My colleagues, Hugo Schwyzer and Jonathan Dresner, have commented on the death of the medievalist, Norman Cantor. At Gnostical Turpitude, Ed Cohn recommends Joshua Glenn's"The Anti-Obituarist" in the Boston Globe. Apparently, the attack obituary that Cantor deserves has yet to be written because only Cantor would do it. As Cohn reminds us, however, Christopher Hitchens rose to the occasion with a farewell on"The Stupidity of Ronald Reagan". Thank you, Hugo, Jonathan, Ed, Joshua, Ronnie, Chris, and Norman, you *&%#@.

But, speaking of obituaries, here's one for my late, lamented hero, Oregon's Mark Hatfield.

Blogging has either arrived or is in decline, according to two articles that are getting a lot of attention on the net. Matthew Klam's article for the New York Times Magazine on political blogging is the kind of attention blogging is only now getting in major journalism. Instapundit does a roundup of reactions, which suggests that Klam has irritated both the Left and the Right ‘spheres. In the Los Angeles Times, Billmon of the Whiskey Bar offers last rites for blogging as the grass roots oppositional challenge to corporate communications. At Political Animal, Kevin Drum comments.

On the other hand, blogging still has interest when you write about slavery in the United States today and relatives of the slaveholder show up to defend the practice.