A few quick hits before the weekend:

• I’ll be on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning, as part of the weekly news roundtable. I’ll be on with George Will, Bush-Cheney strategist Matthew Dowd and Cokie Roberts discussing the news of the week. Expect some interesting discussion – Will and I agree about the dangers of escalation in Afghanistan but not much else, and likely topics include healthcare reform and the President’s overnight Olympic lobbying trip to Copenhagen. Check the This Week website or local listings for airtime in your community. We’ll have video at TheNation.com on Monday.

• The Nation‘s net movement correspondent Ari Melber will be on Joy Behar’s new program on CNN/Headline News Monday night at 9PM EST. We’re big fans of Joy here and expect her show will be lively.

• If you’re in New York City, Brave New Films has extended their premiere run of their new film, Rethink Afghanistan. I’m part of a forum at the opening tonight, headlined by Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts. Rethink Afghanistan is an important film and a clear indictment of escalation and Rep. McGovern has been a courageous leader on this critical issue. I hope you can catch a screening. Here’s the full schedule.

• For some context on healthcare, we had the opportunity to sit down with Investigative Journalist and Blogger Marcy Wheeler, of Firedoglake.com, and ask her how progressives can still win a robust public option. Marcy had some choice words for the "Baucus Bill," one of the healthcare reform bills now moving through the Senate (she calls it the "Max Tax" after its lobbyist-tainted author) but also offers some hope and some perspective on what the Senate is up to and what the bills up for discussion really do. It’s short, insightful and you can watch it right here:

Finally, a welcome to The Nation‘s new art critic, Barry Schwabsky. Barry is part of a long and distinguished lineage of art critics for The Nation. He’s been writing for us since 2005, and his essays accomplish what may be the hardest task for any critic: writing that is both provocative inside the arts world and engaging to The Nation‘s audience at large. He’s written for Artforum, the London Review of Books, and Art in America. He’s the author of The Widening Circle: Consequences of Modernism in Contemporary Art; Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting; and most recently a collection of poems, Book Left Open in the Rain. He’s a gifted scholar and a great writer–we’re lucky to have him. He’ll be writing monthly–here’s his latest essay.

That’s all for today. As always you can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/katrinanation, and leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments.