But that’s not what’s going on. The school looks like it’s in okay financial condition—looks like the president and the chunk of the board wanted to cash out by closing the school and selling the property.

$96 million isn’t nothing—it’s in line with the endowment for small historically women’s colleges. Sarah Lawrence’s is $75 million. Bennington’s is a ridiculously low $14 million. Sweet Briar’s problems sound like mismanagement—probably from the run-it-like-a-business mentality that’s become increasingly common.

Lack of imagination on Hollywood’s part—it seemed like a sure thing so the studios pretty much promised James anything—but I suspect there’s some regrets given that James is so demanding that people dread working on the films and it makes doing the sequels that much more of a challenge. No established director wants…

Nah, no defense here—more like, wow, weird—and how appropriation has all sorts of issues and not a good history in this country.

Well, she did have four adopted siblings from Africa, so I guess . . .

Well, I’m not black, but I’ve known a lot of mixed-race people and, yeah, she does not look it. The blue-eyed blonde who headed the black students union at my college looked it, though she passed accidentally all the time, but this woman doesn’t have a single facial feature that reads black. She has a narrow mouth,…

There was one years and years ago by a Playboy Centerfold—I’m thinking early 70s—that made life at the Playboy mansion sound kind of dreary.

So why didn’t she just write a lightly fictionalized novel—she’d still get the publicity and she wouldn’t be on the hook for the exaggerations and distortions.

Yeah, she married a ballet dancer with NYCB—one of those, oh-I’m-past-40-marry-young-hot-guy marriages. She didn’t want kids. It never sounded like the great love affair of all time, more like two good-looking people mainly supported by her income. I suspect not a lot held them together and he’d be surrounded by young…

Just do a search on India and Bloomberg Business Week. Or India and The Economist. Or India and the Financial Times.

Ah, yes, shame on Nepal for having a disastrous earthquake and it giving you Nepalese coverage fatigue.

If you haven’t read about India’s boom, it’s only because you don’t read anything about business. The Asian Tigers have been big news for years.

Thank you. A lot of the tut-tutting here strikes me as a way to not have to think about what’s going on in Third World countries—that caring is somehow equivalent to colonialism.

Did you read the article? Because if you had, you’d see that the writer made a point of talking to Nepalese women and getting their opinions of the matter.

Well, you could start by actually reading the article and discussing the issues brought up instead of glibly and ignorantly washing your hands of the issue.

That was my take on it. The last Bobby was quite good, but between Kiernan being so capable and the problem with casting a good Bobby, the kid storylines ended up revolving around Sally.

Saul was a pretty big character to just disappear and never make any kind of comeback. We pretty much knew what happened to other characters with that size part—we know Paul fell in with a cult, but Harry did his last good deed and helped get him to LA. We know Freddy Rumsen dried out. Duck kept showing up and up. We…

The thing is, Pete is awful, but he also kind of grew up a bit. He and Trudy are such wonderfully shallow social climbers that I loved them together. I mean—their Charleston!

I feel you—I’m in the SF Bay Area—it’s just really, really depressing to lose the places that give your city or town its character.

Brava! “Bye, Bye Birdie!” Of course. Of course.