I cannot comprehend how a lawyer can support the idea of replacing rigorous judges by relaxed ones just to win the case of his/her Driving Under the Influence client, as DOMINIC HOLDEN reports. I didn't get the whole point of this story, because having studied law for two years in France, I only learnt that I hate this field. Hence, every time I read a judicial term or expression, I boycott the whole sentence and skip to the next. That's what I did here, too, but I was astonished. Thank God, our French judicial system is a bit more independent even if it has some big flaws. But how can you expect, or even hope, for a judge to be clement with you when you're DUI? Just think of what you did.

If you are as lazy as I am, you may not finish the reading of the feature article by TAO LIN. The story is great, since it's all about hamsters. They're so cute. But there is not any picture of a hamster, as if people were only interested in the novelist who wrote about them. In a certain way, he looks like a hamster, but he is not one. Three pages and not a single picture of a cute little bit of fur? That's insane. But it may be worth reading, though.

At least more than Jonathan Franzen's new novel. Like PAUL CONSTANT, I don't appreciate this guy who claims to be a "serious" writer and wishes to embody the image of the last author still alive. How can he be subtle or creative if he keeps spreading the cliché that people don't read anymore and that youth are more concerned by phones than books? It is not logical: Does he imagine that Elvis Presley cared about books just because he was born in a time when there were no cell phones and blogs? Please. Buy an iPad and shut up.

The stupid stereotype that travel broadens the mind eventually seems to be true. I had never imagined I could say this one day, but the idea of a sandwich in which I wouldn't feel the taste of the bread sounds appétissante. Baguettes are good, but it's so hard to find good ones here that I understand why you want to remove their presence from your sandwiches. And I want to bite in one of these "po'boys" that BRENDAN KILEY praises. It cannot be worse than your disgusting, infamous, and filthy peanut butter with jelly sandwiches. Plus jamais ça.

This week, DAN SAVAGE's column looks like a Christian sermon. Not the part about masturbation, but the long piece about hope for gay teenagers. It does sound like some speech Jesus would have pronounced on the top of a mountain. However, I'm not sure the naive and optimistic motto works all the time. Gay people are still taunted, insulted, bullied, and threatened even when they're grown-ups whose high school times are long behind. My motto is: "Be smart," so you can throw a punchy sentence in the faces of these connards.