Years ago, when I first started reading the quality literary and political reviews, I kept coming across the name George Scialabba. As I quickly discovered, his essays and reviews were thought provoking and sharply turned. Since then, George has been a model. I can’t say that I share his fondness for the likes of Noam Chomksy, but Scialabba is a member of no party or faction. Like one of his (and my) heroes Irving Howe, George is a social democrat with an independent streak.

“What Are Intellectuals Good For?” (Pressed Wafer, $15) collects almost twenty years worth of Scialabba’s stuff, and there is much here to relish: a bracingly unreverential look at Edward Said (two cheers for that), and a devastating appraisal of Christopher Hitchens, to name just two notable pieces. Scott McLemee, another model man of letters, provides a very fine introduction. I’ll keep this anthology close to hand.

Another week, another disaster for the newspaper industry. When I was blogging last year about what big city daily would be the first to go, I had 2-1 odds on the scrappy Boston Herald biting the dust. But remarkably, this Beantown ᾿bloid is holding on. The late Seattle Post-Intelligencer did not make my original watch list, but I wasn’t too far off with my call on the Rocky Mountain News, which I had laid 3-1 odds on. Both are gone now, and it’s a shame.

All of this is bad, and it’s not nostalgic to say that demise of the American newspaper will bring nothing good to the culture. Sure, let a thousand websites bloom, but none of these will be able to replicate what a newspaper does. (And I don’t care what the brilliant Clay Shirky has to say.) At Garcia Interactive, designer John Duncan predicts 85 percent of American newspapers will be dead by 2011. A nightmare scenario. In a searching essay for The New Republic, Paul Starr reflects on the political consequences of an America with radically diminished newspapers.

There are surely more newspapers closures in the offing this year. But who’s next? Douglas A. Macintyre at 24/7 Wall St. put out a controversial list of the ten papers it thinks will fold or go digital soon. However, always sharp industry vet Allan Mutter, who blogs at Reflections of a Newsosaur, seriously questioned Macintyre’s findings. But this a matter of “if,” not “when.” I’m trying to be reassured by Mutter’s skepticism; but, somewhere, we are headed for a no-newspaper town. What big city will the first to earn this undesirable distinction? The Seattle Times is in trouble; the venerable San Francisco Chronicle, which I had at 3-1, is in worse shape. I’ll give it even odds to survive the rest of the year.

The New York Sun closed up shop today, and it’s sad to see it go. But The Sun was more a niche publication than a major metro—my benchmark is a circulation of 100,000 plus, and The Sun’s circ was far below that. In my original post I laid 2-1 odds on the Boston Herald being the first major metro to fold. But the paper seems to holding steady. Ominous things are happening with other of my selections, so here are some revised odds.

The Star-Ledger. Open: 6-1. Current: 4-1. The publishers are still predicting dire consequences—a sale or outright closure—if they don’t get significant concessions from their drivers union by October 8. The mailers union agreed to a deal earlier this month, and non-union employees are taking buyouts, so perhaps the scare tactics are working. But I don’t see a good ending for The Star-Ledger.

Philly Inquirer. Open: 4-1. Current: 3-1. If there’s a drabber big city newspaper in America , I’d like to see it. The Inquirer needs to be redesigned from top to bottom. Say what you will about Sam Zell and his nutty “innovation officer” Lee Abrams(the man is a memo writing demon), but they’ve injected some vitality into the Chicago Tribune, former title holder of drabbest paper in America, which is sporting a cool new design. The Inquirer soldiers on like it’s 1975. Please, Brian Tierney, do SOMETHING to make the Inquirer more pleasing to the eye—maybe you’ll pick up some new readers.

Meanwhile, the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia recently voted to postpone a *$25-a -week raise which was due for Inquirer and Daily News journos. A noble sacrifice, but if Tierney and Philadelphia Media Holdings can’t afford an extra 25 bucks a week, their balance sheet must be a total disaster.

This just in: A newspaper right here in my own backyard—The New York Sun—just announced that it if can’t round up some new investors, it may cease publishing at the end of September. The Sun, which launched in 2002, has always defied the economics of newspapering. It’s practically a give away, and its editions, which sometimes run as small as 18 pages, never carry much advertising. In tone, it’s stuffy and center-right, but its vigorous coverage of New York is a welcome alternative to the wafer-thin metro section of the New York Times. (Disclosure: I’ve contributed to the Sun’s books pages from time to time.) The paper didn’t make it into my original post about which metropolitan daily will bite the dust first, but I’m offering even odds on the Sun.

There are also reports out of Denver that one of its dailies—The Denver Post or the Rocky Mountain News—may close down sometime soon. Both papers operate under a joint operating agreement between E.W Scripps, owner of the Rocky, and MediaNews Group, which owns the Post. The JOA, however, hasn’t changed the fortunes of either paper, and both are suffering through a bad economy. Like Detroit, Denver won’t be a two paper town forever. Alas, I’m laying 3-1 odds on the Rocky.

New Orleans escaped disaster this time—just—but once again “Is the city worth it?” stories are circulating. Only politics and weather will determine that. For now, a lot of folks seem committed to staying, whatever the future brings. Still, even long time residents are having doubts—and who can blame them? I’ve read a lot of great stuff on NOLA, one of my favorite places, but this piece by LA Times journalist Richard Fausset, a native, is incredibly touching. American newspapers don’t often let their reporters ruminate in the first person, but Fausset’s meditations on his parents, NOLA diehards, say a lot about what it means to live on in this wonderful, troubled city.

Call me fussy and outdated, but I’ll read the print edition of the daily paper until the last one rolls off the presses, which, journalism professor Philip Meyer predicts, will happen sometime around 2040. But for some metropolitan dailies, the end could be coming a lot sooner. The newspaper industry bloodbath shows no signs of abating—7,000 jobs have already been lost this year through layoffs and buyouts, and some newspaper stocks are now trading in the single digits. The portents are bad, and getting worse. In the June/July issue of American Journalism Review, Charles Layton looked into the future, crunched the numbers, and came up with some scary figures. The daily paper is in a terrible bind. Among other challenges newspapers face is how to make a buck on the internet. Online ads currently make up less than 10 percent of advertising revenue, so, for now, newspapers are stuck with the print edition.

But that’s just the problem—print revenues continue to decline at a catastrophic rate, and I fear that some papers will have no choice but to close up shop. In Business Week, Jon Fine predicts that “one or more major American markets will lose their daily newspaper within 18 months.” I think Fine’s timeline is pretty much right on the mark, but what paper will go belly up first? Below, I offer some odds on who might be going out of business in the near future. These findings are speculative and unscientific, and I don’t offer them with any joy. I hope the future proves me 100 percent wrong.

Boston Herald: 2-1. Boston’s scrappy second newspaper, and one of my favorite tabloids—every page looks like it’s having a nervous breakdown. Recently outsourced its printing operations, which seems like a desperate move.

Minneapolis Star Tribune: 3-1. Avista Capital Partners, which had had no previous experience running a newspaper when it bought the Strib in 2006, is having trouble making loan payments.

San Francisco Chronicle: 3-1. The Bay City’s signature paper is laying off 125 employees, and is reportedly losing a million dollars a week. Will the Chron go all digital, or will Hearst just kill it?

The Detroit News: 4-1. Detroit will not be a two newspaper town for much longer, and the Free Press, which has its own troubles, will probably outlive the News.

Philadelphia Daily News/Philly Inquirer: 4-1. Brian Tierney took on a lot of debt when he bought Philly’s ’bloid and broadsheet from McClatchy in 2006. Things are looking grim, and I think it’s a fair bet that Tierney will have to close one paper to save the other. The Daily News goes.

The Star-Ledger: 6-1. Advance Publications has remained steadfast in its commitment to newspapering—see The Times-Picayune in New Orleans—but things are so dire at New Jersey’s largest paper that if 200 employees don’t take a buyout, the Star-Ledger faces the prospect of being sold and who knows what.

Note: Sam Zell, owner of the Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, is trying to slash and cut his way to profitability, but I don’t think either paper is in imminent danger of going out of business. But you never know.

There was a controversial guest on HBO’s Costas Now town hall meeting on the state of baseball in 2008. He’s one of the most notorious players in the history of the game—no, it wasn’t Barry Bonds, but all-time hits leader Pete Rose. Major League Baseball wants nothing to do with Rose, an incredibly flawed man whose gambling habit—he bet on games when he managed the Cincinnati Reds back in eighties—earned him a lifetime ban from the game. Rose, interestingly enough, appeared on a segment called “The Hall of Fame: What Gets You In?” This is a pretty darn good question these days, with steroids-era sluggers like Mark McGwire up for eligibility, and a profusion of newfangled stats that, if anything, has made judging a player’s performance harder, not easier.

Alluding to the scandal plagued McGwire, Rose, and Bonds, Hall of Fame third baseman Mike Schmidt observed there is no player in the Hall without sin. It was a politic comment, but not a disingenuous one, I think. Even if Hall voters are asked to weigh a player’s integrity, the Hall isn’t about virtue. There’s a sliding scale when it comes to integrity, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. Rose broke an explicit rule—no gambling—but is this worse than taking performance enhancing drugs? Rose’s betting habit didn’t help his players hit the ball harder. It’s a tough call, but Charlie Hustle deserves reinstatement, and a place in the Hall of Fame.

As the publicity for the upcoming season of “Mad Men” builds to a frenzy—with 16 Emmy nominations, it’s no longer just a cult fave—I’ve been mulling something that no one seems to have pointed out. Jon Hamm of “Mad Men” and Michael C. Hall of “Dexter” have been doing some of the most interesting work on TV over the last few years. “Dexter’s” macabre delights and “Mad Men’s” delirious period style have rightly been acclaimed, but what strikes me is the similarities between their lead characters. I realize that a serial killer and an ad man might not be the most natural pairing—but Hamm’s Don Draper and Hall’s Dexter Morgan, outwardly studies in conformity, going along to fit in, are desperate men. Gnawed at by an emotional blankness, they summon counterfeit emotions when they’re forced to do so—especially with their romantic partners, the stunning January Jones and the beguiling Julie Benz, respectively—but they are both seemingly incapable of any genuine feeling. They don’t know what to do with themselves. (Unlike Dexter, however, I think Don Draper is at least capable of feeling something—perhaps Season 2 will tells us what exactly that is.)

Is this a new commentary on a particular kind of masculinity? “Dexter” and “Mad Men” are far more revealing about men and women than HBO’s “Tell Me You Love Me,” which put it all out on the table, but didn’t really get down to emotions on a gut level.

I just got my hands on an advance copy of Library of America’s forthcoming “True Crime: An American Anthology,” which I will be writing about at length in the fall. Included is a piece by Jack Webb on one of America’s most famous crimes, the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short—aka the Black Dahlia—whose whose mutilated body was found in a abandoned lot in LA’s Leimert Park neighborhood. Unsolved to this day, Short’s murder has inspired a lot of crackpot theories about her killer’s identity—someone even fingered Orson Welles as a suspect. Advances in forensic technology have brought us no closer to a solution; the Dahlia killer remains in the shadows, just out of reach, a constant incitement for wild speculation and a lot of factually dubious funny business.

You could say the same thing about one of history’s other elusive killers, Jack the Ripper. Who was he? Everyone from Lewis Carroll to the Duke of Clarence has been named as a suspect. A few years ago, the mystery writer Patricia Cornwell made a complete fool out of herself trying to prove that British painter Walter Sickert was the real Ripper. Not a chance. More recently, in his utterly fascinating book “The Fox and the Flies: The World of Joseph Silver, Racketeer and Psychopath,” the South African historian Charles van Onselen advanced the notion that the Polish-born Silver, a police informant and small-time hood, was the Ripper. Van Onselen doesn’t quite prove his case—much of his evidence is circumstantial—but his research into the late 19th century underworld is staggering. The book didn’t attract much attention, but was the subject of a very fine piece earlier this year by the English writer Charles Nicholl.

A quote from a favorite critic and a few words of introduction. Frank Kermode, a model generalist and the elder statesman of literary criticism, once explained himself this way: “So I educate myself in public, which I take to be the reviewer’s privilege.” It’s a line that’s always stuck in my head. I’ve admired Kermode’s forceful yet modest way of going about his task—Sir Frank’s modesty is something else to behold: the man has a knighthood, but he called his memoirs “Not Entitled”—and his operating principle is about as fine a guidepost for a literary freelancer as anything I’ve come across. In my ten years as a freelance writer, I’ve been lucky enough to work with editors who have allowed me educate myself in public. (I also hope I’ve entertained a few readers along the way.) Blogging is something a little different for me, but it’s a way for me to offer a passing record of obsessions, enthusiams, and interests. I’ll look at it as another way of educating myself in public.