There is a very small but very interesting article in the Metro Section of today's paper. The article happens to be on the same page as the obituaries, but it isn't exactly one of them. Yet.

I love Ping Pong. My brothers and me and my dad would spend hours in the ping pong room perched above the lake in Maine smashing that little white ball back and forth in the humid summer air. You don't think of it as a very athletic game, but sweat we did. And shout, and curse, and laugh, and compete. He never let us win. We always had to earn it!

This is a great article about the show The Deadliest Catch, and and interesting profile of the group Gnarls Barkley. Obviously, they have a new album out.

And I noticed last week that the Times had changed their layout again. Last August they reduced the size of the paper by an inch and a half, and just last week they reformatted and expanded the index section on the first two pages. I had not read that the change was coming, nor did I notice any subsequent discussion of the redesign. Today's Public Editor column answered my questions.

Finally, have a read through Frank Rich's op-ed. Or, if you don't have time, let me summarize it for you: McCain is insane. The way the reality in Iraq is the exact opposite of what he says and seems to believe is downright frightening. Haven't we had enough of that?