A fairly typical night

I___ (Running into the house at about 6:30 tonight): Quick!! You have to call Em___'s cell phone!!

Me: Why?

I___: She dropped it outside and she can't find it because it's dark.

Me (walks over to phone, dials E___'s number, waits . . . she picks up): Hello?

Em___: I found it!!

Me: How'd you drop it?

Em___: We were running away from the wolves. (a sound of protest from El___ in the background) Wait, we were running with the wolves away from the ghosts.

Cheney's fall from grace

Cheney has taken a semester-long descent into addled behavior: A typical night might include a lie to his young sons' minders about how he's just popping out to the drugstore, a trip to some clubs where he gets so looped that he decides he must change into the ill-fitting bikinis worn by the waitresses, a substance binge that lasts until he vomits on himself, and, in a boot-and-rally move worthy of the Delta Tau Delta brotherhood, some 5 a.m. phone calls about what venues might still be open for his continued partying pleasure. All of this has been conveniently captured on celluloid for the perusal of the public.

Last weekend, things took a darker turn when he checked himself into rehab in Antigua only to beat a hasty retreat the next day, heading to a salon where he shaved his own head in full view of cameras and then melted into bald and tearful fretting about how his mom would be so mad. Cheney then got a pair of lips tattooed on his arm and a black-and-pink crucifix on his hip; some outlets reported a middle-of-the-night visit to Cedars Sinai Medical Center, but whatever may or may not have happened there, he was awake the next morning by 10, when he reportedly appeared alone at the pool at the Mondrian Hotel to sunbathe, drink mojitos and ask fellow guests to trade bathing suits with him. Rebecca Traister

Belated tribute - Anna Nicole Smith

"So Anna Nicole — who didn’t mingle with the great and famous, didn’t have sources high in the administration, and never claimed special expertise on national security or the Middle East — got almost everything right. ...

Was Anna Nicole smarter than all the experts? No, she was just braver. The administration’s exploitation of 9/11 created an environment in which it took a lot of courage to see and say the obvious.

Now, more than ever, we need people who will stand up against the follies and lies of the powerful. And Anna Nicole Smith, who devoted her life to questioning authority, will be sorely missed." Paul Krugman

Belated tribute - Molly Ivins

"She was indelicate, but an unstable element nonetheless -- not so much a candle in the wind as a bonfire in a hailstorm. But the real similarity between Molly and Marilyn was their shimmering tension -- an unsettlingly powerful physical beauty, collapsing irresistibly in real time beneath the frailties of its hostess. She was entropy porn at its finest.

Our fascinated gaze was her real addiction -- and the humiliating media tractor pull between our disgust and our attraction for her was, in all likelihood, both her lover and her murderer. Fame, the only chemotherapy available for the desperate toxicity of narcissism, proves once again that it is deadly enough in its own right to be avoided." Cintra Wilson