Totally concerned about the ergonomics of Andrew Sullivan's blog cave, as depicted here! In a Stickley chair, with the laptop like that? It's making my wrists ache!

Well, it is a little rankling to read about how Slate's Jacob Weisberg INVENTED THE INTERNET. Or, as he puts it, in a "we got new offices" profile of Slate, "We basically invented blogging." Which, okay, no, not really. But you know what? While investigating the historical record, we stumbled across this little bit of history from May 10, 2002, in an article headlined "APOCALYPSE IS UPON THE BLOGGERS OF THE WEB—OR IS IT?," by one Seth Mnookin, then a reporter at the New York Sun.

"The Democrats are a clapped out, gut-free lobbyist machine. The Republicans are insane. The system is therefore paralyzed beyond repair." That's Andrew Sullivan, who has been right more often than many pundits in the Obama era, and also more patient and optimistic-ending many of his posts with the sign-off, "Know hope." So it's hard not to feel despair when, in the face of the Democrats' stupid looming loss in today's special senatorial election in Massachusetts, a loss he believes will leave the health bill "dead," he writes

If America cannot grapple with its deep and real problems after electing a new president with two majorities, then America's problems are [...]

Given that Andrew Sullivan was out sick all last week (asthma and bronchitis) and that Glenn Greenwald was just released from the hospital after contracting dengue fever, we thought we’d ask around and see how some other prominent bloggers are doing in this age of cyber-disease.

Uh oh! New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is taking the day off today from his blog “The Conscience of a Liberal”! But worry not—he's just preparing for the new semester of teaching. And he's going nowhere. Krugman wrote in an email to us that he plans to continue blogging “as long as I think I’m having an impact [...]

I too hope that the Glenn Greenwald-Andrew Sullivan fight goes on forever. Andrew is in this corner: "I do believe we are at war; and that killing those who wish to kill us before they can do so is not the equivalent of 'assassination.'" In the other corner: "Would Andrew be comfortable with a future Republican President–let's say, just to pick a random example… President Sarah Palin–having the power to order American citizens killed based solely on her unchecked accusation that they are somehow involved with or helping Al Qaeda Terrorists, while the targeted citizens have no recourse to any courts and she has no obligation [...]

"The band t-shirt has been a staple of our casual wardrobe for a while—really, ever since that one Deerhoof show—but that’s because rock stars are cool. Bloggers, not so much. But as in many things, Andrew Sullivan is the exception. The combination of an awesome beard and a balanced understanding of new media make him the closest our tribe has to a rock star, so he’s teamed up with the nautical experts (and Provincetown residents) at Rogues Gallery for a trio of screenprinted tees." —Andrew Sullivan has a t-shirt? Why don't we have a t-shirt? Oh, right, because it would probably look like this. Carry on.

If you've been out and about lately, or even if you've stayed in-you really can't hide from this-you've probably noticed a media blitzkrieg for something called Charlie St. Cloud. But before it was a movie, it was a novel. Originally titled The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, any copies you find of it now will likely be of the NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE variety and have Zac Efron dreamboating the hell out of the cover.

That novel's author is Ben Sherwood. He's not an old man-only 46 now-but his fame and controversy extends back rather far, to his days as a Rhodes Scholar.