It’s probably for the best that former South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel stepped down from his post as state chairman of Giuliani’s presidential campaign last week: getting indicted on cocaine distribution charges can take up a lot of your time — like, say, up to twenty years in federal prison. But Giuliani proved eager to retain his ties to the politically powerful family, quickly appointing Thomas’s father, Arthur Ravenel, Jr.

A heavily eye-shadowed young actress is standing haplessly by the door of a laundromat. Her elder cohort has been studiously letting her do most of the talking throughout the play, but is now searching for words to bring this girl out of her funk. Like a sphinx, her lips gather together to deliver the sage advice. And then a random guy — not an actor — walks in on the scene, squeezes past the actresses and the audience to the far washing machines to pick up his whites.

Japanese competitive eating phenom Takeru ‘Tsunami’ Kobayashi has been sidelined from his “sport” by a crippling case of “jaw arthritis.” “My jaw refused to fight anymore,” Kobayashi explained. “I feel ashamed that I couldn’t notice the alarm bells set off by my own body…but with the goal to win another title…I couldn’t stop my training so close to the competition.

The Vatican’s Office of Migrants and Itinerant People has recently released a set of “Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road,” which functions as a kind of “Ten Commandments” for drivers. Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the office, says that he is charged with the souls of all ``itinerant” people, a demographic that apparently includes refugees, prostitutes, truck drivers and the homeless, in addition to everyday commuters, as far as I can tell.

Jon Stewart’s Daily Show contract expires in 2008, and TV-land gossiphounds are now reporting that he has been schmoozed in “exploratory” talks by the bigwigs at NBC, who are looking to cash in on the man whose raised eyebrow can elicit more belly-laughs than an entire week’s worth of The Peacock’s primetime comedy.

The following statement was issued after today’s landmark gay-marriage vote by State Senator Gail Candaras, a Wilbraham Democrat who, as a state representative, had backed a proposed Massachusetts constitutional amendment that would have subjected gay marriage to a popular vote. At today’s Constitutional Convention, Wilbraham switched her position and voted against the amendment:

This came out last year, but we just had to tell you how excited we are about War on Terror: The BoardGame. According to the game's website, for 47 bucks, you get to:

"Send secret messages; fund terrorism; make deals; renege on deals; wage war; expand your empire; forge secret alliances; fund regime changes; kidnap politicians; be the terrorists."

In 8: A Memoir, Amy Fusselman’s followup to her excellent first memoir The Pharmacist’s Mate, time, rather than moving in a linear fashion, takes the form of the figure eights the author used to skate when she was a kid. Events, for her, don’t just come and go. Instead, everything from Fusselman's experience in the backseat of a cab to the sexual abuse she suffered in her youth at the hands of her babysitter’s husband stays around, affects her in the present.