Today is Dr. Seuss’s 100th birthday. As usual, the NEA is hosting its Read Across America program. It is your duty to inform at least one child today that there were never any movies called The Grinch and The Cat in the Hat, and introduce the kid to the wonderful world of Theodor Geisel.

Today is also Super Tuesday. Be sure to vote if you live in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island or Vermont.

If you live in Texas, today is Texas Independence Day, Texas Flag Day, Sam Houston Day, and Texas is the Center of the World Day. Don’t go to work. Please. You get the day off.

Today in Literature: D.H. Lawrence died in 1930. His last words: “I think it’s time for the morphine.”

Tom Clancy has decided to move back to Maryland. “Really. New York scares the shit out of me,” said Clancy. “I need total isolation to develop crackpot conspiracies. My libertarian-minded readers are counting on me.”

In two weeks, the New Zealand Prize in Modern Letters will be chosen. The shortlist includes William Brandt, Geoff Cush, Kate Camp, and Glenn Colquhoun. Oddly enough, the judging panel doesn’t include a single New Zealander. They’re all Yanks.

Ian Rankin gets a big profile in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. One thing I didn’t realize was that 10% of all books sold in the UK in 2002 were written by Rankin.

There’s a big campaign to save the French language afoot. Maurice Druon, novelist, historian and elder statesman of the Academie Francaise, is urging the French to be snootier, ruder, and merciless in their use of grammar. It is also worth noting that Druon, who is 85, has not laughed once since the 1970s.

Edward Jones: Get canned from your job, write a National Book Critics Award nominated book?

Myrna Blyth, former editor of Ladies’ Home Journal and currently burning bridges with a new expose, says, “No one is going to keep me from a Cobb salad at Michael’s.” But will Michael’s keep the Cobb salad away from Blyth? Touche!