Longtime Signifying Nothing staple Margaret Soltan samples a recent export from Oxford, Mississippi. I can’t say that the shirtless men were of particular interest to me during my six years on campus, but I suppose the general sentiment is well-taken.

My LinkedIn and Facebook self-questioning of the day: should I friend* people who I just know from the blogosophere or email? I generally don’t add people I haven’t had a significant interaction with (defined loosely as “a conversation I can remember” or “we consumed sufficient alcohol that we probably had a conversation I cannot remember any more” or “significant online interaction over time”), but maybe I should make more exceptions.

Similarly, Flickr’s new Find Your Friends feature turned up one of my friends who happens to live here but disappeared off the face of my planet (but not the planet, judging from recent photos) about a year ago—indeed much of the reason I came to Tulane instead of another job with a bit more job security in the Mid-Atlantic was because I figured I’d have at least one friend here. I apparently figured wrong… although Flickr now believes otherwise.

I also saw friends in Chicago—a few new ones, now added to Facebook, and a few old ones, either already there or too tragically hip to be there in the first place. Shoutouts in particular to SN readers Dirk, Jennifer, Nick, and Sara, and possibly some of my lurkers too embarrassed to fess up to reading the blog to my face.

* I assume it is now safe to use the word “friend” as a verb. (OS X 10.5’s version of The New Oxford American Dictionary says it’s ok… and actually a revitalized archaic form.)

Dan Drezner today, on Democratic posturing on trade:

Just to repeat myself:

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Democrats cannot simultaneously talk about improving America’s standing abroad while acting like a belligerent unilateralist when it comes to trade policy.

A close second, from the same source: “A bitter irony of this latest kerfuffle is that this will likely be the most prominent mention of Colombia during the presidential campaign—just as the NAFTA imbroglio will have been the most prominent mention of Canada.”