Category: The Dish

"Apology: Augustus Caesar. In our review last week of Lucien Polastron’s book on libraries we said that Augustus had destroyed the Alexandrian library in 48BC. Since the lad, then called Octavian, was only 15 at the time, he obviously didn’t.  And Julius Caesar, who did, hadn’t actually meant to. We apologise to Mr Polastron, the many well-educated readers who have complained, and to Augustus, now divine," – the Economist this week, print edition.

I’m just grateful the real Hillary Clinton is now up for discussion:

Dodd’s new ad is also pretty toxic to the Clinton machine.

Berkeley, California, 9 am.

Flickrvision. Like The View From Your Window, but on meth.

It is by far the biggest change I have experienced in my quarter century living in America: the experience of coming and going. While the illegal border is still chaotic, the legal border seems to be getting more and more onerous, unwelcoming, bureaucratic and sometimes terrifying. Getting any kind of visa can be a nightmare of bureaucracy; being finger-printed and treated like a criminal is the first actual experience many foreigners have of entering the US, and the process of getting through customs and immigration can be, even in completely incident-free circumstances, frightening. My elderly mother arrived for my wedding and started sobbing in my arms after the rough treatment she had received from airport security. The reputation of the US under Bush is in the toilet. But the experience of actually entering America may be affecting far more. These little anecdotes spread. And, in the end, Americans pay the price – in lost tourism revenue, less trade, forgone taxes, and so on. When Bush goes, the country’s reputation will instantly soar (unless he’s succeeded by Giuliani, in which case, we’re headed for pariah status). But unless we get a grip on the police state atmosphere at the legal border, the opinion of mankind with respect to America will only continue to worsen.

A fascinating series of comments about the art of blogging. Kudos to Matt for inviting it. This is not an invitation to a similar critique, mind you.   

Since this discussion is already underway: Yes, there’s a connection.

A reader emailed me wondering if my failure to provide any health updates was some kind of bad sign. Nah. My latest bloodwork was among the strongest I’ve had in fourteen years of being HIV-positive: undetectable viral load and my CD4 cells near an all-time high. I’m grateful for having employer-based insurance, private and public sector research, good doctors whom I had the right to choose, the pharmaceutical companies and lucky genes. I cannot forget those I left behind, or the terror – and I mean terror – of the past. But I figure the best way to remember the unlucky ones is to live well until I die. And one day, maybe, this country will stop discriminating against people with HIV and repeal the Jesse Helms provision that keeps me and many others from becoming a citizen of the country we love. But gay HIV-positive immigrants are not exactly popular right now, are they?

Britain’s Sainsbury’s in Greenwich. Pretty cool.

But you knew that already. Happy Friday: