File under, what? A special place in hell? That special place having been reserved for one Dennis O’Brien, a man so greedy, so thoughtless, that he ripped off the estate the widowered and now-deceased father of an autistic, Stanley Mich, who worked for years to save for the extended, the life-long, care of his son, Ronnie Mich.

The Philadelphia Inquirer today reports, in “Ex-lawyer Plans to Ask for Reduced Prison Term,” by Edward Colimore:

A disbarred Camden County lawyer who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for stealing $2.76 million from clients, including an autistic man, will ask an appeals panel March 8 to reduce his jail time.

Dennis O’Brien, who built a practice around a reputation as a churchgoing family man, wants the judges to consider his cooperation in repaying his 39 victims.

None of the former clients have yet received money from the liquidation of O’Brien’s assets, though more than $750,000 is likely to be amassed by a court-appointed special master for disbursement.

Quick math: $750,000 / $2,760,000 = 27 percent.

Mr. Colimore of the Inquirer continues:

O’Brien, 62, of Haddon Heights [N.J.], pleaded guilty in August 2003 to two counts of theft. One accused him of stealing about $850,000 from the estate of Stanley Mich of Audubon [N.J.], who had left the money for the care of his autistic son.

The son, Ronnie Mich, now 62, had been used to a life of familiar surroundings but was forced to sell his house and move into an adult group home for the disabled. [Ed.: “His house” here refers to the home of Stanley Mich, who scrimped and saved to ensure that property was available in perpetuity to his son.]

Mich later received $150,000 from the Fund for Client Protection and tens of thousands of dollars in donations from the public. [...]

[O’Brien] was ordered then to forfeit his law license and pay $269,000 in restitution. He was sentenced to four years in prison on that offense, to be completed concurrently with the 18 years. [...]

O’Brien’s attorney, Robert Agre, will appear before the appeals panel March 8 to argue for a reduced sentence.

Mr. Colimore of the Inquirer doesn’t address the matter specifically, but Mr. Agre, of Adinolfi & Spveak, P.A., Haddonfield, N.J. (A “family law practice,” they say!) presumably will show up in court undisguised, as is his choice and, presumably, wont.

The Inquirer reporter continues:

“The principal mitigating factor is his cooperation,” Agre said. The panel “would have to decide whether [State Superior Court] Judge [Linda G.] Baxter gave it proper weight.”

Agre said the judges could affirm Baxter’s decision, resentence O’Brien, or return the matter to Baxter for reconsideration of the sentence.

The nerve. That’s all I have to say at this point about Mr. O’Brien. The nerve. Oh wait, and the gall. The unmitigated gall.

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Good God, I hope this post isn’t -- and won’t ever be updated to become a post -- about suicide, but today’s submission by Philadelphia Inquirer television columnist Gail Shister, “Allen-Stephens Retiring, Husband’s Death the Last Blow,” sent chills up and down my spine.

Ms. Shister, discussing the retirement -- for lack, and I mean that, of a better word -- of Sheela Allen-Stephens of Philadelphia’s WCAU-TV (Channel 10, NBC; picked up on channel five on my TV, but that’s another story), wrote, among much else:

A force of nature in our town for almost 30 years, the popular features reporter will retire as of tomorrow.

“I’ve lost my husband, my health, and I have no job,” Allen-Stephens, 61, said in an emotional interview. “I’m not doing so good without him. People think grief has a certain time limit. It doesn’t.”

Lonnie Stephens, 52, a longtime cameraman at `CAU, lost his seven-month battle with multiple myeloma Dec. 20. The two had been married since Christmas Day 1984.

“Lonnie’s long battle with cancer took its toll on my health, my heart and my well-being. I lost the most important thing in my world.

“All I can say is that I’m not me anymore. I don’t know how long I can take it. I always thought of us as a one-two punch. I may join him soon. I’m good with that.”

Allen-Stephens joined `CAU in March 1977 as a general-assignment reporter, focusing on offbeat stories and entertainment pieces. [...]

Says she: “I hate not being able to step up to the plate. Some of that spark and magic is still there, but most of it is gone. I’m hanging on by an artery.”

Is it apparent only to me that Mrs. Allen-Stephens, who continues to live with extraordinary physical challenges, is in great -- excrutiating, even -- emotional pain, hurting badly and to a scary extent? There are yellow flags being thrown up and out and everywhere in the presumed fragments of Ms. Shister’s interview we were privileged to read.

I trust Ms. Shister took her conversation with Mrs. Allen-Stephens to greater and more private depths than were shared with Inquirer readers, but I, or we, don’t know that, do I, do we?

Mrs. Allen-Stephens so obviously needs help -- serious, professional help -- to deal with her grief and the myriad hellblocks life has sent her way.

I hope and pray she’s getting it.

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Something weird is going on.

My iPod play list, or the iPod play list I would have if I owned an iPod, appears to have been hijacked.

Several favorite songs, or songs I like, at least, currently are running in different, oft-apearing television advertisements, including, but not limited to: “The Girl From Ipanema” (Special K), “Windy” (Talbots), “Happiness Runs” (Delta Airlines), and “Beautiful World” (Toyota Avalon).

This is surprising because I’m not a popular-music kind of guy, nor am I known for my taste in this field, both conclusions you probably determined on your own based on the songs mentioned above.

And for me to be even vaguely familiar with four songs now in play, four tunes still residing in the collective psyche of what remains of “Madison Avenue,” is nothing short of amazing.

Time to send my resume up north.

By the way, I also like the song Sea World is using in its commercials, but I don’t know its name, nor the name of the artist.

[Post-publication addendum: A recent, more recent than that preceding this post, Google search reveals the Sea World commercial employs “The Child Inside,” by Qkumba Zoo.]

[Post-publication addendum (March 8): How could I have forgotten Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life,” currently featured in television ads for Royal Caribbean International?]

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Seen, but not overheard, not exactly overheard anyway: Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and his wife, Joan Specter, in Center City Philadelphia, dining with a third party at Meritage, 500 S. 20th St., Saturday, February 26.

The old guy’s looking pretty good, chemotherapy and all.

What? You were expecting fisticuffs? (Gawd, I love that word.)

What? You expected me to write something snarky?

Please, the man has Hodgkin’s disease.

Once it clears, though, it’s back to business as usual around here. I assure you.

[Note: This post previously was published at TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse.]

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Several times this year I’ve asked readers to help with a nascent writing project, asking readers in or around Santa Monica, Calif., Marquette, Mich., and Lexington, Mass., for a few of photographs of a specific building in each locale.

I’m back again, this time looking for a reader willing to take photographs, in digital or traditional format, of a former church in Pendleton, Ore. As always, I can offer little more than my gratitude and a mention in the future book’s acknowledgements section.

If you can help, please let me know.

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Trust me when I tell you I take no joy in once again blogging about suicide, but in today’s New York Times there is a massive and alarming exposé, and that’s the only word for it, about jailhouse suicides, “In City’s Jails, Missed Signals Open Way to Season of Suicides,” by Paul von Zielbauer, an investigative piece a year in the making, that raises dozens of questions about attitudes toward the mentally ill and persons charged with crimes (often petty crimes), and, even more so, about the privatization of municipal services. (Hint: It’s not working.)

Von Zielbauer reports:

The death of Carina Montes was one in a spate of suicides in New York City jails in 2003 -- six in just six months, more than in any similar stretch since 1985. None of these people had been convicted of the charges that put them in jail. But in Ms. Montes’s death and four of the five others, government investigators reached a stinging judgment about one or both of the authorities responsible for their safety: Prison Health Services [Inc.], the nation’s largest for-profit provider of inmate medical care, and the city correction system. [Ed.: Prison Health is a subsidiary of America Service Group Inc. (Nasdaq: ASGR.)]

In their reports, investigators faulted a system in which patients’ charts were missing, alerts about despondent inmates were lost or unheeded, and neither medical personnel nor correction officers were properly trained in preventing suicide, the leading cause of deaths in American jails.

Prison Health has some explaining to do, as von Zielbauer reports:

The rash of suicides, and nine more during Prison Health’s tenure, is one measure of the company’s uneven and at times troubling record in meeting that challenge. But there are others.

Ten psychiatrists with foreign medical degrees were allowed to practice without state certification for more than a year after they were supposed to have been fired for failing to pass the necessary test. When it finally dismissed them on the city's orders in 2003, Prison Health was left with about one-third of its full-time psychiatrist positions empty, according to city health department figures.

The company has employed five doctors with criminal convictions, including one who had been jailed for selling human blood for phony tests to be billed to Medicaid. In all, at least 14 doctors who have worked for Prison Health have state or federal disciplinary records, among them a psychiatrist forbidden to practice in New Jersey after state officials blamed him for a patient’s fatal drug overdose.

The city’s Board of Correction, an oversight agency that sets minimum standards for jails, has complained that the company shuffles doctors from jail to jail -- regardless of where they are needed -- to avoid city fines and create the illusion that each building is properly staffed.

Many of the 30 current or former Prison Health employees interviewed for this article described an effort that, whatever its good intentions, frequently fails to adequately treat the mental illnesses that inmates take into jail and that follow them back out. [...]

Forever unable to find enough psychiatrists, the company plugs the gap by hiring part-timers, as well as psychiatrists from temporary agencies, some of whom may never have treated inmates. More than one-third of the mental health staff is part time.

Doctors rely on medical charts that have often been out of date or simply unavailable because of a shortage of clerks, according to the Board of Correction. Psychiatric evaluations and medications have been delayed for days or weeks, while inmates sometimes turn violent or suicidal, say the board and Prison Health employees.

The city itself, still working through the excesses of the administration of former mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), also is not blameless:

Of course, the demands on Prison Health and the correction system are tremendous. The mentally ill have flooded New York's jails ever since the city cracked down a decade ago on lesser crimes like vagrancy. As many as one in four of the 14,000 prisoners in city jails on an average day have psychological ills, which need close supervision and expensive medicines. Often they fake symptoms or attempt suicide as a way of getting special treatment. In those ways, a mentally ill inmate jailed on a minor charge usually requires closer attention than a career criminal.

Here’s the beginning of the company’s attempt to do explain itself, as reported by the Times:

Prison Health Services, a Nashville-area corporation that bills itself as the gold standard of jail health care, says it has done a solid job at Rikers and a 10th jail, in Lower Manhattan, caring for more than 100,000 inmates a year as part of its largest contract among scores across the nation.

The company says it has worked hard to find qualified mental health specialists, held increases in medical expenses below the national average, and saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

There is little dispute that New York City has long insisted on more generous jail care than most other places; the suicide rate, even under Prison Health, is about half the national average for jails.

Then again, the rate was lower before Prison Health arrived. And in the four years since, the rate of suicides at Rikers has been higher than in the Los Angeles jail system, the largest and one of the most violent in the nation.

Like I said, it isn’t working.

[Post-publication addendum (March 1): See also “Just As You Did It to the Least of These,” at the RiverStone Journal.]

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Enjoy a few more reviews of “Dalí,” now on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

“A Sweeping Triumph of Surrealism and Social Significance,” by Clare Henry, Financial Times, February 28. Pull quotes: “Few artists can sustain a major, exhaustive retrospective without being diminished in some way. Happily, Salvador Dalí, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is not only a superb tribute to the painter’s centenary, but also a definitive exhibition that repositions this controversial figure as a great 20th-century artist. . . . After a debut in Venice, Philadelphia is, regrettably, the only venue in North America for this enthralling show, which will give its viewers a new appreciation of this enormously gifted painter.”

“Surreality Show,” by Dan Bischoff, Newark Star-Ledger, February 20. Pull quote: “Well hello, Dalí.” Argh! And then: “It’s so nice to have the Catalonian tornado back where he belongs -- not, unfortunately, in the city he made his home for so long, New York, but then not in St. Petersburg, Fla., either, where he put his American museum, down there among the flamingoes and Art Deco beach resorts and Jeb Bush.” You got a problem with Philadelphia, Dan?

“The Surreal Life,” by Carol Strickland, The Christian Science Monitor, February 25. Pull quotes: “`Best in Show’ honors for the current retrospective go to ‘Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War),’ Dalí’s haunting evocation of the Spanish Civil War. In this antiwar painting, an agonized head screams to the sky. Its gnarled toes grip a desolate landscape. The distorted figure, its belly a void roughly the shape of Spain, hints at the cannibalistic corrosion of European civilization in 1936.” And: “One could fault Dalí for constant trendiness, as his style hopscotched from one fad to the next. Dalí’s output often seems like a refracted mirror of the Top 40 of Great Art. He mimics and puts his own spin on movements (like Impressionism, post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Neoclassicism) and masters like Vermeer, Goya, Raphael, and -- above all -- his countryman Picasso. Yet it’s not fair to say Dalí was a follower. Even though his influences were legion, as the Dalí scholar Dawn Ades, cocurator of the current show, says, ‘He was always plowing his own furrow.’ Metamorphosis was his game, and his coded subjects -- regardless of the style du jour -- were always the Freudian bugbears of death, sex, and family crisis.”

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Is there something in the air? For the fourth time in a week, I’m blogging about suicide, this time in reference to a disturbing report in today’s Washington Post, “Suicides in Marine Corps Rise by 29%,” by Ann Scott Tyson:

The Marine Corps suffered a 29 percent spike in suicides last year, reaching the highest number in at least a decade, with the demanding pace of military operations likely contributing to the deaths, the top-ranking U.S. Marine said yesterday.

Thirty-one Marines committed suicide in 2004, all of them enlisted men, not commissioned officers. The majority were younger than 25 and took their lives with gunshot wounds, according to Marine statistics. Another 83 Marines attempted suicide. There were 24 suicides in 2003, and there have not been more than 29 in any year in the last 10.

Marine commanders say the rise in suicides continues a worrisome three-year trend that is likely linked to stress from the sharply increased pace of war-zone rotations. At the same time, they said the increase in suicides is not directly related to service in Iraq or Afghanistan; since 2001 24 percent of the suicides have been committed by Marines who have been deployed there, the statistics show.

It is “not only Iraq, it’s just the ops tempo [operational tempo] in general, that’s what I think,” Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the Marine Corps commandant, told reporters at a breakfast meeting yesterday.

According to Tyson, Hagee warned that some Marines believe seeking help leads to stigmatization:

“They may feel it is not acceptable to ask for help because they don't want to be labeled as ‘weak’ or ‘defective’ in the eyes of their subordinates, peers, or leaders,” he wrote. Commanders, he emphasized, must redouble their efforts to make Marines feel comfortable in revealing problems that could lead to suicide.

Sadly, studies show that’s true among the civilian (particularly the male civilian) population, though there was this piece of comparatively good news in Tyson’s article:

Although last year’s suicide rate rose, it was still below the national average for a comparable civilian group, in keeping with an established pattern of suicide being lower in the U.S. military than in the civilian population.

I didn’t know that.

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By way of Plucky Punk’s Happy Land, the blog written by Vanessa Gatsch, I learn not only that my “dominant intelligence” is “linguistic intelligence,” but that I share that trait with Ms. Gatsch herself.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convi[n]cing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

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Jeanne d’Arc of Body & Soul offers some thoughts about the new Iraq in “Hell and High Water”:

Right now it looks like the best outcome anyone can realistically imagine in Iraq -- the outcome that doesn't involve civil war and the kind of complete social collapse that made Afghanistan a happy home for terrorists -- is something that may not be worse than Saddam, but, if you’re one of the out groups, doesn’t look like much of an improvement either.

With the near certainty of Ibrahim Jafari becoming prime minister, it’s impossible to conceive of women’s rights being equal to what they were in pre-war Iraq. Jafari was behind a move last year to make sharia the legal basis for family law. [...]

So let’s see what we have here. Religious fanatics controlling women’s lives. A convicted embezzler [Ahmad Chalabi] running the most lucrative parts of the economy. And “security” in the hands of death squads.

Forget whether or not this is the democracy the neo-cons promised. That’s always been a bad joke. The question now is, is it even an improvement?

Let’s call it “Asylum: Lunatics in Control of,” the Iraqi version.

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Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane’s Notables, Dubya’s Dayly Diary, and President Boxer (How is that for a woman blogging?!), has written an ode, a short poem, “in honor” of increasingly self-disgraced blogger Kevin Drum entitled “Ode To A Dull Drum Beat.”

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Philadelphia novelist and blogger Jennifer Weiner (see SnarkSpot) was a guest on “The Jane Pauley Show” today as one of three panelists discussing the topic “A Shift Towards Tolerance,” and, gee whiz, I missed it.

I trust Ms. Weiner had the opportunity to promote her newest book, Little Earthquakes, available in bookstores everywhere and at The Rittenhouse Review (see “Buy Yourself Some Books” in the sidebar at right).

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The reviews of “Dalí,” now showing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, continue to trickle out.

Among the latest notices in the popular media:“Dream Merchant,” by Ariella Budick, New York Newsday, February 20; “Dalí: The Artist as Marketer,” by Ariella Budick, New York Newsday, February 23; and “Dalí Reframed,” by Lennie Bennett, St. Petersburg Times, February 21.

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Tonight’s the night, the big night, the final episode of the first season (I hope it’s the first of many) of Bravo TV’s “Project Runway.”

If my predictions are any guide, in less than an hour unworthy sackcloth designer, orthopaedic-shoe aficionada, misdirected -- and dowdy, don’t forget dowdy --wannabe-chemist-in-a-lab-coat, and photo-defacer Wendy “Man Hands” Pepper will be shown the door to the sweatshop sewing pool by the show’s other two finalists, Kara Saun and Jay McCarroll, with Kara most likely to emerge the winner.

(See also, “Pennsylvania Designer Could Cut It,” by Elizabeth Wellington, Philadelphia Inquirer, February 23.)

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Congratulations are in order to fellow Philadelphia bloggers and friends Duncan Black of Eschaton and Susan Madrak of Suburban Guerrilla, winners of the 2004 Koufax Awards for, respectively, Best Blog: Non-Sponsored Division and Blog Most Deserving of Wider Recongition.

The Rittenhouse Review was passed over in both categories for which this blog was nominated: Best Blog: Non-Sponsored Division and Best Writing. No matter, as it’s truly an honor just to be nominated. It really is.

[Post-publication correction (February 24): Whoa. Dumb blogging alert. I meant Philadelphia bloggers take one, as Daily Kos, and not Eschaton, was named “best blog.” (See comment below.) Sorry about that.]

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Ruth R. Wisse, flaming neocon, Commentary contributor, Bush supporter, friend of Midge, and the Ann Farnsworth Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish literature at Harvard University, speaks out, appropriately crankily and absurdly ideologically, about the controversy surrounding her ultimate boss, Harvard president Lawrence “Larry” Summers in Tuesday’s Philadelphia Inquirer.

Midge, Friend of Barbie, Friend of Ruth

Ms. Wisse screeches:

A vocal part of the faculty was looking for the chance to reclaim their hegemony. These are people frustrated that they can’t unseat President Bush, and he is the closest thing that [sic] they can depose. Since he [Summers] appears to be somewhat to the right of them, he will suffice as a surrogate. I would hope these forces would be exposed: This is a place that wants to deny people free speech.

Now, I don’t know whether the doctorate-less Ms. Wisse is tenured at Harvard, but if she is, may I ask, in view of the lunacy quoted above, Why?

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Sisyphus Shrugged Julia in a recent post, “The Sad Thing Is,” wrote, somewhat offhandedly yet simultaneously tapping one of the great mysteries of the blogosphere: “My own painstakingly researched report ‘S.Z.: When does she sleep?’ will be coming as soon as I get around to sending her an e-mail and asking.”

That’s a post I look forward to with eagerness and wonder, as I often have asked myself the same question.

Best I could tell, the enigmatic and intensely private S.Z., nemesis of conservative poseurs of the most contemptible sort and author of the groudbreaking and supremely original weblog, World O’ Crap, began her blogging career on the East Coast, and that at a time when I arose, also on the East Coast, at 5:30 a.m. each weekday to write a nationally syndicated radio program (read by someone else, natch).

Back then I decided, for what that was worth, that S.Z. had to be getting up some time around 3:00 a.m. Sleep, I thought, must play a negligible role in this remarkable woman’s life. Since then, however, S.Z. has gone all “Westward Ho!” on us, and I can’t begin to figure out when she sleeps, let alone if she does so. No matter, really. I’m just along for the great ride.

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I urge readers to set aside some time to read the recent, and outstanding, two-part essay, “Speaking For Myself” (Yes, women bloggers can do that, and quite well, they thank you very much.), by Barbara O’Brien of The Mahablog (part two of the essay is here), an examination of the alleged “death of liberalism” posited by all-too-pleased-to-take-on-the-job liberalism-killer Martin Peretz of the once great New Republic.

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I can’t believe I’m writing about suicide again, this for the third time in a week, but, well, here we are, as the circumstances require another post.

In today’s Philadelphia Inquirer there is an article, “U.S. Wants ‘Gay’ Out of Title of Suicide Discussion,” by Rick Weiss, reprinted from a recent issue of the Washington Post, that about set my hair on fire.

The Bush administration-appointed right wingers running the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services have spent countless hours and untold effort to prevent attendees -- doctors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, therapists, professionals, and experts, you know, grown-ups, that kind of thing -- of an upcoming (February 28) conference in Portland, Ore., from hearing such shocking words as “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” and “transgender,” lest, I presume, these same doctors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, therapists, professionals, and experts, you know, grown-ups, might be reminded, in Weiss’s words, that “the suicide risk among people in these groups is two to three times higher than the average risk.”

With -- I think -- unintended irony, to say nothing of stupidity, Mark Weber, a SAMHSA spokesperson, whined: “It is incredible, the venom from these people. . . . My boss is being called a Nazi.” Weber’s nod to “my boss” apparently is a reference to SAMHSA administrator Charles G. Curie, M.A.

Separately and coincidentally, but relatedly, in today’s Philadelphia Daily News there is a brief item related to the latest Cause of the Month, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the lead paragraph of which reads: “Dwight L. Evans, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has been elected president of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.” Congratulations to Dr. Evans, M.D.

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With no apparent recognition of the historical parallel, Kathryn Jean Lopez Lopez today writes in “The Corner”:

SOME FRIEND [K. J. Lopez ]

What a rotten thing one Doug Wead has done—taping his “friend” [President] George W. [Bush] in the first place, now making the tapes public.

Mrs. Lopez, Mrs. Tripp. Mrs. Tripp, Mrs. Lopez.

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Pat Oliphant on bloggers.

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Gee whiz! Just a few hours after I switch the “Cause of the Month” from the National Parkinson Foundation to the American Foundation for the Prevention of Suicide, a reader writes to alert me to an apparent attempt by has-been politico Susan Estrich to ape -- and I mean that -- Peggy “Just Retards” Noonan.

Ms. Estrich, ever the victim of this, that, and the other thing (attacks real, slights imagined), recently sent several e-mails to Michael Kinsley, editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, complaining about this, that, and the other thing, one of which included this little delight:

[P]eople are beginning to think that your illness may have affected your brain, your judgment, and your ability to do this job.

“People,” Ms. Estrich says with self-righteous authority, despite naming not a single person, not even herself, who is “beginning to think,” or to adopt, the gruesome delusion that has gripped her meagre mind, though readers may fairly assume it is she who is casting this heinous -- and utterly groundless -- aspersion.

For those not aware, it is a fact that Mr. Kinsley has been afflicted with Parkinson’s disease.

And for the rest, it is clear that Ms. Estrich, while seemingly healthy, an appearance she no doubt values greatly as it places her upon an imaginary high ground, is one nasty little guttersnipe, a filthy piece of refuse we should collectively flush into the sewers of public discourse.

[Post-publication addendum: I eagerly await word that Ms. Estrich’s “co-signers” -- Linda Auerbach Allderdice, Iman Anabtawi, Carol Biondi, Wendy Button, Pamela B. Bryan, Linda Burstyn, Sue Cameron, Susan Dolgen, Ellen Carol DuBois, Andrea Duncan, Lenore K. French, Susan Harbert, Christina Harper, Danielle Ilan, Isabel E. Kaplan, Regina Lark, Suzanne Kayne, Abby J. Leibman, Carol Ann Leif, Christine A. Littleton, Karen Mack, Dinah Minot, Pamela Morton, Roxanne G. Neal, Winnifred White Neisser, Patricia Peyser, Katherine Reback, Nancy Daly Riordan, Dolores Robinson, Debbie Leilani Shon, Rosa Sierra, Maxine Sonnenberg, Katherine Spiller, Robin Swicord, Leigh Tobias, Susan Troy, Cathy Unger, Jane Ellison Usher, Hope Warschaw, Lynne Wasserman, Kedren Werner, and Peg Yorkin -- disavow and condemn their feckless leader’s disgusting remarks. Any of these women seeking to do so publicly may send a message to such effect to The Rittenhouse Review. I will gladly publish such correspondence as soon after receipt as possible.]

[Post-publication addendum (February 21): More Kevin Drum needling. In a February 19 post, “Kinsley vs. Estrich” (where there are some outstanding comments), Drum writes: “Michael Kinsley . . . suffers from Parkinson’s disease.” Actually, Kevin, it is more accurate to say one “has been afflicted with Parkinson’s disease” or one “is living with Parkinson’s disease.” This isn’t P.C. chatter; it’s reality.]

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Reader L.H. writes to The Rittenhouse Review after this site shared with readers the timeless classic piece of pseudo-intellectual absurdity, “The Boys on the Beach,” penned by Midge Decter (D) and published in the September 1980 issue of Commentary, a magazine then conveniently -- for her sake -- edited by “Miss Decter”’s second husband, Norman Podhoretz. L.H. writes:

I’m reading it, but it isn’t exactly what I expected. There are just so many layers of crap she heaps upon “homosexuals” that I can’t take more than a few pages at at time.

It’s like I can see the outline she started with, and I can see where she’s headed with it, but I can’t believe she would actually put it out there in such a manner.

Highbrow bigotry, layer upon layer, nice and ugly. It just hurts to read it. And Decter’s final paragraph -- pure hatred!

What a bitch!

But that’s just my take.

Miss Decter’s final paragraph, for the uninitiated, and to which L.H. refers, reads, in its entirety:

One thing is certain. To become homosexual is a weighty act. Taking oneself out of the tides of ordinary mortal existence is not something one does from any longing to think oneself ordinary (but only following a different “lifestyle”). Gay Lib has been an effort to set the weight of that act at naught, to define homosexuality as nothing more than a casual option among options. In accepting the movement’s terms, heterosexuals have only raised to a nearly intolerable height the costs of the homosexual’s flight from normality. Faced with the accelerating round of drugs, S-M, and suicide, can either the movement or its heterosexual sympathizers imagine that they have done anyone a kindness?

Listen, L.H., join the club. And just imagine: Neither Mrs. Midge Rosenthal Decter Podhoretz, nor the little magazine that saw fit to publish her ignorant rant, has deviated one whit from the stance laid out in “The Boys on the Beach” nearly 25 years ago.

Take another flight of imagination, if you will: Mrs. Midge Rosenthal Decter Podhoretz is a woman who has, since this screed was published, been treated with kid gloves by Republicans of the most extreme sort; is a crank who has been appointed to various governmental advisory committees (as a self-described dishonest “Democrat”!) for which her qualifications were scant, if any; is a wealthy woman who with no thought or conscience whatsoever collected remunerations therefor from the U.S. Treasury (i.e., your wallets); and is an out-of-control ideologue who had the gall to write, and have published, a love letter to no lesser a light than Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Such are the times in which we live. Times that, you, L.H., and many others, no doubt already have noticed I will be tracking under the heading, “File Under . . . Asylum, Lunatics in Control of.”

It is not happenstance that Elliott Abrams, a subject of the latest installment of the “File Under” series, is, or was, the son-in-law of Mrs. Midge Rosenthal Decter Podhoretz: Elliott Abrams, the divorcé of her daughter, Rachel Decter, yet another contributor to Commentary.

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Speaking of suicide -- and we were -- even though the month of February has yet to reach its all-too-brief conclusion, The Rittenhouse Review today exchanges the cause or charity of the month from the previously designated and still very worthy National Parkinson Foundation to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the premature swap in recognition of the passing, by his own hand, of Hunter S. Thompson.

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How noble, how thoughtful, and how socially aware of blogger Kevin Drum, a little spare time on his hands, to go looking around for bloggers lacking his “Y” chromosome.

In a few offhand thoughts assembled under the rather predictable -- Or should I say condescending? -- heading “Women’s Opinions,” Drum writes:

Although [the political blogosphere’s] geeky Usenet roots were (and are) testosterone[-]laden affairs, there are still no formal barriers to entry here, no old boys club in the usual meaning of the word. Yet if you take a look at the Blogosphere Ecosystem, which for all its faults is probably the closest thing we have to a consensus measure of popularity for political blogs [Ed.: Uh, no. Try the more accurate Blogstreet rankings instead. There: The Rittenhouse Review: No. 29, Political Animal: No. 31. At the same site, please review the Most Important Blogs: The Rittenhouse Review: No. 4, Political Animal: No. 15.], you will find exactly two women in the top 30: Michelle Malkin and La Shawn Barber. . . .

That’s a grand total of [seven percent] of the most popular political blogs. And to gaze even more deeply into our collective navel [Ed.: Drum’s words, not mine.], that [seven percent] is 100 [percent] conservative. On the liberal side, Wonkette weighs in at [No.] 33 and TalkLeft at [No.] 48 -- and that’s it for the top 100, unless I’ve missed someone.

So what’s up? There aren’t any institutional barriers in the traditional sense of the word, which means either[:] (a) there are fewer female political bloggers and thus fewer in the top 30, [sic] [;] or (b) there are plenty of women who blog about politics but they don’t get a lot of traffic or links.

My guess [sic] is that it’s a bit of both, and the proximate [Ed.: “Proximate”?] reason is that men are more comfortable with the food fight nature of opinion writing -- both writing it and reading it. Since I don’t wish to suffer the fate of Larry Summers I’ll refrain from speculating on deep causes -- it might be social, cultural, genetic, or Martian mind rays for all I know -- but I imagine that the fundamental viciousness and self aggrandizement inherent in opinion writing turns off a lot of women.

Which begs another question: does this mean that women need to change if they want to enter the fray, or does it mean that the fray needs to change in order to attract more women? As usual, probably some of both. Unfortunately, the blogosphere, which ought to be an ideal training ground for finding new voices in nontraditional places, is far more vitriolic than any op-ed page in the country, even [T]he Wall Street Journal’s, and therefore probably turns off women far more than it attracts them.

I wish I had some answers for this, but nothing springs immediately to mind. So even though comment threads make blogs look like models of warmth and acceptance, I guess that’s where the conversation will have to continue. Try to keep it civil, OK?

One . . . two . . . three . . . SCREAM!

“[N]o formal barriers to entry here,” Drum writes.

“[N]o old boys club in the usual meaning of the word,” he adds.

Methinks Drum is operating in an entirely differently blogosphere than the rest of us.

I know he means well, but as I’ve said before, the utterly uninteresting, totally irrelevant, and virtually ignored Washington Monthly made the right choice when the magazine picked my friend Kevin Drum as its daily mouthpiece.

Like anything else, even in the blogosphere, you get what you pay for.

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Our latest quote of the week isn’t entirely fresh, but it is timely nonetheless. The words come from the unthinking mouth of newly unemployed, for which read fired, Carleton S. Fiorina, a/k/a “Carly,” who a year ago, in a moment displaying an incredible lack of foresight, said:

There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore.

No, Carly. No job. Not one job. Not even yours.

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Ding dong, the witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch. Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead.

No, the witch in question, the wench under discussion, is not Andrew Sullivan, but instead this time one Carleton S. Fiorina, a/k/a “Carly,” the former -- and I mean that -- chairman [sic], chief executive officer, and president of Hewlett-Packard Co.

Ms. Fiorina, who I thought was out of her league at HP from day one, and who has been the subject of several posts, all of them unflattering, here at The Rittenhouse Review, was given the absurdly delayed -- and unjustifiably generously compensated -- heave-ho on February 8, an event duly appreciated by investors who accordingly bid up HP’s stock price.

It was, readers will remember, Ms. Fiorina who famously said more than a year ago: “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs.” At the time I responded, in an addendum labeled “Offshore This, Carly” to a post entitled “Working in America Today”:

That’s true, at least theoretically. Even Fiorina’s job isn’t a God-given right, it’s one that comes courtesy of HP’s board of directors -- a board she conveniently happens to chair -- and shareholders. (You know HP, don’t you? Really “high-tech” operation. Nearly 40 percent of profits come from producing those sleek and futuristic gadgets known as toner cartridges.) Fiorina has been running the show at HP for nearly five years now. During that time the company’s stock has underperformed both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite. Actually, an investor would have done better with a passbook savings account. I wonder if there’s anyone in China or India looking for a cushy CEO slot. Hey, the new chief wouldn’t even have to move.

Bye-bye, Carly. We’ll hardly miss ye. And “we” don’t even own shares of HP. Imagine the joy among those who do.

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Because we shall never underestimate the ignorance, miseducation, and absurdly optimistic expectations of the latest round of homebuyers, they who have been propelled to “invest” far beyond their means by the likes of no lesser a Randian (!) than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, read, and try not to weep while doing so, “In Brownstones, Taxes Suddenly Rise,” by Josh Barbanel (New York Times, February 20).

Pull quote:

After struggling to fix up a brownstone in Harlem for the last 16 months, Meyghan Hill, a model and actress, and her husband, Daniel Scarola, a ballroom dancing instructor, are thinking about giving up and moving out. But what may drive them away is not the neighborhood, which they have come to love, nor their four-family house, where they have painstakingly stripped a century of varnish and paint from doors and balusters, but the shock of a tax notice they received last month from the New York City Department of Finance.

The notice indicated that the taxes on their 19-foot-wide house, only $4,100 when they bought it, would be going up in July to about $23,600, a fivefold increase of $19,000 -- more, they say, than they can possibly afford after paying their hefty mortgage. Right now, they have no tenants.

Like thousands of other owners of homes and small apartment buildings, they have been abruptly caught up in a new campaign by city tax officials to enforce laws that allow them to raise taxes sharply when owners file for permits for major renovations of older buildings.

These large increases are being imposed at a time when state law requires the city to slowly phase in regular assessment increases for other homeowners over years or even a decade or more in some cases.

“We are panicked and we can’t afford it, and if we sell, the price will be lower because of all the taxes,” Ms. Hill said. “We are being punished for fixing up the building and trying to improve the neighborhood.”

No, Ms. Hill (And isn’t the “y” in “Meyghan” just too precious!), you aren’t being “punished” for the improvements you and Mr. Scarola made, you are being asked to pony up accordingly as the law requires.

I’m sorry if nobody warned you this day was inevitable, even if it arrived sooner than one might have expected. If you, Ms. Hill, have any complaint, you have only yourself, your real-estate broker, Mr. Greenspan, and the hyperventilating media (“Housing Prices Soar to Record Levels / Buyers Still Bidding Up Prices / Experts Predict Robust Market”) to blame.

Did you ever consider, Ms. Hill, that a “four-family house,” even one in edgy but rapidly appreciating Harlem, just might be beyond the reach of a rationally thinking duo engaged in so economically marginal professions?

I’m just asking is all.

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Will someone please buy that man a book?

“That man” being blogger Roger Ailes and “a book” being Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal Media, the latest bilious discharge from L. Brent Bozell, William F. Buckley’s unusually cranky nephew, a nepotistic calling card without which L. Brent these days would be cleaning his uncle’s toilets instead of siphoning funds from the John M. Olin Foundation by way of what L. Brent calls the Media Research Center, a boiler room scam affixed with such grandiose tag lines as “America’s Media Watchdog” and “The Leader in Documenting, Exposing[,] and Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias.”

“The leader”? “The leader,” as in the very best of so crowded a fraudulent field of endeavor? Really. Reed Irvine, please call your office. Reed Irvine. Oh, wait. Never mind. You’re dead.

Now, we don’t want to buy this book for Mr. Ailes because he owns no books nor because he can’t afford to buy his own copy, but instead, because, as Roger says, it’s the principle of the thing. I’ll let Mr. Ailes speak for himself: “I’d rather castrate myself with a rusty spork than spend $25.95 on Bozell. . . . Perhaps a sympathetic employee of Bozell’s publisher, Clown Forum, could send me a review copy before the piles of remainders are sent to a hazmat site for proper disposal. . . . Bozell’s overdue for a bitchslapping, and I’m just the bitch to deliver it.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Come on, readers, let’s do it. Let’s get a copy of Weapons of Mass Distortion into Roger’s hands as soon as possible. I urge you to contact Mr. Ailes to make appropriate arrangements, or, if you prefer, purchase the book from my Amazon.com Wish List (Lots of great stuff there for, um, me. Yes, I’m a magazines nut.) and I will forward the book directly and by overnight shipping to my esteemed colleague.

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I don’t hate shopping, I’m just a little out of practice. But tomorrow, Monday, Presidents’ Day, I’m going to venture out to get a few things. Not some quick-and-easy neighborhood shopping, but the real thing, an all-day outing that requires substantial planning: consulting and confirming bus schedules (holiday bus schedules, no less), reading maps, reviewing options, and checking sales circulars in the Sunday paper.

You see, I’m going to a mall, and that for the first time in almost four years. My last such excursion, while successful, and one to which I looked forward eagerly, occurred while I was in an entirely different income bracket. Tonight, I’m filled only with dread. And preoccupied with the question, When is too much more than enough and when does more than enough become wretched excess?

Tomorrow, assuming continued fortitude on my part, I will enter one of this country’s largest monuments to psychotic consumerism, a temple I’ve not visited in nearly ten years, where I may choose from merchandise offered by such mom-and-pops as (the ne plus ultra names duly bolded): A Pea In The Pod, A|X Armani Exchange, Abercrombie & Fitch, Abercrombie Kids, Aeropostale, Aerosoles, After Hours Formalwear, Against All Odds, Aldo Shoes, American Eagle Outfitters, American Fragrances, American Vision, Amirian Jewelers, Ann Taylor (two locations), Ann Taylor Loft, Ann Taylor Petites, Apple Computer, April Cornell, Arden B., Athlete’s Foot, B C B G, B. Dalton Bookseller, Bachrach, Bailey Banks & Biddle, Bakers, Bamboo Club, Banana Republic, Bandolino, Bang & Olufsen, Bang Bang, Bare Escentuals, Bath & Body Works (two locations), BC Sports Collectibles, bebe, Benetton, Best of TV, Bloomingdale’s, The Body Shop, Bombay, Borders, Borders Express, Bose, Boss/Hugo Boss, Bostonian, Brighton Collectibles, Brooks Brothers, Brookstone, Bubbles Hair Salon, Buckle, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Burberry, Caché, California Closets/Display, California Sunshine Shop, The Camera Shop (two locations), Candleman, Carolee, Cartier, Casual Corner, Charles David, Chico’s, The Children’s Place, Christian Bernard, Claire’s, Classic Nails, Clifford Michael Design, Clover Hill Winery, Coach (two locations), Coldwater Creek, Comics & More, Crabtree & Evelyn, Crane & Co., Crate & Barrel, d.e.m.o., Damiani, Dandelion, Deb, Delia’s, Dell Direct, Diesel, Discovery Channel Store, The Disney Store, DKNY, Domain, Eastern Mountain Sports, Easy Spirit, EB Games, EBX, Eckerd Drug, Eddie Bauer, Eddie Bauer Home Collection, Electronics Boutique, Elisabeth, Express, Express Men, Family Pet Center, Femme de Carriere, Finish Line, Five Below, Foot Locker, Forever, Fossil, Franklin Covey, Frederick’s of Hollywood, FYE (For Your Entertainment) (three locations), Gap (two locations), Gap Kids (two locations), Gateway Newstand, General Nutrition Centers (two locations), Gertrude Hawk Chocolates, Godiva Chocolatier, Golfdom, Gordon’s Jewelers, Great Earth Vitamins, Guess?, H&M, H2O Plus, Harpo’s Haircutting, Harry & David, Heel Quik Shoe Repair, Heidi’s Salon, Hermès, Hide Out, Hollister Co., Hot Topic, Icing, Illuminations, Inner Self, International Tobacco, It’s About Time, J. Crew, J.E. Caldwell & Co. (two locations), J. Jill, Jake’s Doghouse, Janie and Jack, Jarman Shoes, J.C. Penney, Jean Madeline Salon, Jessica McClintock, Johnston & Murphy, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Journeys, Joy Stride Rite, K-B Toys, Kate Spade, Kay Jewelers, Kenneth Cole, Kids Foot Locker, Kitchen Kapers, L’Erbolario, Lady Foot Locker, Lane Bryant, Leather & Shoes, Lee Nails, LensCrafters, Lids, Life Uniform, Limited Too, The Limited, Lindt Chocolate, Littman Jewelers, L’Occitane, Lord & Taylor, Louis Vuitton, LoveSac, Lucky Brand Dungarees, M.A.C. Cosmetics, Macy’s, Main Line Models, Marmi, MasterCuts, Mediterraneo, Messages Hallmark, Milanj Diamond Jewelers, Mimi Essentials, Modell’s Sporting Goods, Mondi, Motherhood Maternity, Movado, Na Hoku, Nackord Karate Systems, Naturalizer, Nautica Kids, Neiman Marcus, New Balance, New York & Company, Nine West, Nordic Track, Nordstrom, Norman’s Hallmark, Norman’s Hallmark II, NYS Collection, Oilily, Old Navy, Optical World, Optique (Spectix Optique), Organized Living, Pacific Sunwear, Papyrus, Paradise Pen, Payless Kids, Payless ShoeSource, Pearle Vision Express, Perfumania, Perfume Heaven, Petite Sophisticate, Picture People, Piercing Pagoda (three locations), Plaza Chiropractic & Massage, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, RadioShack, Rampage, Rare Earth (two locations), Regis Salon, Restoration Hardware, Right Start, Rockport, Sam Goody, Sanrio, Sears, Select Comfort, Sephora, Shades of Africa, The Sharper Image, Sheepskin Gifts, Silver & Gold Connection, Skechers, Smith & Hawken, Sole Mio Sunglasses, Solstice, Spencer Gifts, Sterling Optical, Steve Madden, Stitches, Strasburg Children, Strawbridge’s, Stuart Weitzman, Studio Hairstyling, Sunglass Hut (three locations), Swarovski Gallery, Talbots, Talbots Accessories & Shoes, Talbots Kids, Talbots Mens, Talbots Petites, Talbots Women, The Body Shop, Things Remembered, Thomas Kinkade Gallery, Tiffany & Co., Timberland, Tobacco Barrel, Trade Secret, Travel Luggage and Gifts, Urban Outfitters, Vans Triple Crown, Versace, Victoria’s Secret (two locations), Victoria’s Secret Beauty, Village Silver, The Walking Company, Watch Doctor, Watch World (two locations), Wentworth Gallery, Wet Seal, White House/Black Market, Whitehall Jewelers, Wild Pair, Williams-Sonoma, Wilsons Leather, World of Charms, Yankee Candle, Yves Rocher, and Zales.

Good God.

The Plaza and The Court, at King of Prussia. Yes, shoppers, you are royalty.

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Devoted reader L.M., Riverdale, N.Y., solves a great mystery, writing, unsolicitedly:

I must confess that it is I, I, who drew the black magic-marker squiggly line upon the entirely ordinary, but strangely fake-tears-inducing, photograph of the sprog of Wendy Pepper.

I could not help myself.

I hate her.

I know, but who doesn’t?

I believe L.M., because, well, I’ve known her for my entire life, but my suspicions regarding the incident reside entirely in the hands of Miss Wendy “Tawana Brawley” Pepper herself.

There. I said it.

[Post-publication addendum (February 20): L.M. responds: “Perfect! Of course you have hit on what I actually think happened, which is that ‘Wendypepper’ did it herself. I mean, c’mon! We’re supposed to believe someone is so angry he defaces the child’s picture, but so constrained that all he does is give her a Dalí moustache?! Not Graucho Marx? Not Snively Whiplash? Not the ubiquitous Hitler moustache? The woman is totally lacking in creativity.”]

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In “Runway Traffic,” the first part of “The Transom” column in the February 18 issue of the New York Observer, Rebecca Dana takes note of an intriguing, almost surreal, out-of-the-tube chance encounter between two reality-TV stars, cheated “Project Runway” contestant Austin Scarlett, and cheating “Apprentice” whipper Donald Trump:

In the moments before Donald Trump barreled through a packed house at Michael Kors’[s] runway show last week, a thin man stood in the center of the tent, mindlessly patting his starchy coif. It was Austin Scarlett, the delicate wunderkind of Bravo’s “Project Runway” and a reality-show star to rival Mr. Trump in general hairdo fluffiness. Mr. Scarlett was busy flashing his Brite Smile across the room, and The Transom had begun to approach, transfixed. “Hellooo,” said the fashion designer, television-star and Kate Moss body double, as if we were a Texan tourist in the market for boots and he a clerk in the Barney’s shoe department. “How can I help you?”

But before we could answer, there came The Donald, plowing a course to Mr. Kors, a plucky Melania in tow. [Ed.: I bolded “Melania” because I’m guess -- and only guessing -- that’s the first name of the latest Mrs. Trump.] We were thrown back from Mr. Scarlett, whose limbs flopped but whose tresses remained in a neat, blond wave. He recovered, a beacon of graceful femininity in the crush of over-stylized women, rushing aside so the busy billionaire could pass. Taller than you’d expect, and prettier and glossier of the lip, Mr. Scarlett retreated to his second-row seat, smoothing the red ruffles on his shirtwaist. [...]

So--“What’s it like to be Michael’s judge this time? Well, I’ll just say it was an honor to be invited to the show. It’s nice we were worthy of the sacrifice of one of the valuable seats that could have been saved for a buyer or a member of the media,” he told the inquiring Transom, earnestly and without a drip of sarcasm. . . . Mr. Scarlett was sincere, and seemed sincerely flattered to be there. . . . Modestly, post-Trump trample, Mr. Scarlett offered an evaluation. Running one finger through his shiny mane, he took a look back at the crowd and declared, “It’s all just very glamorous. I don’t know what else to say.”

Totally in character, that, and in every sense of the term. When I started watching “Project Runway” -- `round about, well, episode one -- I was prepared to dislike Mr. Scarlett. But the guy grows on you, and I suspect most regular viewers would agree that in addition to possessing enormous talent, he’s a fun, amusing, principled, gracious, urbane, and well-mannered man who easily outclassed most of his competitors, including the entirely unworthy, out-of-her-league contestant who nabbed his just reward.

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From “Elliott Abrams: From Iran-Contra to Bush’s Democracy Czar,” by Michael Crowley, in Slate (February 17), I find the second entry in what appears sadly likely to become a continuing series during Bush II 2:

Hours before the president's State of the Union address earlier this month -- a perfect moment for burying inconvenient news -- the White House announced the ascension of Elliott Abrams to the highest ranks of its foreign-policy team. Abrams has moved from the staff of the National Security Council to the post of deputy national security adviser. It’s a significant promotion, one that gives Abrams both an elevated stature and new management powers. Specifically, the White House says Abrams will be in charge of “global democracy strategy,” effectively making him Bush’s democracy czar. Over the next four years, he may come to represent, more than anyone, the id of the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

(And the ego. Don’t forget the ego.)

Sort of puts the strange goings-on at the University of Washington into an entirely new perspective, doesn’t it?

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Our quote of the week comes courtesy, though without the permission, of Salvador Dalí, subject of a major retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (see post below):

In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.

And that refers to nobody around here, by the way.

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Loathsome former press secretary Ari Fleischer is scheduled to speak at the Free Library of Philadelphia on March 7 (at 8:00 p.m., Central Library) to discuss his forthcoming book, Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House.

I think I might go, assuming the evening includes a question-and-answer session. It’s possible the inquiries from the audience might prove more probing those lobbed during the typical White House briefing.

If I’m able to attend and I get to ask Fleischer just one question, what should I ask?

I’ll take your suggestions in the comments section below.

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If you’re looking for a reason, or just an excuse, to visit Philadelphia -- And who isn’t? -- consider making a trek to see the Salvador Dalí exhibition, Dalí, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the only U.S. stop on the exhibit’s world tour.

The retrospective, featuring more than 200 works, will be on display from February 16 through May 15 (ticket information available here). You might want to visit on the early side, not only because Philadelphia is so, um, beautiful in late winter, but also because Jan Vermeer’s A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals (also known as Young Woman Seated at the Virginal), a small but important painting on loan from a private collection (thought to be Steve Wynn’s), will leave the museum after a still-undisclosed date in March.

For more about the Dalí exhibit, see “Dalí, For Real,” by Edward J. Sozanski in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “A Brazen Visionary With a Surreal Self,” by Roberta Smith in the New York Times, and “Hello, Dalí” [Tell me you didn’t see that coming!], by Sono Motoyama in the Philadelphia Daily News.

[Post-publication addendum: Also with the “Hello, Dalí” hook: John Lee, writing in the Toronto Globe & Mail.]

[Post-publication addendum: And see “Dalí Rules,” by Elisabeth Kley at ArtNet.]

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An old friend of mine, M.D.M., used to employ the disdainful phrase, “That trash won’t burn.”

I was reminded of that expression today when my attention was drawn to some bad news: That witch won’t die.

What’s up with that?

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How did I miss this? I learned only yesterday there’s a notion, trend, or fad taking hold in certain parts of this country, namely that which goes by the appellation “covenant marriage.”

Apparently, covenant marriages have been around for years and such ceremonies are performed regularly, sometimes in large groups. (Sun Myung Moon, please call your office.) I have no objection to this in principle.

What concerns me, however, is the prospect of legal recognition of these “unions,” along with the possibility we soon will be presented with a hierarchy of marriage, for lack of a better term. I can almost hear it now: “My covenant marriage is superior to your traditional marriage.” “Well, my traditional marriage is superior to their civil union.” The mind reels.

Oh, and then there’s the whole second-round-of-expensive-gifts thing, and don’t even think about trying to trap me into that game.

On a related note, just last week I learned, solely from watching a FedEx television commercial, that Steely Dan is, in fact, not one person.

I’m surprised that never came up in conversation before. Or maybe not.

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For those Rittenhouse readers seeking to aid the war effort, or at least to offer a bit of encouragement and inspiration -- to say nothing of shame -- to one of the most obnoxious of right-wing keyboard warriors, namely Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online, allow me to direct your attention to a new organization, one in keeping with a great and noble home-front tradition dating back to World War I, Send a White Feather to Jonah.

Can’t find a white feather? Pluck one out of this head.

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If you like blogs, bloggers, and blogging, don’t miss last night’s episode of “The Daily Show.”

Assuming Comedy Central follows what I think is its customary programming schedule, last night’s episode will be repeated in the 11:30 p.m. slot following today’s show.

A true classic with genius Jon Stewart & Co. in exceptional form.

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Just more than a month ago I asked readers for a little help with a writing project of mine that is still in its early stages.

The call went out to readers in or near Santa Monica, Calif., and Marquette, Mich., in search of a couple of photographs of a specific building in each locale. The response, as subsequently noted here, was both swift and gratifying.

With that in mind, I'm putting out the call again, this time to readers living in or around Lexington, Mass.

I'm looking for a handful of photographs, in digital or traditional format, of a historic building located near the center of Lexington. In exchange I can offer my thanks and a nod in the book's acknowledgements section.

If you can help, please let me know.

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The Bush administration today named veteran Diplomat-to-the-Dictators John D. Negroponte the country's first national intelligence chief because, well, I guess because aged Bootlick-to-the-Butchers Henry A. Kissinger was traveling unavailable, or no longer able to gain a security clearance, what with the unsavory and anti-American types with whom he regularly crushes skulls breaks bread, or something like that.

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The bulldog didn't win Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club's 129th Annual Dog Show, held earlier this week in New York, but you can see a photo of the Best of Breed, Ch. Super Nova Hernandez, an outstanding two-year-old bitch. (Scroll down to No. 12 in the non-sporting group.) Best of Opposite Sex went to Ch. Legacy Only Calvin Klein.

You can see a video of the breed contest by clicking here.

I'll show Mildred the video when she wakes up. (It's now 5:45 p.m., by the way.)

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The Philadelphia papers this week are reporting about two suicides in the area, the latest that of boxer Najai Turpin (see “A ‘Rocky’ Tale Ends in Suicide,” by Jonathan Storm and Frank Fitzpatrick, Feb. 16), and less recently but certainly no less tragic, that of Villanova University professor Mine Ener, about whom Inquirer columnist John Grogan in “Family Tells How Postpartum Illness Overcame Professor” (Feb. 14).

[Post-publication addendum February 17: See also: “TV Dreams Collide with Street Reality,” by Barbara Laker, the Philadelphia Daily News, February 16, and “City Boxer Fatally Shoots Himself,” by Regina Medina, the Philadelphia Daily News, February 15.]

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The finalists for the 2004 Koufax Awards were revealed yesterday, Thursday, February 10.

I'm flattered to learn this blog, The Rittenhouse Review, was named a finalist in two categories, a finalist among nine and ten contestants, respectively, in the two most prestigious categories: Best Blog and Best Writing.

I'm being honest and truthful in telling you that aside from a pair of messages to family and friends alerting them to this honor, I am not actively seeking victory in either category. It is -- and I mean that -- an honor simply to be nominated among those under consideration for the final voting in these unbearably competitive categories.

Best of luck to every one.

And thank you to all of you for your continued support and readership.

[Post-publication addendum (February 17): Philly Future takes note of the solid presence of Philadelphia-based bloggers among the Koufax finalists in "Philly Rocks the Koufax Awards."]

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Today I received, sort of out of the blue, new photographs of my two youngest nieces, P. and C., images that capture almost unconscionable innocence, beauty, and potential.

The kind of thing an old man lives for.

Thank you.

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Speaking of Midge Decter -- and we were -- if you're not familiar with the September 1980 essay Decter submitted to and saw published in her husband's magazine, Commentary, the psychotic rant going by the name of "The Boys on the Beach," and you haven't read said illucid stupidity and would like a copy of the article, simply send me an e-mail and it's all yours.

Meanwhile, hang on until September 2005, at which time I hope a reputable publication will publish my own work, the 25th anniversary response to "The Boys on the Beach," tentatively entitled, "The Jews on the Beach."

Outraged by the very notion?

You should be.

I am.

Of course, right-wing "Democrat" Decter's career suffered no adverse consequences from her Commentary essay, a little schwitzing in which she bashed gays as funny yet reprehensible losers deserving the death she was sure lied in their immediate future.

I'm still alive, 25 years after collecting Decter's drool on my daily refreshed handkerchief (John, Paul, and Neil are with me on that one, or at least can confirm my carrying of same. And Neil is a Jew!), and I can't imagine Mrs. Podhoretz, swooning as she does and has over Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld -- so much better looking than Mr. Norman Moshe Decter Podhoretz -- is particularly pleased about that.

Regardless, something tells me that if I were to dare write "The Jews on the Beach," a piece far from the reach and type of my customary work, I would be in big trouble, even if I were to leave out the stuff about volleyball and Mah Jongg.

[Post-publication addendum: Copyright laws allow me to share Miss Decter's outrageously homophobic, unconscionably anti-gay, and scared-as-hell-at-the-time-that-my-son-might-be-a-faggot essay, "The Boys on the Beach," with my friends. If you're my friend and would like a copy of this article, please send an e-mail to your friend at The Rittenhouse Review.]

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Earlier today I launched a new feature at The Rittenhouse Review called "Snark of the Week," representing Rittenhouse at its -- or my -- bitchiest.

And now, keeping in mind the generosity of readers in response to the not-so-recent Asian earthquake-tsunami disaster, Rittenhouse begins a new feature, "Charity of the Month."

The recipient of your much-hoped-for largesse, now through the end of February, is the National Parkinson Foundation.

Dig deep.

This one, the result of my own close contact with the condition, means a great deal to me.

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Michelle Maglalang "The Copyrights are Mine, Not Jesse's" Malkin today hits the eighty-eights in an attempt to justify her refusal to create a comments section at the vomitorium named after her copyright-less husband and known to her racist fans and non-racist opponents as michellemalkin.com.

In today's post Maglalang remains completely in character, and thus declines, or refuses, to explain why some traffic to her hobby site appears in the referral log and why some such traffic doesn't.

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Some fun posts at one of my other weblogs, TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse, where I've been talking about food:

"What There's Room For"

"What Food Pyramid?" and

"Food Pyramid: The Missing Elements."

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The Rittenhouse Review today launches a new feature, "Snark of the Week," representing Rittenhouse at its bitchiest. (See sidebar at right under "Quote of the Week.")

Today, or this week, we begin with this:

“Keyboard Warrior Totally Ordinaire Jonah Goldberg.”

So humorous. So funny. So wise.

Congratulations to me.

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Alan Dershowitz, a known, self-proclaimed even, and of course highly vocal, as is his wont, advocate of torture, provided the targets thereof are, well, you know, appears to have signed on with fellow whackos Daniel Pipes and David Horowitz, and more specifically their ongoing opposition to anything resembling academic freedom, especially when their targets thereof have the temerity to appreciate and recognize the humanity of, well, you know.

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This has to be the saddest, the sorriest, sentence ever scribbled by a right-wing blogger:

Juan Cole claims to be a major scholar.

Those words came from the mouth stubby fingers of none other than Keyboard Warrior Totally Ordinaire Jonah Goldberg.

Yes, Goldberg was discussing that Juan Cole, tenured and full professor at the University of Michigan and incoming president of the Middle East Studies Association, among his many other accomplishments.

That Goldberg hasn't a clue about the level of scholarship, intelligence, and achievement required to attain such rank reveals far more about the right-wing foundation-and-grant gravy train upon which Goldberg and Mrs. Goldberg and Mrs. Goldberg have fed so eagerly and so often, than the enlistment-dodger would care to admit.

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I know -- we all know -- Jonah Goldberg is an easy target, but that doesn't diminish the sheer blogging genius on display at the Poor Man.

[Link via Unfogged.]

[Post-publication addendum: For more blogging genius on the same matter, see TBogg in rare typical form in "Scorecards Here."]

[Post-publication addendum: Goldberg himself offers unintentional -- I think -- and utterly deprecating humor in his biography as published at National Review Online: "Goldberg [...] enjoys being called Thor[.]" I learned today that reference is not to a "Star Trek" character but to the Norse God of Thunder. I'm guessing Small-Hammer Syndrome is at work here.]

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Gawker catches Lucky rag beautician Jean Godfrey-June agonizing between two Laura Mercier concealers and raising her indecision to Holocaust levels.

And someone at Gawker is playing a favored Rittenhouse game, "Detached at Delivery." Gawker's target: Anna Wintour.

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Herewith I republish a quote from the Associated Press, as reported in a Saturday, February 5, post here, "Life in the Great Red Paradise: An Intermittent Series on Assorted & Sordid Irregularities & Oddities":

A Florida couple accused of torturing and starving five of their seven children were taken into custody Friday night in Utah after detectives were able to track their cell phone signals, authorities said.

Capt. Jim Cernich of the Sheriff's Office in Citrus County, Florida, said deputies in San Juan County, Utah, apprehended Linda Dollar, 51, and John Dollar, 58, on a road after recognizing their gold 2000 Lexus sport utility vehicle.

The Dollars face charges in Citrus County, where they lived in Beverly Hills [Ed.: I'm guessing it's not what we think.], on one count of aggravated child abuse/torture for all five children.

The accusations include pulling out the children's toenails with pliers and keeping them so malnourished they "looked like pictures from Auschwitz," authorities said. [...]

The Dollars were not the biological parents of the seven children. Gail Tierney from the Citrus County Sheriff's Office said they were their legal guardians, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, commenting on the case Friday, said the Dollars had adopted the children.

And to that I responded: "Yes, that's the same Florida, led by the same Gov. Bush, where gay men and lesbian women, by state law, cannot adopt children. Because, you know, the current scheme is working really, really well for everyone involved."

I couldn't stop at that. I added:

Yes, that's the same Florida, led by the same Gov. Bush, where gay men and lesbian women, by state law, cannot adopt children. Because, you know, the current scheme is working really, really well for everyone involved.

Sure, you might not care one whit about the Dollar family's tragedy, and I, as a gay man self-declared as being completely unlikely -- but not incompetent -- to raise children, therefore and possibly thereby proving the alleged negative about gays and lesbians and children, so many of whom I know are doing so outstanding a job thereat (Is that a word?), but I care a great deal.

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We learn from a February 6 post at Campaign Extra!, a blog written by my friend, Philadelphia blogger ordinary (Hey, Will, call Sasha and Maureen about that!) extraordinaire Will Bunch, that the Dr. Neil Clark Warren, creepy proprietor of the cultish outfit styled as eHarmony, is only just slightly weirder than he appears to be.

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Every once in a while I publish a post about which I am deliberately, and sometimes hopefully, vague.

This is one of those posts.

Some readers will understand the power of a single number, recognizing this number portends enormous opportunity, as well as a similar dose of anxiety, whereof I might now brag and sweat, if just a bit.

For the record, "my number" is 178.

To where I go now, with this number in my pocket, I have no idea. I'm thrilled, but scared out of my mind.

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