Good morning, Shanghai. (I hope that didn't conjure up random images of Madonna for anyone.)

Mostly just links to interesting stuff today. This is going to be one of those weeks, but I just keep trying to focus on the fact that next week is just three days of work. I'm trying not to think about the fact that those five days off will largely be spent on the road schlepping places to eat large amounts of food and be awkwardly social. Ah, the holidays, I have such...mixed feelings for them.

There are some absolutely amazing pictures of the sun circulating, the most detailed ever taken. The photo gallery is a must-see. Isn't it wonderful that something we take so for granted, that's so far away but that enables our very existence can still be so new to us? Happy sigh.

And then of course, there's the credit card companies sideways attack on porn. I'm no fan of credit cards, but I have to say, there's poetic justice in here somewhere. And lots of happy wives who won't have to deal with "Now, honey, I don't know where those charges came from" talks every month.

(Sometimes I feel like a shill for big corporate media.)

But here's another New York Times piece, this one a bizarre profile of Saddam Hussein's portrait painter. And still another piece, this one by Amy Bloom on why her new book about cross-dressers, transsexuals and the intersexed is nonfiction. (I'm really interested to read this actually, because of the rumor that she was really unhappy with the edit of her article that ran last spring in the Atlantic Monthly that dealt with the same subject matter of the book.)

And, last but not, least, this one's for Gavin. I hope you knew about this in advance.

I'm off for another day of rootin' tootin' office-style non-fun. Please don't ever ask me about that last sentence. Now go read 32degrees and feel good about things.