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.

Paleocon wing of GOP starts whining about 'rebranding' efforts
And the GOP Civil War kicks up yet another notch: Now it turns out that the so-called "party base" of the Republican Party (the most radically conservative, backwards ones) are doing an increasing amount of griping about the new "National Council for a New America," a high-profile group started by moderates as a "rebranding" effort for the party. Designed specifically to show the general public that the GOP cares about more than just gay marriage, immigration and abortion, I think it deliciously ironic that the "paleocons" (i.e. the wing of the GOP who care obsessively about conservative social issues, people like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh) are now complaining that the group specifically avoids talking about gay marriage, immigration and abortion. Sheesh, what a mess the Republican Party has on its hands right now.

"Daily Show" reporter to star in bleak Gitmo drama
Just a small piece of news for my fellow fans of "The Daily Show:" Aasif Mandvi, one of the writers and "correspondents" (on-air personalities) will be starring in the upcoming "The Response," a gritty courtroom drama tackling the actual kangaroo-court military tribunals of the Bush-era Guantanamo Bay. It also stars Kate Mulgrew, and is the kickoff film of the coming DC "Politics On Film" Festival; sounds really interesting, I think.

NYT: "Planet is running out of expensive famous private artwork"
An interesting article in the NYT today, positing an interesting theory: that a big part of the market getting smaller and smaller in the art world is not just the recession, but that the planet is simply starting to run out of famous expensive pieces in a position to be sold in the first place. Between museums and serious private collectors, they say, the auction houses are getting more desperate to find things to push on gullible billionaires, but the billionaires (smarter than ever before) just aren't biting: just look at the latest Sotheby's auction, they say (the main focus of this article) where one of those late-period "million-dollar thirty-second sketches" Picasso did at the end of his life (specifically to mock and punish the bourgeois capitalists that he hated) tried to get sold for a minimum of $16 million, but with no takers. Expect more of this, they say, as the prospect of a truly glorious painting coming to open market anymore gets smaller and smaller.

Limbaugh: "F-ck all Republicans except me"
So how many prominent Republicans has Rush Limbaugh launched vicious tirades against in the last two weeks? Well, there's Arlen Specter, who until last week was one of the oldest-serving contemporary members of the party; and John McCain, the party's presidential candidate last year; and Michael Steele, current national head of the party; and now Colin Powell, Secretary of State under the last Republican president we had, claiming once again on his radio show yesterday that the only reason he supported Obama in the '08 election was because he's a "negro" and "negroes stick together." The irony? The whole tirade was prompted by a remark yesterday by Powell that Limbaugh damages the party by being so nasty. Hey, do you smell that? Do you smell the whiff of the coming party-destroying civil war the GOP is about to go through? Yeah, I smell it too!

SC Gov: "How dare people be sensible and pragmatic!"
Here, an editorial by South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, which is so ridiculous that I just had to mention it: In it, he decries people who choose common sense and pragmatisim as a way to fix our current problems, versus he and his buddies who "stick to their principles" no matter how much further damage they cause. Also, he claims that the GOP of the '80s was much more conservative than the GOP of now, conveniently ignoring the Patriot Act, the million-person terrorist watchlist, the embrace of torture, the abandonment of New Orleans, the turning away of foreign visitors for "immorality," the draping of topless sculptures in government buildings, and all the other monstrosities of the '00 Republicans that is making Reagan spin in his f-cking grave as we speak.