Wes Phillips

"No crunchy goodness," grouses Bagheera. "Truly, you are dead to me."

Just a reminder that there are only 11 days left until Talk">http://www.talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html">Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Maps with South on the top. Antipodal revenge?

Frederick Crews' Follies of the Wise puts the boot to Freud, creationism, and "peacemaking scientists" who attempt to reconcile science with "improbable claims that are in principle empirically testable."

What a shock, a hard-hitting Slate article—on Robert Christgau's firing, no less. Jody Rosen's appreciation of Christgau is spot on: When he's good, he's brilliant, but he does have some seemingly inconsistent blind spots.

Scott Berkun has written a nice essay on writing—or more specifically, on overcoming writer's block. He leaves out the one that usually works for me: Work for an editor you don't want to disappoint. Of course, spending the money before you get the check works, too—although apparently not for everyone.

Business Week writes about the increasingly sophisticated measures stores are using to prevent shoplifting. Okay, but when I was in retail and I took inventory control classes, the experts said the most effective anti-shoplifting measure was the phrase, "Can I help you?"