In most cases, Mr. Sherpao said, the police have had a boilerplate approach to solving the suicide bombings. They have blamed them on Baitullah Mehsud.
Maybe the best story in this superb collection is a rapt little piece called “Skeeter Junkie,” in which a young heroin addict first begins to enjoy the feeling of the mosquito feeding on his arm, then starts to identify with it and then, as the drugs ooze through his veins, somehow becomes it and finally uses the “exquisite” flying bloodsucker to transport him to the apartment of his comely but standoffish downstairs neighbor. It’s a horror story, I guess, but it’s also funny, weirdly erotic and, in a way that horror almost never is, tragic.
Star suicides shock us, raising the question of whether celebrities, underneath all their glamorous trappings, are just as miserable and depressed as everyone else.
In a country that declares happiness to be a constitutional right, it is unclear whether therapy -- a process that mostly offers a means of arranging rather than altering experience -- provides enough bang for the buck.
Performers thrive on attention, and sometimes admit that it’s an addiction; now, the Internet enables that addiction all too easily. The unintended consequence is that we can now watch stars self-destruct in real time.
“There’s definitely a winter malaise setting in. The fun group dynamic that we had the first week or two has dissolved. It’s tough to see any kind of hope on the horizon.”
Caroline Kennedy: Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible. We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama.
The crowds that turn out for Mr. Giuliani seem adoring enough. He drew more than 200 at the Columbia Restaurant here Saturday morning. But when he asked how many had voted early -- which his campaign has been pressing its supporters to do for two weeks -- only a few hands went up.
