An evening Lull Report …

… courtesy of Dave Lull:



… Minority report: The TLS blog: Questioning the Stoner phenomenon.



… The greatest debuts.

At all events, the titles on this list are characterized as much by splash as by merit.

… Restoration: Taking Action.



… Pushing back: Laugh it off.

Grammar Girl may have hit on a tactic that works: If you can't reason away the peeves, mock them away.

She has established Peeve Wars, a card game, the goal of which is to "amass a peeve army you use to annoy your opponent(s) to death." "Literally," "could care less," "gone missing," and "misused apostrophe" are among the cards. 

… How Iowa Flattened Literature.

… once upon a time (1967, to be exact), Paul Engle, director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, received money from the Farfield Foundation to support international writing at the University of Iowa. The Farfield Foundation was not really a foundation; it was a CIA front that supported cultural operations, mostly in Europe, through an organization called the Congress for Cultural Freedom.