Cleaning Out The Bookmarks

"I say it here, it comes out there." Aaron Altman in Broadcast News

In this case, I bookmark it there, it comes out here. Just as I now have a DVR to watch television for me (e.g. when I tape the "Bring It On" marathon and then delete it), I have bookmarks--and, with luck, blog readers--to read and synthesize the web content that grabs me:

Terry Teachout on how piano recitals have changed and might benefit from not taking themselves so seriously.

An article about Joyce Kilmer in Catholic Men's Quarterly. I did read this one carefully and was riveted. I have always liked Kilmer, and felt sorry for him as the most obscure highway rest stop namesake in New Jersey. I didn't know he was a convert.

This is kind of a good idea. If only I didn't have the sneaking suspicion that 75% of our cables are useless and should be disposed of.

This is long, and I read it too: an article from the New York Times magazine about the abstinence/chastity movement on college campuses. I am all for chastity, but two things about this movement make me uncomfortable: one, the blustering assurance from most participants that their morality has absolutely nothing to do with religion, and two, I don't think advocating abstinence should be one's hobby. One of the problems with the way our culture approaches sexuality is that it is given too much significance. Dorothy Sayers wrote an essay entitled "The Other Six Deadly Sins" in which she expressed her impatience with the primacy of lust in everyone's thoughts. Obsession with lust is in itself, I think, a kind of lust. My advice to these students would be to make a decision about what your moral standards are, find some like-minded people (for there's no doubt that like-minded friends are helpful in upholding moral standards), and then do something real, like playing intramural hockey or putting on a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

Photoshop Express, the long-awaited free online image editor from Photoshop maker Adobe, now available in beta.

Excellent. Why I never go to Toys R Us.

The story of a young American woman who became the chef in a grand chateau.

Also, note three new places to drink and be whole: The Morning News, the New Partisan and the New Criterion blog. Query: will there one day be a New Morning News? A New McSweeneys?