Elsewhere

I have had trouble putting my finger on just why I find McCain's cynical, sinister choice of Palin so incredibly infuriating-slash-depressing. Fortunately there is no lack of articulate people to fill in my silence. Links via bookforum.

"I don’t like categories like religious and not religious. As soon as religion draws a line around itself it becomes falsified. It seems to me that anything that is written compassionately and perceptively probably satisfies every definition of religious whether a writer intends it to be religious or not." The Paris Review interviews Marilynne Robinson (via Maude Newton).

So now we're all on Wall Street catching the grey men when they dive from the 14th floor*, and I'm thinking, "Where's George Soros? It's not like an economist -- even a retired one -- to be silent in times like these!" Indeed not.

And last, but by no means least, 20 massive indicators that the video game industry is trapped and sinking in a Sargasso Sea of onerous cliché. Speaking of which, I am compelled to say that playing The Simpsons has been one of my greatest disappointments in gaming. The Simpsons Hit & Run used the Grand Theft Auto engine to brilliant, satirical effect and was a hoot to play. But this latest chapter is just a mess, particularly in its gameplay, and wouldn't pass muster as a badly-written episode. The Onion was right.