A modest question: since Stephanie Zacharek's review deals in large part with the relationship between a movie and the book it is based on, wouldn't it be reasonable to actually read the book? Did Ms Z take a version of the Larry King pledge?

If Tristram Shandy were some 5 pound Victorian snorer about vicars and spinsters it would be one thing, but the book, besides being exceedingly funny and surprisingly indecent, is famously self-referential so that a movie about it that takes the form of a movie within a movie within a movie makes a lot of sense. Having actually read the book--honest, it wasn't a horrible chore--I look forward to seeing the movie.

I confess that John McCain is not my political hero. I don't know why I'm supposed to be impressed because he has attained the role of decent Republican in the approved media story line. In any event, in view of his willingness to make nice with people who have treated him vilely, it is pretty obvious that his superpowers do not include pride.

Thing is, McCain's political maneuvers are no worse than those of many another. If I really thought that his rather hard-line version of conservatism were worth promoting, I wouldn't be bothered by his obvious hypocrisy. But one doesn't have to despise a guy to recognize that he is dead wrong on many an economic and social issue. That he isn't quite as barking mad as so many others in his party is a pretty mediocre recommendation.

It's simply quaint to refute every criticism of Israel by accusing the critics of antisemitism. It isn't just that Zionism is not judaism. In the U.S., at least, there is damned little antisemitism of any traditional variety because being Jewish isn't a big deal one way or the other in a nation whose racial politics are organized around other distinctions. A Jew is just another kind of white guy.

The notion that anybody who raises questions about the highly dubious policies of a right-wing regime is akin to Nazi criminals is more than a vicious slander. It's stupid. If you're going to cook up a blood libel, you ought at least make it a little plausible. And you might also recognize that even the most successful meme eventually gets long in the tooth.

Books like Dalby's are just dumbed down, pasteurzied versions of real scholarship. Just because you're one of those famous educated laymen doesn't mean you have to be satisfied with second best, If you want to know what the score is about Homer, read a serious work like Gregory Nagy's the Best of the Achaians and eliminate the middleman.

Your timing sucks. I just renewed my subscription to Salon. If I knew you were going to bring back this irritating nonentity I would have saved my money.

Why is every journalistic outlet so determined to lower the collective IQ of the American people?

Technical cleverness aside, what point is this ad supposed to be making? In what respect is Hillary Clinton analogous to either Microsoft or Big Brother?

I'm about a third of a way through Clive James' book. It's an enjoyable enough read, but I doubt if much of it will stick with me because the sad fact is, James is more of a comic than a critic. It's one thing to dismiss a Benjamin or a Sartre if you understand what they had to say and still reject 'em. Lots of literary figures and philosophers deserve a good a hiding. Dismissing them without understanding, on the other hand, is just a cheap way of ingratiating yourself with readers who don't understand either and will be happy to learn that the writers who mystify them are frauds.

Mansfield is not a fool, and it would be a practical as well as a scholarly error to assume that his ideas only appeal to people on the fringe or on the right. In the wake of the disasters of the first half of the 20th Century, the Western world made a gentleman's agreement to forget that authoritarianism hadn't been been attractive just to Nazis and Stalinists. Which is why we have so much difficulty dealing with Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt and their intellectual progeny. We can't bring ourselves to admit that their ideas have genuine power. The response has to go beyond just shushing them up. They have to be confronted on their own terms.

For the most part, Americans don't have an opinion about Hillary Clinton, though almost all of them would claim they do. Thing is, the Hillary in play is a media construct that has rather little to do with the person one can come to know through her books and speeches. Which is why a great many Republicans can actually think that Clinton is some sort of tremendous liberal, if not a socialist-lesbo-killer-whore, instead of a rather moderate Democrat. And why people like Chris Matthews can reactivate every neanderthal sexual stereotype in the book, Chris having single-handedly brought the expression "dumb mick" out of retirement. The entire election is going to be a mindless Punch and Judy show between action figures created by dueling PR firms.

I know it is a radical suggestion, but sometimes I think we'd be better off if we had a free press in this country.

Romney effectively read nonbelievers out of the U.S. The Hell with that, and the hell with him. For rational people, the crucial thing about the First Amendment is that it mandates freedom from religion. When is a candidate ever going to acknowledge that?

I have no quarrel with Christians or even Mormons but when they start looking around for a new Constantine or suggest that they are going to become a new Constantine, I figure it's time to start looking around for a reliable source of lions.