As an author, Rowling can do what she damn well pleases with her characters, on her book tours, on her website, wherever. It's 2007, and authors are using their websites to deepen the textures of their books, fiction and non-fiction. In some cases, it's a matter that print is expensive. In others, they just like the possibilities of the medium.

You can read all seven Harry Potter books and avoid every single thing J.K. Rowling said in interviews, in answers to fan questions or on her website, or you can devour them all, and I personally think you get the same degree of enjoyment out of them either way. They're fun, they're light-hearted and dark at the same time, she has a way with wit, and she was very firmly in control of all the details as she conceived the story (I've been re-reading the early books and what had seemed in some cases very bloated has an amazing economy once you know the whole story and how all the pieces fit).

Traister is simply anthropomorphizing Shakespeare if she thinks that, had he had the tools at hand, he wouldn't have taken advantage of it. So much of what he did wasn't written, it was stage direction, or the custom of the Elizabethan London stage, and we read it differently than it would have been understood then. He used what was available to him, only some of which has come down to us, so it's idle speculation at best to say what he might have done if he could have thrown his stage directions and author's notes up on the web.

Alice Waters has some nice ideas. It would be good if we ate more good food at the height of its freshness. It would be good if we used more local food, more humanely-raised food, more food directly from farmers we could meet. Of course, there is no locally-produced pepper or cinnamon and, sorry Alice, I'm not prepared to take them out of my diet for the rest of my life, or until I made a journey to the far east.

Nor do her suggestions meet Kant's universal imperative. The planet actually cannot support five billion people eating just as Alice Waters wants. The U.S. can't support 300 million people doing it. There isn't land for farmers markets for all us all to buy at, there aren't enough farmers who want to spend their time marketing directly to individuals, there isn't enough land for truck gardening.

And if we were all to slow down our lives and work to her drummer, no one would be able to afford the $65-85 that dinner costs at Chez Panisse.

King's article seems to assume that sporting events take place as simple television broadcasts. They don't. They take place in stadia and arenas, in front of paying fans. In the World Series, these are paying-through-the-nose fans.

The Rockies play in the Mountain Time Zone. Thus, any time that was convenient for its fans to make it to the ballpark was almost undoubtedly inconvenient to viewers in the vast majority of the country, the Pacific time zone as well as the Eastern and Central. Nonetheless, it was their team in the World Series, and I don't begrudge them a late start for the games to accommodate them.

Every adult league in the world uses the DH except the National League. The Phillies wouldn't have had to trade Jim Thome if they had the DH. The Giants could have rested Barry Bonds more. Mark McGwire might not have had to retire when he did. Nor Jeff Bagwell. Ken Griffey could save years on his legs. When Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard's bodies catch up with them, they won't have to change leagues. I frankly don't see the point anymore.

Let's do one run through the interleague schedule switching the rules, letting American League fans see their pitchers bat in person, and then scrap both interleague play and pitchers batting. The NL is the outlier. Get in line.

Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution says, "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." It doesn't say "except where the President doesn't like it." It doesn't say "except where the President is frustrated with the Congress." It says "all."

Bush and his ilk rely on Article II, Section 1, which says, "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." This is the source of the "unitary executive theory."

Notice the difference? Article I uses the word "all" and Article II does not. Why? Because the scope of executive power will be defined in legislation. It doesn't inhere in the President, except for the expressly described powers in Article II, Section 2, unless Congress gives it to him. The first power in Article II, Section 2 is the familiar "commander-in-chief" clause, but notice it says "commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States," not "commander-in-chief of the country."

The second power is that he can require the written opinions of the cabinet officers. The Article II, Section 1 power was so weak that the Framers thought it important to make sure that the President could actually ask his cabinet for advice.

Bush's willingness to violate his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution knows no bounds.

The DH rule increases strategy. Having the pitcher bat essentially puts the manager in the same bind, using the same strategy. American League managers can use different strategies, such as making the ninth place hitter into a "second leadoff man" as opposed to having a slow catcher bat ninth, and using more matchups based on the "handedness" of the batter. Unfortunately, this has lately led to more mid-inning pitching changes in the AL, which slow the game down ridiculously, but eventually it is hoped that managers will realize they are getting minimal advantage from that particular strategy.