LOCAL MAN

Ben Affleck Reports from the Congo

Oh, brother.

I mean, props to Ben Affleck. It's a good article and he's using his celebrity to focus attention on a big problem. But as a symbol of what's happening in journalism today, this is just calamitous.

Sean Penn (and props to you for your Iraq trips), what hath you wrought?

The Last Sentence

Now the last sentence -- describing with magical fluency and eerie exactitude what it is like for a human being to pass from life to death -- will never be written.