Friday, September 21, 2007

Maureen Dowd, glossed

The first bad thing about the lifting of the TimesSelect curtain is that Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and David Brooks are no longer hidden behind a protective veil, and the second is that I, a retired guy with better things to do with his time, once again feel a certain compulsion to read them. My operative relapsed-addict emotion when caught by their columns is a kind of hair-standing-on-end fascination, like when you can't turn your eyes away from some TV horrorshow like CSI Miami (which is probably really bad for you, mental-health-wise, to watch.)

Friedman and Brooks are the ones who sometimes provoke me enough to write blog responses, but I have never quite gotten a handle on MoDo. For Dowd junkies I have the pleasure of recommending a blog entry at Bats Left Throws Right, where Mr. Doghouse Riley has compiled, at who knows what psychic cost, a handy Dowd glossary that is, well, both a work of profound psychological insight and a stunningly accurate lexicographical tour de force.

The good thing is that I am no longer dependent on the kindness of strangers for Krugman.

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