A moment of not-silence for football's suddenly altered version of the same reality.

Robert Caro has spent thirty-eight years writing the biography of one man. The fourth volume of that work, like its three predecessors a giant achievement and certain best seller, is about to be published. But Caro is not done. And until he is done, one part of the world that we will never see again will not die.

It was dark and wet and dangerous in Zanesville, Ohio. Terry Thompson had let his scores of big animals out of their hard, grim cages, then shot himself in the head. The tigers and bears were loose. Night was falling. Everything was out of control.

Many large strains of current American history are contained in the compressed story of his year.

Stu Grimson and the rash of hockey-enforcer suicides.

Jon Huntsman is the guy who officially nominated Sarah Palin for vice-president in 2008. Then he skipped the country (as ambassador to China) while the Republican party spent the next two years going crazy. Now he's back, alarmed — but unmarked — by the madness and convinced he can bring his party back.

Dodging hot-dog shrapnel and enraged managers, an exile returns to the baseball beat.

Perhaps no man is more hated in the AL East — or more troubled.

When you're at the top in Hollywood, as he is now, you can do anything you want. Including doing what you want.

Terry Kniess performed better than anyone in the long history of The Price Is Right – so well that producers freaked out backstage as he racked up winnings. Was it luck? Skill? Or did he cheat?