Rabbi Rushfield's Wistful Goodbye: Rabbi Richard Rushfield clearly had a lump in his throat as he closed out his post on the kick-off of the American Idol 53-city concert tour: "Outside in the still over 100-degree night, over 100 fans line a railing three stories above the driveway where the Idols would soon be loading into tour buses, their overnight homes as they make their way toward San Diego for Day Two of this last leg of their Idol journey. And on this same stretch of concrete not a month from now, tens of thousands more will stand on line to take their place when the Season 8 auditions come to Phoenix and history races on." Someone buy this man an ice cream.

Lord of the (Virtual) Flies: Alana Semuels has a fascinating piece about the bad, bad things kids do to one another online. She also offers some tips for online safety (but we have a feeling an editor made her do that).

Well, Glad That's Settled: David Sarno updates yesterday's Violet Blue/BoingBoing posts with a bit of learned Web wisdom: "Bloggers are weird." And insightful, too.