Below are simple links to other interesting stuff I've come across on the web in the last day or two; they may or may not concern literature or photography, or indeed the arts at all. You can click here to learn more about how I compile this list and what software I use, if you're interested.

Thoroughly sci-fi "Lost" premiere snags lowest ratings ever
It was great, don't get me wrong, but it's a fact that the endless lag time between seasons is legitimately starting to affect the audience: the season 5 premiere of "Lost" this week garnered just a 5.0 share (11.4 million viewers), down a whopping 26 percent from last year's premiere. And let's face it, even the showrunners are admitting that these last two seasons are going to embrace nerdy complex sci-fi genre geekdom in a way the show never has before, and will only appeal to the most cultish of the general audience they've had over the years; ABC can pretty much expect the numbers to drop down to the cult level they should've by all rights been at since the very beginning, with the huge audience it's instead had actually a pleasant surprise they should consider a gift. Plus, I can't possibly imagine them canceling it at this point -- there'd be open rioting in the streets -- so who cares what the numbers are?

Two major newspapers call for socialist overhaul of American banking system
Whoa -- both the Financial Times and the New York Times published articles today that in one way or another support the idea of "nationalization" for the American banking system; for those who don't know, that's a polite word for "socialist takeover," or the national government essentially taking over the entire system because of it being just too important to the public in general. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and is the way that many northern European countries have been successfully doing things for decades now; but 'socialism' is still a dirty word in this country, even a hundred years after the legitimate communist threat we went through, so it's surprising to see two major media outlets embrace the concept so thoroughly. Sign of the times? Will the US finally start embracing a more European system when it comes to things like health-care, banks and home broadband access?

AP: "We won't accept White House photos of Inauguration re-oath"
Another wrinkle in the growing "Oathgate" I've been following here this week: Turns out now that the Associated Press and other journalistic outlets refuse to accept the official White House photos that were taken the other night, when Obama quietly retook the Inaugural Oath either as a save-face move for the flubbing chief justice John Roberts, or to silence future conspiracy theorists; the media outlets are arguing that since this took place in the Oval Office, they should've been allowed their own access, and that they're not in the habit of "reprinting press releases from the White House." Gee, journalists, I wish you'd shown this kind of backbone while Bush was in office, back when such integrity actually f-cking mattered and you actually were reprinting f-cking White House press releases. Where was this newfound spine of yours then?

Creators of "Grand Theft Auto" sign insanely great new contract
So if any argument could be made regarding a violent videogame also doubling as a legitimate work of art (you know, like an early Scorsese film), many would argue that the only example we have so far is Sam and Dan Houser (along with Leslie Benzes), heads of Rockstar Games and creators of the insanely loved "Grand Theft Auto" games. And now a new contract has been announced for them, although the details are hard to follow: I -think- it's that they're opening a new company that will outright own any future games, but will still have a distribution deal with Take Two, and now get a percentage of the profits instead of a flat fee like before, although I'm not sure how that affects their status at Rockstar. In any case, let's not forget that their latest, "GTA 4," sold ten million freaking copies; that's more than most novels, much more than the audience for most cable-television shows.

Poll: Most Republicans want more diversity, friendly relationship with Obama
Regular readers know that I've been following the campaign for the new head of the Republican National Committee (elections in less than a week), because I think it's going to be an important moment in history: if the radicals manage to maintain control, I really do believe you're going to see the permanent dissolution of the GOP as a nationally viable party, essentially turning the US into a one-party system for at least the length of Obama's administration. And now, more external proof: A new WSJ poll shows that almost 70 percent of rank-and-file GOP members want more diversity in their leadership and scope, plus a friendly relationship with Obama during his Presidency. But this doesn't jibe with the actions within party leadership circles; see the only forum the RNC candidates have had, for example, where the issue of diversity wasn't even brought up, and they instead got in a big argument over who owns the most guns. It's going to be a fascinating year, mark my words.

Supreme Court kills Bush-era Orwellian antiporn law for good
It's been kicking around for ten years now, but the Supreme Court this week finally put the last kibosh on the draconian "Child Online Protection Act," yet another buffoonish loose end of the Bush years that now needs to be dealt with in a post-Bush world. The problems? First, it was written so broadly, it could've been used to shut down legitimate news outlets; also, it was the excuse the govt was using in the 2000s to subpoena millions of emails and search histories from Google and Yahoo; plus, the law was written badly and only covers web browsers, leaving out such now-popular options for smut as BitTorrent, Second Life, desktop video applications, iPhone apps and more. Okay, so a dozen Bush-era outrages struck down once and for all this week; how many are left?

Obama closes Guantanamo Bay
So two days into office, and President Obama has already made good on one of his biggest campaign promises; yesterday he signed an executive order forcing the closure within a year of the "secret" US torture facility at Guantanamo Bay (its literal name, I kid you not -- "Camp Justice"), one of the biggest black stains in the entire history of the United States, essentially the first and only time the US government has ever officially sanctioned torture against its enemies. Also: a requirement for all military interrogators to follow the Army Field Manual; the closure of all the CIA's secret prisons as well; an order to government employees to ignore any legal decision regarding torture that the Justice Department made during the Bush years; and the announcement of George Mitchell as our official envoy to the Middle East, the same guy who managed to broker a peace in Northern Ireland back in the '90s. What an emotional day of announcements, I'm telling you.

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