Wes Phillips

On the eve of the release of The Simpsons movie, Ian Jones explains when and why the TV show began to suck (he says it was in season 9, 1997). Will the movie reflect the glory of the first eight seasons or will it disappoint? The trailers have not embiggened my enthusiasm.

Harry Patch, the last survivor of Passchendaele, did something 500,000 of his mates didn't: He survived the three months of carnage. He's the last WWI Tommy.

"A multi-institutional consortium including Duke University has created startlingly crisp 3-D microscopic views of tiny mouse brains—unveiled layer by layer—by extending the capabilities of conventional magnetic resonance imaging."

The New York Times has a dating column? The things you miss if you don't buy the Sunday Getting & Having edition.

Some music really does suck—um, create a differential affect gap.

I loved Doug Marlette. His political cartoons were so sharp that I almost always laughed out loud—even when he slaughtered some of my sacred cows. I suppose that's one of the signs of really good political humor, since all of us can laugh at the other side's foibles.

"You better not lie," the song tells us, but flying reindeer and a benevolent fat guy in a red suit is hardly an advertisement for truthiness.