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.

Sweden last year: 91 murders, 84 new crime novels
A fascinating report from the always great GlobalPost.com, on the seemingly endless obsession with crime novels among the population of Sweden, a country with one of the lowest murder rates on the planet.

David Hockney's latest career turn: dowdy English landscape artist
One of the more interesting fine-arts articles I've read in a long time, regarding former LA hipster David Hockney's newest career turn, moving back to the English countryside in his early seventies and turning for the first time in his life to representative landscape paintings. Also not to be missed -- Hockney's newfound fascination with technology, including an obsession with iPhone's sketching app.

WSJ agrees: Teabaggers are screwing up GOP's chance for 2010 comeback
It's become quite clear to most non-Republicans of just how much disruption the radical neo-fascist "tea party" wing of their party has caused the GOP in general, and how conservatives will never be able to gain control of either Congress or the White House again as long as they keep allowing the wingnuts to have a serious voice; but now more and more conservative institutions themselves are starting to voice such an opinion. Here, the Rupert-Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal weighs in on the subject. And speaking of which...

Only 19 percent of Americans think Republicans "ready to lead country again"
Wow. And even more astounding, among independent voters this number drops to an almost unbelievable 17 percent. Wouldn't it be astounding if every non-South Republican lost during the '10 midterm elections? One can always dream, I suppose.

US "reverse brain drain" threat is more dire than anyone imagined
So here's something to chill the blood of any American who thinks that the US has any chance at all to continue being a world leader in technology or culture over the next 50 years: a major new study co-sponsored by UC-Berkeley, Duke and Harvard Law School, in which several thousand top-tier technology immigrants were interviewed, shows that over 75 PERCENT of them are planning to return to their native countries, either this moment or after getting a few more years of management experience in the US, including nearly a third of those who have already secured American citizen status. Major reasons cited: Because it's too difficult anymore to bring their families to the US; because American xenophobia has become too pervasive; because their native healthcare system is better than the US's; because they're three times as likely to find a senior management position in their native country; and because they perceive America's best days as having come and gone, while seeing the best days of their native countries as lying ahead. Even more astounding, among current undergraduates these numbers become astronomical: for example, among current Indian college students, a whopping 94 PERCENT of them plan on returning to India after getting their degrees. F-ccccck.

Egypt upping the pressure on old imperial nations to return colonial-era artifacts
Yet another fascinating article from GlobalPost.com, this time on Zahi Hawass, the controversial, charismatic head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, who has recently started vastly increasing the pressure on former imperial nations such as the UK to return local artifacts taken from their country during its colonial years.

University of Nebraska Press benefiting mightily from surprise Nobel pick
A nice article about the tiny yet revered University of Nebraska Press, the only publishing company in the entire US to currently be selling books by this year's surprise winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, obscure Romanian/German author Herta Muller. Turns out that the same thing happened to them in 2007, regarding that year's winner, JMG Le Clezio; according to them, his books went from sales of less than ten nationally before the prize announcement to eventually generating over $100,000 in revenue for the tiny academic press. A nice success story from the world of independent literature.

Censorship over Nehru movie reveals India's complicated relationship with its 'founding fathers'
A major new Hollywood film is underway regarding Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister; but the Indian government has forced the production company to strictly downplay one of its more controversial assertions, that he had a passionate affair with the wife of Britain's last viceroy to India, easy for them to impose since it's Nehru's descendants that to this day still head the national government. Here, a great article from Foreign Policy magazine on the increasing troubles the Indian government faces in coming years on keeping a lid on the flawed human sides of their revered founders.

Dubai's new metro forces rich and poor to mix for very first time
And yet another great article from GlobalPost (man, they had a lot of fascinating articles last week), this time regarding the brand-spanking-new metro system in the wealthy Middle East playground of Dubai, and how its sparkling new trains are for the first time in that city's history bringing the rich and poor together in a common physical space, when traditionally this has been one of the most class-separated areas of the entire planet.