What happened on September 28, 2008
ENTERTAINMENT
Against all odds Erin Aubry Kaplan, Erin Aubry Kaplan is a contributing editor to The Times' Opinion pages.
Discoveries Susan Salter Reynolds, Brigitte Frase is a critic and reviewer.
finale Mark Swed, Times Music Critic
Fact and froth at war's end Brigitte Frase, Brigitte Frase is a critic and reviewer.
OPINION
Give me liberty and give me death P.J. O'Rourke, P.J. O'Rourke is a correspondent for the Weekly Standard and the Atlantic. A longer version of this article will appear in Search magazine. searchmagazine.org.
The laugh trade Joel Pett, Joel Pett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist of the Lexington Herald-Leader. His work also appears in USA Today.
Race for president builds characters Todd Gitlin, Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University, is the author, most recently, of "The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals."
Parks to the people Sara Catania, Sara Catania teaches journalism at USC and blogs at laobserved.com.