Making Sense of Yet More Things

A slate primer on the oil-for-food scandal. For those, like me, who never quite knew all about it.

And another thing. This one a New Yorker story by A. M. Homes about finding her birth parents. An amazingly written piece. A favorite line:

"She goes on, “I come from a very strange family. We’re not quite right.”"

And in other news, a colleague just dropped by my desk to show me a letter he got that has his address typed as:

John Smith, Ass

(No, his name is not really John Smith, but yes, someone really typed "Ass" after his name. This is a real letter from some kind of company. And, yes, John Smith is some kind of assistant editor around here, so that could explain it. But probably not.)