Wes Phillips

Plep points us toward this gallery of Penn prints at the National Gallery. Amazing how much detail you get in this analog format—go ahead, enlarge 'em and see.

Well, actually, it suggests that, by wearing a helmet when I cycle, I give motorists the feeling I'm invulnerable.

Perhaps not, but PhysOrg.com reports that two Italian physicists have written a paper suggesting that the concepts of dark energy and dark matter might be the result of "improper" gravitational theory.

I was ruminating on the Dave Barry "On Hallowed Ground" essay, wondering if there was another example of great war or crisis writing I could link to, when I thought about A. J. Liebling's WWII work for The New Yorker.

Yes, it's the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and the media coverage is relentless. However, despite all the hoopla, the solemnity of the day can still sneak up on you—it happened to Jeff Wong and me this morning as we completed out daily bike ride and came upon a memorial service for firemen and policemen from our neighborhood who died that day.

The National Portrait Gallery does caricature. Its collection is incomplete though—no Jeff Wong. Yet.

It might be a duck anyway—or at least it was meant to be.