J.D. Salinger has just died. One of the few portraits we have of him after he withdrew from public life and the written word and retreated to a compound in New Hampshire was the memoir by Joyce Maynard, published decades after the fact, of a months-long affair with him when she was 18 years old. The Salinger in her portrait was a sexually weird, health-obsessed crank. (Maynard also thinks he may have a couple of unpublished novels squirreled away somewhere.) Maynard was roundly excoriated for having violated Salinger’s privacy and exploiting their long-ago affair for financial gain. I agree with Hanna that there is much to excoriate about Joyce Maynard, but I always felt that she was entitled to write about her own life. Salinger contacted her after he saw her a photograph of her winsome teenage face on the cover of the New York Times Magazine illustrating probably her most famous story about herself. He was 35 years older than she—old enough to understand that when you have an affair with a writer, you may be dealing away your privacy.

Tags: j.d. Salinger; joyce maynard

I agree with nearly everyone that Obama’s speech was way too long—like 30 minutes worth. But I wish he’d had time for a couple more sentences when he got to Iran. In his perfunctory remarks about Iran, he said if the country doesn't curb its nuclear ambitions, it will find itself facing unnamed “consequences.” Obama has mostly seemed flummoxed by the brave Iranian demonstrators fighting in the streets—and dying—as they seek democracy and a new government. I wish Obama had used last night’s platform to say to them and the world that we stand with them, that a government that kills its own children has no legitimacy and will not last.

Tags: iran, Obama speech, SOTU

I can't tell if Julie Scelfo's New York Times piece on the oh-so-eligible John Bowe is supposed to be a moving snapshot of modern romantic struggles, a book plug, or a 1,500-word personal ad.

Now that the world knows the marvelous fortysomething freelance journalist can cook (pork with crushed sweet peppers), clean (no dust or hair in the bathroom!), and collect art (amateur flower paintings), Mr. Bowe will surely be deluged by friend requests from lonely New Yorkers who believe they've stumbled upon their soul mate in the Style section. But the ladies may be too late. Ms. Scelfo admits that some of her interviews were conducted during "several late-night phone calls when Mr. Bowe seemed less guarded." And don't accuse me of reading too much into this. There is no need to read between the lines when the piece includes lines like, "There is little to suggest that Mr. Bowe... isn't the last great catch."

So, if you were thinking about tracking down Mr. Bowe and demanding to have his babies (you already know he'll "be the happiest person on this planet" when he has kids), forget it. He's got a lady friend who admires well-groomed, well-traveled, anti-establishment types—and she already has his number.

Tags: john bowe, julie scelfo

KJ: I want to second your point about the problem with creating “rating systems” for teen and preteen books. I was never a fan of TV ratings (though recent episodes of Gossip Girl may have led me to reverse my position!), but I’m really not a fan of book rating. As you astutely point out, reading graphic language is not the same thing as seeing graphic footage. For one thing, books are far more subjective a medium, I would argue: To me, sexual language is more subjective than sexual images are. At least those on TV. And how would such a rating system work? I, for one, would far rather the preteens and teens I know read a graphic sex scene, sensitively rendered, in a book whose values seemed humanist and complex, than have them read a PG version of such a scene in a trashy “teen” book about high school cliques.

As you point out, reading about a “manpole” is very different than seeing it—reading is, in our world, private, not public. It gives you time to process and think. Then again, the dialogue in the book Buchsbaum mentions, Will Dutton, Will Dutton, sounds kinda … terrible. I've got it: Don’t rate books, just stop publishing trashy YA dramas and hand teenagers real literature instead. Or do I just sound like a literary reactionary—a kind of “Lit,”per Gore—when I say that?

Tags: books, ratings

You would think, reading this morning’s SOTU coverage, that Justice Samuel Alito stood up last night, ripped off his robe, and howled like a werewolf when President Obama criticized the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. Please. What probably happened—what inevitably happens to the one collective of American public officials who are completely shielded from public view—is that Alito was offended at the Obama’s high sticking, muttered “not true” under his breath, and failed to realize that it would turn it into the gotcha moment of the night.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the president’s criticism of the court’s decision, although as Linda Greenhouse points out, he was less than precise in his description of the holding. But there was also absolutely nothing inappropriate about the justice’s reaction to him. Both the president and the justices are political actors, and all are entitled to screw up their faces and grumble in public as they see fit. Anyone who’s watched Alito at oral argument at the high court knows that he screws up his face and mutters to himself all the time. The suggestion that he was showboating or grandstanding last night is spectacularly unfair. Unlike several of his colleagues, Alito is meticulously polite, balanced, and measured on the bench, and goes out of his way to shun big drama. I’m sure if Alito could take it back this morning he would. I’m equally sure that if he attends the next SOTU at all, he won’t move so much as a muscle.

Photograph of Samuel Alito and Barack Obama by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Tags: Justice Alito, State of the Union