Matt Labash

Boston, Massachusetts

TRY AS I MIGHT, there's no getting around it: I'm all man. I make this statement of faith not because I checked myself out in the shower before writing this article. Nor because I possess all your typical man-like properties--though I do: I can eat two hamburgers in one sitting, I hate spooning, I can operate even the most obscure buttons on a television remote without looking down.

Sometimes we manly types must manfully take stock of our manliness by digging deeper. Some do this by pushing their outer limits--by getting a risqué tattoo or competing in triathlons.

MILLIONS OF AMERICANS along the eastern seaboard are hunkered down in fear, weathering the effects and aftermath of Hurricane Isabel. Millions more are rending their garments, collapsing in sustained crying jags, and cursing their Maker over the untimely demises of John Ritter, Johnny Cash, and the Women's United Soccer Association. Still, amidst so much devastation, the fates have kindly given us a ray of hope, a candle in the darkness, a chocolate on our pillow. They have brought an end to the world's single most annoying couple: Jen and Ben.

Des Moines, Iowa

THERE WAS A TIME, not long ago, when primetime television was populated by famous people. Someone appearing on TV meant that they'd likely worked their way up through the ranks: doing school plays, regional theater, and embarrassing commercials, until finally, they honed their skills, perfected their craft, and slept with the lecherous casting director who'd cause them to become obscenely wealthy and loved by millions.

These days, however, television isn't so much about being famous, as it is about auditioning to become famous.

Fairfax, Virginia

IT'S HARD TO DESCRIBE the electricity one feels when crossing this Northern Virginia strip-mall parking lot to attend Hillary Clinton's "Living History" book-signing. But I haven't been this excited about Wal-Mart since my one-hour photos came back in 25 minutes. It makes me feel all sprightly and young again--as if it were 1998.

Hillary has yet to arrive, but already, her fans and detractors are sparring. On one side of the street, snaking out of the store through the lawn'n'garden section, are the Hillaryites.

WITH THE RELEASE this week of "Living History," it is worth noting that this title is not Hillary Rodham Clinton's first foray into children's literature. In 1996, came her blockbuster smash, "It Takes A Village," in which she condescended to parents as if they were children , by preaching the healing power of making sock puppets with teeth-grinding chapters like "An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Intensive Care." I'd share more, but it would take a village to hold me down and make me read the rest of it.

IN MY CORNER of the world, there are two kinds of people I generally abhor: those who pretend they don't watch television, and those who do watch television, but pretend they don't watch reality television. To the former, I usually display awe--you can also live without Jimmy Reed albums, red meat, or sex, I marvel, but why would you want to? But it is the latter for whom I really have contempt.

Reality TV, the critical line goes, is counterfeit entertainment. As sad-sack sleuths like the Washington Post's television critic Tom Shales assert--there is nothing real about it.

"And so we brought our dead man home. Flew his body back, faxed the obits to the local papers, called the priests, the sexton, the florists and stonecutter. We act out things we cannot put in words."

--Thomas Lynch, "The Undertaking"

Camp Wolf, Kuwait

Umm Qasr, Iraq

Safwan, Iraq

Safwan, Iraq