[New York Times]
Frank Rich discusses the "Great Indecency Hoax": It took a British publication, The Economist, to point out that the percentage of American voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern is actually down from 2000 (35 percent) and 1996 (40 percent).

[oclc.org]
The "Top 1000"—the intellectual works that have been judged to be worth owning by the "purchase vote" of libraries around the globe. Also, a list of works on the list which have also been banned.

[Bloodletters.com]
I usually hate this sort of thing...but this is better than the usual this sort of thing. Sage advice that we could all stand to be reminded of.

[The Gallup Organization]
Need more proof that the American education system has utterly failed us? I swear, every day I am more ashamed to be associated with this country.

[saracihat.com]
Rehabilitated dishware. Most cool.

[seattlepi.com]
Lily Tuck's The News From Paraguay wins the National Book Award.

[Poynter Online]
Is this the future of media?

[New York Times]
It has become clear that the expected audience for nearly all American-made studio movies has shifted from the 50 states to the global marketplace. This change in perspective has, naturally, resulted in a change in content: nuances of language or the subtleties of comedy do not translate easily between cultures, but action or fantasy or animation is immediately comprehensible...Now most big studio films aren't interested in America, preferring to depict an invented, imagined world, or one filled with easily recognizable plot devices. Our movies no longer reflect our culture.

[The Christian Science Monitor]
Article on the new poet laureate of the United States, Ted Kooser.

[New York Times]
Let's not be hasty in conceding "moral values" to red culture over blue: Excess and vulgarity, as always, enjoy a vast, bipartisan constituency, and in a democracy no political party will ever stamp them out.

[KJ Selections]
Reflections upon the curious fact that the al-Qaeda understanding of good and evil—the need for a holy war against evil—is also emphasized by the administration of George W. Bush

[Guardian Unlimited]
Changes coming to Egypt's Valley of the Kings in response to deterioration caused by tourism.

[Slate]
The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are—they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind.

[New York Times]
The day the Enlightenment went out: Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?

[Wired]
Orthodox Jews go to great lengths to use technology to violate the spirit of their religious law.

[angrymonkey.net]
Catchy new music video.

[CNN]
Controversial Dutch filmmaker and newspaper columnist Theo van Gogh, who made a film about violence against women in Islamic societies, has been murdered in Amsterdam.

[Yahoo! News]
Unusually high tides sent sea water sweeping through Venice on 10.31, covering 80 percent of the city by afternoon. St. Mark's Square and other famous locations were inundated.