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.

Poll: FOX is most trusted "news" organization in US
And thus does the United States officially take one more giant step towards being Germany in 1932.

Disney finally runs Miramax into the ground
The studio that single-handedly made indie films commercially viable is finally being closed, after being taken over by Disney several years ago and literally run into the ground through the gross incompetence of their corporate executives. What a shame.

Chicago's transit system approves crazy conceptual art project
It's been the project all the Chicago hipsters have been talking about the last six months -- the "Mobile Garden," that is, a plan to convert a CTA "el" train car into a flatbed garden, and to hook it up to trains and drive it around the city each day to remind the populace of various green issues. Well, guess what? This week the CTA actually approved the proposal, as long as the Mobile Garden people can pay for the entire thing themselves. Hey, locals, help this conceptual art project become a reality!

California school district bans dictionary for "age-inappropriate words"
Wow. I...I don't know where to even begin.

Brown: "John Edwards and Andrew Young - two worms who deserve each other"
Have you READ yet this blistering new memoir of the John Edwards presidential campaign, from his former toady Andrew Young? The allegations are so ridiculous to almost be unreal: that Edwards had "Made in the USA" labels sewn into his custom Italian suits; that his mistress thought their love child was a reincarnated Buddhist monk; that his wife was the one to suggest that her cancer could be used for political purposes; that he has special shampoo flown in, and spends $800 a month on haircuts; that he never once said "I love you" out loud to his mistress, so that he could legally testify to that fact if later caught. Here, a nice editorial from The Daily Beast's Tina Brown, on how he and the boot-licker who cleaned up all his messes are two toads who utterly deserved each other.

Dutch crack down on "marijuana tourism"
I didn't know this, but apparently many Dutch border towns are the marijuana equivalent of those cities you sometimes see in America, where right across the border cigarettes will be much cheaper or fireworks are illegal -- in other words, big giant warehouse stores a couple of feet away from, say, Belgium, where thousands of Belgians a day will stop by for the joints that are illegal in their own country. Here, a fascinating article from the always great GlobalPost.com, on the ways the ever-more conservative Dutch justice system is trying to bring a halt to such pot superstores, as well as create more and more hassles for such places as tourist "coffeeshops" in the Amsterdam red-light district.

Chicago's first post-Blago election has lowest turnout in decades
This week was Chicago's first public election since the complete and utter breakdown of our former governor, Rod "F-ckin' Gold" Blagoevitch; and unsurprisingly, only 26 percent of eligible voters turned out to it, which has all the pols nervously wringing their hands this week. I don't know about anywhere else, but here in Chicago there seems to be a pervasive sense of nihilism about politics in the air, this attitude that seems to assume that ALL political candidates are criminals, so why bother voting for one of them in the first place? I don't think it's any surprise that voter turnout was so low here this week, and I believe is a troubling sign of things to come too. (Why troubling? Because it's always easiest for ultra-conservative fringe groups to win elections when turnout is low, which means that the teabaggers are probably going to do a lot better in this year's mid-terms than anyone expected.)

Warner thinking of doing a "Watchmen" sequel
Seriously. Yeah, "uh-oh" is right.