Tonight's subject line is from John Donne's Holy Sonnet XIV, which is featured in John Adams's Dr. Atomic, which is about J. Robert Oppenheimer. It looks like a visually stunning production, so I'm going to try to catch one of the HD broadcasts next month.

Concerning different variety of splodeyness, there appears to be considerable variance in mileage concerning what actually happened between Christopher Buckley and the National Review, but in any case, I was entertained by the wording of this quote in the print edition of today's WSJ:

"We seem to be living in a time of arteriosclerotic orthodoxy," Mr. Buckley said. "A lot of the fun has gone out of it. I mean, gee whiz."

In the same edition, Thomas Frank's op-ed on "My Friend Bill Ayers" makes for a fascinating read. I frankly haven't been paying enough attention to the McCain campaign to assess Frank's claims about their strategy -- in fact, I'm enough of a crank that he loses me in his last two paragraphs (it doesn't take much to set off my hyperbole filter). Nonetheless, Mr. Ayers must be doing something right to inspire a defense such as this:

Mr. Ayers has been involved with countless foundation efforts and has received various awards. He volunteers for everything. He may once have been wanted by the FBI, but in the intervening years the man has become such a good citizen he ought to be an honorary Eagle Scout.

I do not defend the things Mr. Ayers did in his Weatherman days. Nor will I quibble with those who find Mr. Ayers wanting in contrition. His 2001 memoir is shot through with regret, but it lacks the abject style our culture prefers.

Instead I want to note that, in its haste to convict a man merely for associating with Mr. Ayers, the GOP is effectively proposing to make the upcoming election into the largest mass trial in history, with all those professors and all those do-gooders on the hook for someone else's deeds four decades ago. Also in the dock: the demonic city (Chicago) that once named Mr. Ayers its "Citizen of the Year." Fire up Hurricane Katrina and point it toward Lake Michigan!

Speaking of professors and do-gooders, there's a nifty animated "Community Organizer" icon that I've been glimpsing around IJ and LJ, on posts like this one.

And speaking of people fighting the good fight, the FTC just nailed a major spam gang. Huzzah!

Other good things:
* superb coffee and companionship this morning at Sky Blue
* stewing black-eyed-peas with bacon for future meals (along with improvising a pad thai with broccolini for my current snack)
* Stephan Eicher's Hotels
* some progress on the boondoggle du semaine. Saints be thanked for Excel.
* making colleagues laugh
* no meetings tomorrow! (Three in two days isn't that many, except that I'm still tiring easily, so it felt like it.)
* the weather this whole week in Nashville has been in the 70s. It is so beautiful here right now - I'm hoping I can spend part of tomorrow outside, even if it ends up being just a hour weeding my driveway.