The Dish

A lovely memoir of meeting the legendary critic when she was retired and in her Massachusetts home. Money quote:

Her house is stone and shingle and very large, and I saw a deer duck into the trees at the corner of the yard as I came up the driveway. I knocked on the screen door and she looked out. She was sitting in a wooden chair. "My God, you’re just a kid," she said.

She told me to open the door. I tried it. I told her it was locked. She told me the lock had been stiff for 20 years, and that I should just fiddle with it. She said she knew it was 20 years because she’d just finished paying off her mortgage.

I fiddled with the lock for a minute and got the door open. We shook hands and I said: "It’s very nice to meet you. How are you?"

"Old," she said.

The netroots want to go to Iraq. The more viewpoints there the better.

A picture tells a thousand words.

The place is so wracked with violence it’s beginning to resemble Baghdad.

Benedict, new, self-made rules, and a nun cured of Parkinsons: JPII is on his way to sainthood.

How do we tell them apart? Why is ritalin legit but cocaine not? An exploration.

"From the time I was arrested five years ago, they have been torturing me. It happened during interviews. One time they tortured me one way, and another time they tortured me in a different way. I just said those things to make the people happy. They were very happy when I told them those things," – Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, speaking of his time at Gitmo.

The transcripts have been censored to remove any details of the actual torture methods alleged. And here is the official response:

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield wouldn’t respond to al-Nashiri’s allegations, but said Friday that the agency’s interrogation program is conducted lawfully – "with great care and close review, producing vital information that has helped disrupt plots and save lives."

Notice that he does not deny torture. In fact, his words could be construed as justifying it. We have gone from "we do not torture" to no comment. One would like to disbelieve everything Nashiri says. But on what rational basis can we now do so?

A reader writes:

You ask:

Will Christianists ever stop violating his teachings?

Well, nothing’s slowed ’em down yet. Here’s my pet peeve: Christianists arguing about the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Jesus made it pretty plain that they are not to take an oath at all, much less one sworn in the name of God (which "under God" at least implies). In fact, in his discussion of the subject, Jesus counsels against taking an oath in the name of heaven, earth or Jerusalem, but doesn’t even mention taking an oath directly in the name of God. I would guess that’s for the simple reason that he couldn’t even imagine such a thing.

I know all the hair-splitting arguments used to excuse Christians from this proscription on oath-taking, but Jesus’ words seems pretty plain on this one:

"Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil."

Even if we make room for the necessary "civil" oaths used in courtrooms and other legal matters, it’s plain Jesus was recommending that his followers dispense with any voluntary, self-initiated oath-taking. So why the constant agitation over the Pledge? Answer: It’s not really Jesus that matters.

It isn’t, is it?

The momentum builds.

Sze Hang Yu of Hong Kong competes in the Women’s 50m Butterfly Heat during the XII FINA World Championships at the Rod Laver Arena on March 30, 2007 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)