Lucy Hughes-Hallett,"The Most Wicked Woman in History," The Guardian, 19 August, examines the changing face of Cleopatra. And, yes, we are.

Victor Brombert,"Homme Plume," TLS, 30 August, reviews Frederick Brown's Floubert: A Biography. Thanks to Arts & Letters Daily for the tip.

Selim Nassib,"Vocation Battlefield," SignandSight, 31 August, is a Lebanese author's thoughtful essay on the history of Lebanon over the last half century. It originally appeared in Die Tageszeitung on 7 August. Thanks to Alfredo Perez at Political Theory Daily Review for the tip.

Donald Kagan,"As Goes Harvard ...," Commentary, September, is a very tough critique of American higher education's tendencies. Thanks to Margaret Soltan at University Diaries for the tip.

Finally, things are lively among the TNR blogs these days. Just as it launched Open University, TNR found Lee Siegel, one of its regular columnists, bloggers and senior editors, guilty of sock puppetry. His blog, Lee Siegel on Culture, has been eradicated and he is suspended from publishing at TNR. It's no great loss to the net. Siegel made his last big splash with a piece about"The Origins of Blogofascism." On Siegal's demise, see also: Ezra Klein and John Podhoretz. Maybe TNROnline will now acknowledge its stepchild, Open University, on its mainpage and index its posts there. Thanks to several tipsters.