LATEST ADDITIONS

Fred, Brooklyn's "honorary detective" undercover kitty, is dead at the age of one.

Today's Jon Carroll column doesn't <I>exactly</I> answer yesterday's link to Clay Risen's critique of Claire Hoffman's Joe Francis story (man, is this blog getting self-referential or what), but it does neatly expose Risen's glaring flaw: Journalism isn't just one thing.

Watch the blooming of Brooklyn Botanic Garden's titan arum (<I>Amorphophallus titanum</I>), aka the "corpse flower" because it "releases a monstrous stench of putrefaction at peak bloom."

Bagheera, tiring of being compared to a recumbent Modigliani model, tries for some Julian Schnabel neo-expressionism.

I'll have to check with JA to be sure (he remembers these things better than anyone), but I think it was Thursday, August 10, 2000 &#151; exactly six years ago &#151; that I first sat down in front of a computer screen for <i>Stereophile</i>.

Possible photo captions:

<I>The Morning News</I>' Clay Risen thinks the <I>LA Times</I> shouldn't have published Claire Hoffman's story on <I>Girls Gone Wild</I> sleazeball Joe Francis. Risen thinks Hoffman couldn't write objectively about a man who assaulted her.