From London’s Independent. This one gives a truer picture of his enormous influence on the superhero comics of the times — and on Marvel’s fortunes.

Forthwith follows further evidence of the decline in testosterone among my gender.

Almost 100 years ago, Ernest Shackleton and his crew braved the Antarctic for two years almost completely without supplies once the pack ice closed in crushed their ship.

Today over on msnbc.com, reporter Miguel Llanos writes about his own voyage to the antarctic. He begins by complaining about his lost luggage, and about having to try on different cold-weather clothes. Men, read it here and weep.

“We will never allow anyone to control any part of Iraq,” said the Iraqi prime minister.

And from all reports, that’s exactly the situation.

Sent in by Mike Folie. Clicking here will be well worth your time.

In August 2005, no doubt dazed by my latest literary allusion, Doug asked me for a list of what he should read. So by God, I gave him one. What writer wouldn’t?

In honor of Doug’s 50th, I’ve decided to share it with you, too. It’s still called “Doug’s Reading List,” even though Doug didn’t draw it up and has proved immune to its wisdom. Don’t let that stop you, though. Sadly lacking in a college degree in literature, but determined to hold your own at fancy-schmanzy wine-and-cheese events? Then this is the list for you!

Click here for the page hosting the list.

Wanna pick a fight on the contents of the list? Please do. Post a comment. I eagerly await it.

Today is the 50th birthday of my good friend Doug Hackney.

I met Doug at the Inc. magazine conference in 2001. October of 2001. We were among the few who were “brave” enough to travel to a conference that soon after September 11th. Over a drink at the end of the conference we talked for an hour and a half not about business, but about life and the state of the world — and five years later we’re still having that conversation.

In thinking about what to get Doug, it occurred to me that Doug doesn’t need a damn thing. (Most of us don’t.) Visit his website at hackneys.com and you’ll see that he and his wife Stephanie are world travelers who actually want fewer things, not more. So I figured for his 50th I would just let him know how much I’ve enjoyed that conversation, and how much I admire his dedication to living his own life the way he wants, and helping people wherever and whenever he can. They call it “exploring the world and meeting its people.”

At the top, you see a photo of Doug from last year in the seat of a Kubota tractor clearing debris from the wreckage of people’s homes in Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Below are Doug, Steph, and a friend, after clearing wreckage for a grandmother and her two granddaughters.

Doug is good people. Happy 50th.

Today’s LA Times has a nice obit for Dave Cockrum — and they even spelled his name right.

My favorite newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, ran this photo on Thanksgiving Day. Is it just me, or does it look as though along with turkey, the mission serves human head on a platter?

Slate’s Bryan Curtis on Christopher Guest’s new movie. He doesn’t like it — or Guest’s methodology.

You may recall that back here I was saying that if there were a prize god, “The Road” would win. Although four — four! — people have since taken my recommendation and read “The Road,” evidently there remains a lack of a prize god, because last I checked the book hadn’t won any prizes. Except with me and others I’ve spoken with who read it.

In today’s LA Times (okay, yesterday’s at this point) Book Review, a judge from this year’s National Book Award discusses the judging process. Click here to read the piece. Having been on both sides of this sort of evaluation — picking writing-contest winners and losers, and being a writing-contest winner or loser — I can agree that it’s hard to make these judgments and that yes, there are backstage maneuverings. I’m glad she made a pitch for “The Road” (which her fellow judges were unmoved by). I’m also glad that all five judges agreed to shortlist Phillip Roth’s “Everyman,” a miraculous little novel I read last spring.

One thing about this contest took me back to my own days reading plays at Moving Arts, where we had an ongoing discussion about our evaluation process. A question that constantly arose was this one: If we didn’t read the entire play, were we being fair? Was it fair to render judgment by, say, page 10? In the case of the National Book Awards, over the course of three-and-a-half months these five judges had to read 258 novels. Each. The same 258. Do the math and it becomes clear that they had to skim many of these books — as she admits.

My other observation is this: If Phillip Roth didn’t finally place (they nobly saved him the embarrassment of being an also-ran, after having won twice), and Cormac McCarthy didn’t even show, then I have to marvel at just how high the bar has been set for the winner, “The Echo Maker” by Richard Powers. I’m going to have to find out personally by reading the book.