We recently posted about Beacon Press author Bill Ayers and his connection to Barack Obama. Stanley Fish posted about the controversy on his blog at the New York Times, and "confesses" his own association with Bill Ayers:

Did I conspire with Bill Ayers? Did I help him build bombs? Did I aid and abet his evasion (for a time) of justice? Not likely, given that at the time of the events that brought Ayers and Dohrn to public attention, I was a supporter of the Vietnam War. I haven’t asked him to absolve me of that sin (of which I have since repented), and he hasn’t asked me to forgive him for his (if he has any).

It goes without saying that Obama's association with Jeremiah Wright, who was on Bill Moyers Journal this past weekend and spoke at the NAACP's Freedom Fund dinner yesterday, has also given the presidential candidate some trouble in the mainstream media. While the blogosphere is still debating the impact of Wright's appearances, the radical image he and his church have been given in the media does not match the experience of Suzanne Shea, who visited the church he led for over thirty years.

Over at Slate last week, Dahlia Lithwick got some conversation going about the incoming New York Times SCOTUS beat reporter, Adam Liptak. Mark Tushnet, author of the forthcoming I Dissent, was one of many readers to comment on how Liptak might rethink the task of reporting on the highest court in the land.

Read an excerpt of Nan Mooney's Not Keeping Up With Our Parents over at Utne.com.

And David Gessner, who posted here last week about the problems of environmental writing, is back on YouTube with a very funny approach to keeping students engaged in a lecture. You can find the video on Beacon Broadside's YouTube video log. While you're over there (and before you get distracted by cats playing piano), check out an older video of David skiing the beach.