Several items of varying importance

-The Big Essay about the new political correctness has been written and responded to at great length all over the internet. See Miss Self-Important, or see Chait's essay. I haven't been online as much as usual lately (more on that in a moment), so all I know is that this is now the topic. And... I know I once had thoughts on it, but I'm maybe a bit YPIS'd out. The problem with YPIS, PC, or whatever we're calling it is principally that it's an internal argument on the left. As such, it has no hope of convincing anyone on the right of anything, other than perhaps that the left is, indeed, ridiculous. I say this as someone on the left.

-Andrew Sullivan has stopped blogging. Obviously a big deal in terms of journalism, blogging, politics. A specific big deal to me as well, seeing as I worked at the Dish, but also as one of the many bloggers inspired by Andrew's example in those early blogging days. I wish all my former colleagues there the best. While I don't agree with every single political position Andrew has taken, I... got to post my own thoughts on Zionism, female sexuality, and more during the guest-blogging (now out from behind the paywall, it seems), so I can vouch for the Dish's openness to dissent firsthand.

-If my thoughts on everything are a bit fuzzy, it's because today was kind of all over the place. I went running in the morning and got... not lost, exactly, but went much further than I meant to, and ended up in some kind of surfing enclave. I'm not sure I'd ever seen surfing before, at least not surfing-culture surfing, the kind that involves blond dreadlocks, yet there it was.

But the big adventure was driving around alone on the freeway. The real one this time - the 101. I even took one freeway to another freeway at one point. Once I was doing this, it hit me that these are just roads, and that what I was doing was if anything less complicated than the driving I normally do. But it felt as if a whole world was opening up. I'd say I should have done this ages ago, but my sense is that while the driving I'm doing now may prepare me to take the NJ Turnpike alone to Mitsuwa, the reverse order wouldn't have worked.