A moment of silence until the next Grantland emerges.

Two of my favorite sites closed down this year: The Dissolve and now Grantland. The Classical started at the same time as Grantland, but didn't live up to its potential either, if making good on potential is judged by financial success only. To survive, The Classical eventually had to become a free for all blog where people volunteer and whose writing (like mine) is probably not of the same, consistent quality or renown as what the site intended upon its initial launch. 

Dark Clouds in Happy Valley

Capitalism, the middle class, social security, Joe Paterno, it seems that everything good about the American century is being shoved off some giant cliff into a sea of nothing, and while everyone's first concerns and prayers should go out to the victims, is there anything more disorienting than finding out that the center of everything, to steal a line from Yeats, cannot hold?

Things I've Read

-I'm not really sure what to make of Amy Winehouse, her life, and her death, but here's an article by Jay Caspian King (who's probably writing the most consistently interesting/possibly brilliant stuff over at Grantland).