isn’t dwelt on so much, and doesn’t get in the way. There’s some flower-arranging, but it’s Japanese, hence not quite so twee. The plot I’m not so crazy about — it’s Hannibal’s origin story, and progresses in such a cinematic fashion that you immediately say, “Why, it’s almost as if this book was written simultaneously with the screenplay,” and then you realize, yes, yes it was. Seriously, the climax is so end-of-the-second-act you can practically hear the director shouting, “cut!” There’s even a big explosion, from which some actor will no doubt be harmlessly flung, arms and legs windmilling.

Maybe I didn’t like this book as much as I thought.

Or it might be that it simply benefited from low expectations. Whatever. I enjoyed the trip through eastern Europe it took me on, before we relocated to France and Hannibal’s training in flower arranging begins anew. Maybe what I liked best is, it showed me people like me, and like most readers, who actually like this character. I always thought it was amusing that Harris gave Lecter all the great lines, the most withering put-downs, the best taste, the highest IQ, and then turns around every third page and reminds us that he’s a MONSTAH, dammit, which makes you feel bad for ever wanting to have dinner with him (at a restaurant). Because this was pre-monstrous Hannibal, you don’t feel so guilty about it.

I see from the casting that “Hannibal Rising,” the released-in-February (kiss of death) movie, will feature two of my favorite HBO series actors — Kevin McKidd (Lucius Vorenus in “Rome”) and Dominic West (Jimmy McNulty in “The Wire”), the former as a bad guy, the latter as a French police inspector. It’s going to be accent-a-palooza, I can just see it now. Maybe I should call Ron. I think we have a bad-movie date coming.

Sorry for taking the day off. I was tired. Although I probably should come up with a better excuse; who isn’t tired in January? How about: I was in mourning for Gerald Ford, and it just seemed wrong to fritter time away blogging.

But really, I was tired. Our friends John and Sam came by on their way back home to Atlanta — they’ve been in Michigan most of the last three months (sick parents), but we haven’t seen each other. It seemed time to take the night off, go spend some money on beef tenderloin and open a few bottles of wine. (Although I will say: You can spend all you want on beef tenderloin, but you know what’s a bigger hit? Picking up a couple dozen tamales in Mexicantown for microwavable breakfasts. My kitchen still smells like salsa.)

So, anyway: Tired, but now rested. Back in the proverbial saddle. But I need to hustle. A freelancer’s income depends on multiple income streams, and all the streams are trickles at the moment. There are a few checks expected in the next few weeks, but it’s time for QueryFest 07. Oh, well — what else is January for?

Of course, thanks to the newspaper business, the ranks of potential freelancers swells seemingly hourly. It’s a jungle out there. In the sturm und drang of my last days in Fort Wayne, I talked regularly with a friend who works as a newspaper journalist in another city. His advice: “Don’t get bitter.” Exchanged e-mail with him yesterday, and learned his wife didn’t escape the reaper’s blade in Philadelphia this week. Guess what? He’s bitter.

Ah, but enough of that. This new year more than any in recent memory, I’m sensing a vibe of Big Change in the air. I know now that big change is as likely to be cancer or terrorist attacks as a new pony under the Christmas tree, but I’m choosing to be optimistic. You really do never know, and that’s why we get up every morning: To know.

Actually, yesterday I got up for another reason — I had to be Cocoa Mom at Kate’s school, to make warm chocolate sustenance for the incoming crossing guards, who are inordinately exposed to the elements as part of their duties. This being the Winter That Wasn’t, it was a borderline day; you’re excused from duty if the temperature is above 45 degrees. It was a couple below that, so I came in and stirred up a couple pots of Swiss Miss. Most of the takers were boys, who then sat down around a table in the small kitchen area to drink. I turned around, and caught them in a brief moment when their poses were not that of little boys, but of old men talking over coffee in all the places that old men do that — a casual slump, one hand wrapped around the cup, staring into the middle distance, dreaming of whatever. One boy wore, with no apparent sense of irony, a Sinatra-style fedora, which is probably why my mind made the connection. I just stood there for a minute, looking at the old men they will become (if they’re lucky enough to live that long), enjoying this moment of time travel before the bell rang. A little gift from the cosmos.

And now a little gift of bloggage:

When conservatives get high, they get high with a doctor’s prescription: William Rehnquist, addict. A fascinating story, really, which would have been an interesting cautionary tale, had its central figure chosen to tell it before he died. It seems the man in the striped judicial robes fell victim to a classic trope of the age: If it comes from a doctor, it’s not a drug, it’s medicine. Only the medicine was Placidyl, a “sleep aid” that could knock out an elephant, and the judge was taking three times the prescribed dose. Withdrawal made him a raving loon, and he tried to escape the hospital in his jammies.

Why laid-off newspaper journalists get bitter: “There has not been an occasion for many months when I got on our plane without wondering whether it was really affordable. But I’m not prepared to reenact the French Revolutionary renunciation of the rights of the nobility.” An inside look at the looting of the Chicago Sun-Times. Don’t read if you’re on blood-pressure medication.

One dark cloud on our visit with our friends came when they were preparing to leave early yesterday morning, and John checked his e-mail one last time, only to learn of the death of a college friend, Steve Korte. John writes a nice remembrance, but I’m linking separately to a little treat within for you Columbus natives: Steve’s recreation of “Wake Up, Mr. Tree,” beloved by all Columbus kids who watched “Luci’s Toyshop,” which is to say, all Columbus kids.

I’ve loved Djimon Hounsou since I saw his staggeringly fine ass in “Gladiator,” and resented the preachy movies of Edward Zwick since I saw “Glory” for the second time. Joe Queenan has his own problems with the Zwickian genre, perhaps best described as Whitey Saves the Black Folk. The usual Queenanesque evisceration.

Now I gotta go make dog biscuits. Why? Because I care, that’s why.