Thursday's Notes

Claire Potter's"Learning To Say No, Hollywood Style: A Helpful Response To Screenwriter Josh Olson," Tenured Radical, 16 September, is a bracing rejoinder to Josh Olson,"I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script," Village Voice, 9 September.

Hilary Mantel,"The Crow Is White," LRB, 24 September, reviews Eamon Duffy's Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor.

Robert Vilain,"Rilke the clay pot," TLS, 16 September, reviews Rainer Maria Rilke's The Book of Hours, George C. Schoolfield's Young Rilke and His Time, and Edward Snow and Michael Winkler, trans., Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salomé: The Correspondence.

Alexander Zaitchik,"Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck's life," Salon, 16 September, introduces the late Cleon Skousen, the Mormon"historian" Beck and Mitt Romney praise. See also: Steve Benson,"From Commie Basher To Rock 'n Roll Trasher: The Legacy Of The Late, Latter-Day Looney Cleon Skousen," The Mormon Curtain, 21 January 2006.

Kim Phillips-Fein,"Right On," The Nation, 9 September, draws on a dozen major books to assess the state of American conservatism.

Finally, GQ ranks"America's 25 Douchiest Colleges." This Duke alum is one proud puppy.