You know, if writers at The Nation are going to persist in saying smart things like this about the Media Anti-Christ (hint: you’re soaking in it), I may have to re-up my subscription.

And 2002 continues to shape up: I just found out that I live not two blocks from the former home of the legendary Harry Smith. If you do not know who Harry Smith was, I had a better 2001 than you did but your 2002 is looking bright. If you do know who Harry Smith was, share my contented joy when I tell you that on summer nights, that block is often graced with a man who sits on his stoop playing the mandolin, playing it well.

There’s a happier year in store for New York. All hail (*ack*) Steinbrenner (*cough*) for doing what’s necessary to heal the city’s wounds, and may I say it’s about freakin’ time you soul-leaching SOB.

The Sexchart (now notorious) engenders the following reactions: 1) It’s incomplete. 2) No wonder the West Coast digerati sucks for dot-com vision; they’re all off boinking like bunnies. 3) If you play it right, college can go on for a really long time.

More on the shoe-bomb guy: This diary entry from a passenger on that flight is quite impressive. And airport “security” appears to have had no effect on anything. *sigh*

(And one last update on shoe bombs and Secret Service guys: This column, which really sort of covers the waterfront.)

Salon’s horrendous page design (crash central lately, no?) is worth slogging through for this absorbing memoir from an ex-fundamentalist, Christian division. If you have any doubt that bin Laden and Falwell are in their essence very similar men, operating in a parallel worldview (“parallel” in both senses, both absolutely aligned and destined never to converge), read this.

So this guy shows up with real live Secret Service credentials, goes through a background check several times over, and then some Air Force Academy washout decides he’s just not qualified to be a passenger on his plane? No, no racial profiling here. I cannot believe our Congress handed American Airlines billions of dollars in bailout money when we could be spending it on a company that deserves to stay in business. Of course, there are those who note that once the country’s most customer-unfriendly industry takes the multibillion-dollar bait, it damn straight better be on the hook to improve its attitude. (Any chance of some of the loot going for charm-school tuition for stewardesses? Boy and girl stewardesses alike. I’m fair-minded like that.)

Santa Claus: Bad for kids? This nifty essay at kuro5hin is food for thought.

Thanks much, by the way, to all you kind folk who’ve commented on the YIL Falwell letters-to-the-editor and my rebuttal. (No, I won’t back down. Why would I back down from calling Jerry Falwell a butthead? Do you think that’s negotiable?) I am pleased to report that wiser commentators than I have weighed in…

And the clouds of political repression continue to gather: American snitch culture barrels onward like an ill-trained dog with the Constitution between its teeth.