A: Reading books.

Thanks to spinmaster Karl Rove, we now know that our supreme leader is not a philistine book burner, but a learned man of letters. In Rove’s new career, to rehabilitate his puppet’s legacy, he offers this WSJ column on how he and W. competed to read the most books and pages over the last few years. While it’s plausible that Bush actually read the listed books, a few investigators have done the math, in particular this analysis over at Book Patrol, which comes to the conclusion that it is unlikely Bush could have plowed through his list in so little time.

The above picture, I’ve just learned, is actually a fake. This was disseminated not long after 9/11 when Bush was reading along with an elementary school class down in Florida as the planes hit the towers. Snopes.com nailed the fraud here. I hadn’t realized though, that the book they were reading, America, A Patriotic Primer, was written by Lynne Cheney. Perhaps the only thing better than Oprah to enhance book sales is to have your husband be the vice president.

Congratulations, Barack! As the Onion said, you are about to inherit America’s worst job. Only ten weeks until Inauguration, ten weeks for Bush to continue his reign of destruction. With a 25% approval rating, I’m sure he’s more than happy to gift industry with some more loose regulations. After all, he’s going to need some big donors to break ground on his presidential library at SMU.

The nominees took some time out from their busy campaigns to stroll with the crowds in the Park Slope halloween parade.

After tarnishing his reputation with his U.N. speech about Iraq’s WMD, Colin Powell finally stopped waffling and offered his well-reasoned conclusion on why he’s supporting Obama. While I’ve never been a fan of generals, I did have respect for Powell’s calm, smart demeanor, at least before he shamefully toed the Bush line about the imminent danger of Iraq. Whether pundits want to spin this as a race thing or not, Powell did himself right this time. Tireless diplomacy and engaged multilateralism are the best approaches to ensure world peace, not bullying and jumping into unwinable conflicts. Powell’s experience tells him this and he knows Obama is clearly the better man for the moment.


Speaking of a calm, smart demeanor. The best advertisement for Barack Obama happens to be his appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s show on September 4th. If you haven’t seen this 4-part video, you should. Under O’Reilly’s dogged pressure, Obama remains confident, intelligent, and totally reasonable, even displaying a sense of humor. While the Fox News flat-tax, pro-corporate commentator could have sharpened his chainsaw a bit more, he was obviously impressed by Obama’s command of the issues. The usual stuff is discussed--class warfare, cap gains tax, Bill Ayers, Iran, Afghanistan--with Obama refusing to take O’Reilly’s inflammatory bait. Also mentioned, are my two biggest Obama disappointments, his support of FISA and embrace of nuclear power, both of which clearly show Obama is willing to imperil the citizenry at the profit of big corporate power. (I can only hope that this will not actually play out in his presidency.)

Somehow I missed this photojournalism controversy last week. Jill Greenberg, aka The Manipulator, was hired by The Atlantic to shoot a portrait of John McCain and she posted photoshopped outtakes (a few shown here) from the shoot on her website (all since removed). The editor of The Atlantic released a condemnation of Greenberg’s actions as well as an apology to the McCain campaign. The whole controversy has spawned some lively discussions (here, here, and here) on photojournalist ethics. Though I find her actions unprofessional and childish, I don’t see why Greenberg can’t publicize her strong political views. Of course, she won’t be working for The Atlantic again, but so what? Maybe she’ll have to give up her title of photojournalist, since she can’t remain impartial. But that’s okay, she’s not documenting reality anyway, she’s an artist illustrator.

Artists can and should take stands; too often they end up only making slick PR advertisements for the subjects they shoot. Even if McCain’s image was made into propaganda, it does not change the fact that he’s a Bush lapdog, a man who has totally lost his principles, and someone we should really fear running this country.

For an interesting read on how a real pro dealt with photographing a subject he considered evil, read this about Arnold Newman posing Alfred Krupp.

Photo Illustrations by Kevin Van Aelst
Parag Khanna makes a long, persuasive argument in the Sunday Times Magazine about how the future of the world is in the hands of the big 3: the U.S., Europe, and China. The most important part of his essay is that it will be the rising second world (countries like Venezuela, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) who will have the leverage as they grow, picking and choosing alliances with the big 3.

Seen in this context, the Iraq War was an act of desperation by a waning superpower run by an idiot with an oedipal complex who all too willingly bankrupted its coffers to benefit the biggest multinational corporations. And it really was about oil, securing the cheap, free flow of it, because without cheap energy, the U.S.'s economic leverage is greatly reduced. Starting in 2009, diplomacy and innovation, not arrogance, will have to rule the day. Barack will have quite a job ahead of him.