* “Why Your Cousin With a Ph.D. Is a Basket Case: Understanding the Byzantine hiring process that drives academics up the wall,” or, don’t go to grad school.

* Megan McArdle: “California Accidentally Legalizes Campus Sex:” “It is, in other words, an impossibly overspecific standard that seems impossible to enforce consistently. And yet, while most of the commentariat views this overspecificity as a bug, I wonder if it isn’t actually a feature.” In general I am increasingly leery of new laws, since by now no one is innocent.

* David Mitchell on How to Write: “Neglect Everything Else”.

* 28 Steal-Worthy Tips From the Most Productive People on the Planet.

* “Up With Adultery! An Italian Woman’s Manifesto;” speculative.

* Someone found this blog by searching for “kayden kross y anna love,” though I suspect they are disappointed.

* Someone else found this blog by searching for “best english literature graduate programs,” the answer to which is: “Don’t go.”

* Forbes fires columnist for being a columnist; weirdly, none of the current talk in the pundit-o-sphere has moved past what Camille Paglia wrote 20 years ago.

* “‘I was terrified we’d lose all our money’: banks tell US customers they won’t work with Americans,” an underreported story.

* “Interview: Caitlin Moran on the Working Class, Masturbation, and Writing a Novel,” which sounds stupid but isn’t. I still don’t want to read the novel; it sounds too overtly political.