My thoughts exaclty

It's sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeding from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons. - Pres. Bush 43

Impeding from doing indeed.

In Homage

This is forever how I will remember Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez.

I think he missed his SOC class when they taught how to read texts. He gets a C on constitutional analysis.

Thank You Philly

I like geography very much. I won the school geography bee in fifth grade and it made me feel Very Important. Fundamentally though, I don't know why what things are where, as opposed to elsewhere, should be of interest.

That said I have returned from my exploits in Philadelphia, much the better. I have met some Very Good People, and have learned a lot about Certain Things (Iceland, Laxness, PAFA, PMA, Machine Learning, Good Fencing, Special Interests, OCP, 4105, Medical Schooling, N Residencies (when N is some number greater than 1), Biking, Language, Northern Ireland, Kilts, Tea, Cougar Magnetism, Aikido, etc), but must move on to study yet Other Things (political philosophy, mostly).

I return from the depths of Philadelphia to report that it is a very Zev Friendly place--I hope to return soon.

Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger (1926-2007)

The NYT obituary is here, but I was very moved a by a piece I saw in Haaretz:

On more than one occasion, [Rabbi Rene-Samuel] Sirat met the cardinal entering Paris' main synagogue... say[ing] kaddish for his mother

Acheinu kol beit yisrael, ha'netunim b'tzara uv'shivya...

Belated Baruch Dayan HaEmet

to Jeremy. If you thought four years was a long time to spend at UofC...

Dear Ms. J. K. Rowling,

Thank you. I have thoroughly enjoyed your literary world through seven marvelous books, unlike any I can recall.

Sincerely,
Zev

This just in...

via Leiter Reports, it looks like Our Dear Friend Joseph Stern has two outstanding offers from Rutgers and U of Toronto (I mean outstanding in both senses of the word). You will notice on the this list that Rutgers is currently ranked the #2 philosophy program in the country. I am sure that Leiter will know the outcome before I, but a hardy congrats on the offer! (I, however, am still secretly grumbling about the loss of my professor-to-be Stephen Darwall from Michigan. Boo.)