Does everyone know what the Straight Talk Express would bring to the White House if voters are stupid enough to elect Mr. Gasbag?

You would think so. Even The Wall Street Journal knows. It would mean "The Return of Dr. No."

When Rupert Murdoch said The Wall Street Journal would target The New York Times in the competition for readers, he was talking about a lot more than prose style. But if you're taking aim at The Times it helps to show that WSJ reporters know how to write, really write.

Now that the Wall Street Journal is reporting general news as never before, one of my small pleasures is to compare matching stories in the New York Times. The comparisons are not always exact, but they are revealing just the same.

Mark Morford usually gets it right. (He's one of the savviest, funniest columnists around.) This time he flubbed it, methinks. Musta taken a happy pill when he wrote his latest:

Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway.

This is what I find...

Guess where this sentence is from:

[T]he half-Kenyan-by-way-of-Hawaii candidate, who only recently completed a beer-and-bowling tour to impress blue-collar Midwesterners, has committed more fully to showing off his inner Jew.

Read a book, see a flick, eat too much, drink plenty vino, keep my nose clean, and generally laze about. Such is the simple life. So I almost forgot to remember.

It's probably been said before: The Lower East Side is both a location and a state of mind. At least it used to be. Before the developers arrived. Before the la-di-da gentrification of the real estate boom. Before the boutiques.

The unusual title -- "Motherfuckers: The Auschwitz of Oz" -- tells you it's an extraordinary novel. But it still doesn't prepare you for the story (or the swastika on the cover). Which is why "Horror Panegyric," published today by Savoy Books, works...

The 79-year-old graphic designer perhaps most famous for...

After so many years of fear and loathing, we had almost forgotten what it's like to feel good about our country. On Thursday night, that long-dormant emotion came rushing back, like an old dream that pops out of the deepest recesses of...

Here's a tale you won't find in Students for a Democratic Society, A Graphic History, a new book due out soon. I always meant to write it down but never did. I'm telling it now before I forget all the details, because I don't think...

Who knew? I didn't. But that's what Tom Hayden reveals, give or take a few...

Hi Jan -- I just wanted to introduce myself, having followed your blog with great interest. My name is Sonia Katyal, and I am a law professor who specializes in the area of art, law and technology...

I have no idea how many readers wrote to tell them. But I know of at least one. This was my email message to The New York Times Book Review:

It is a delicious irony of life in New York to ride the subway during the morning rush hour with Dave Frishberg's "Quality Time" playing on your iPod (listen here). Another irony, not so delish, is to miss what's in front of your eyes. Like walking past the art...