"I successfully edited Wikipedia!"

Meade exclaims. It's his first time. It was over there in the page on The Gettysburg Address (which I linked to earlier today, as perha...

Why does Marquette University offer a course on J.R.R. Tolkien?

Because he's popular, of course, but also because they have the manuscripts: Marquette is one of the main repositories of Tolkien's ...

"People Get Ready."

A fabulous 1965 recording by The Impressions. Don't confuse it with "Get Ready," by The Temptations, which is a completely d...

David Foster Wallace's essays "could have done with a little judicious pruning."

I laugh out loud at that notion, expressed by Michiko Kakutani, reviewing the new collection "Both Flesh and Not." Meade asks me w...

"Just one piece of general advice from a writer has been very useful to me. It was from Colette."

Said Georges Simenon: ... I remember I gave her two short stories and she returned them and I tried again and tried again. Finally she said...

"Look, if you colonists have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own."

I didn't write this on my own. In fact, I didn't write it at all. Meade wrote this: Lord North: Look, if you colonists have been su...

"Butt cracks eventually appeared in Lamb's public persona..."

A typo for the ages.

"Mr. Wizard's a Dick."

Here 's an interview with the compilers of "Mr. Wizard's a Dick," Mike Schuster and Diane Bullock: This idea was about 25 ...

WaPo's Eric Wemple credits Andrea Mitchell with airing the full context of Romney's "Wawa" remark...

... and seems to accept MSNBC's refusal to give Mitchell's critics a real apology: In the unedited version, Mitt Romney comes off as...

MSNBC takes Romney's "WaWa" remark out of context for the purpose of mockery.

Shame on Andrea Mitchell and Chris Cillizza for their clown work in this travesty of journalism. You've got to watch the clip, knowing h...

"Obesity is a manifestation of a cultural deprivation in its most displeasing-to-look-at form."

Just a quote from this Politico article "10 little-known facts about Ted Nugent." Here's a quote from me, chez Meadhouse, jus...

"This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black."

That is the most outrageous, truly evil editing I've ever seen. The original, nefariously compressed by NBC, was: Zimmerman: This guy l...

"Are China’s Rulers Getting Religion?"

Asks Ian Johnson: ...China is now in the grips of a moral crisis. In recent months, the Chinese Internet has been full of talk about the lac...

"This is snow, it's not going to kill us. What they're doing to us will kill us. What they're doing to our world."

Winter comes early to Zuccotti Park , where — as the apparently editorless New York Magazine puts it — tents "are explicitly forgiven....

"Meanwhile, I have to say that I care less and less about law reviews."

"Increasingly it feels to me like the article is published when it’s posted on SSRN, and the actual publication in a law review later s...

Revenge, the Wikipedia article.

A report that the wife of Dominique Strass-Kahn is seeking "revenge" got me thinking about the specific meaning of the word. Sure...

"He felt in a position to say he knew now that hell had nothing to do with fires or frozen troops."

"Lock a fellow in a windowless room to perform rote tasks just tricky enough to make him have to think, but still rote, tasks involving...

I like this Harvard Law Review attack on the FTC regulation of bloggers who write about stuff they get free.

Noted here . But whatever happened to editing? In the interest of providing consumers with full disclosure, the Guides require bloggers to d...

"For those who might like a hint or two: 'Gary Oldman' is Albert Goldman..."

Blech. If you have to explain it, all the fun and surprise is gone. I am reminded of the entry of the lion in the play within a play in ...