From TAP, over the past year, the Bush administration has moved left on foreign policy; and while it's great that young people are so excited about the Democratic candidate this year, progressives need to focus on encouraging young activists to do non-Obama-centric work. Meet Obama's Fixer: Valerie Jarrett handled outreach to the black community and to Hillary Clinton supporters; what constituency will she court next? Francis Fukuyama has an epiphany or two (and more and more). From Sirens, an article on the truth about orgasms; and are sugar daddies our modern-day Prince Charmings? Book blurbs are a tangled mass of friendships, rivalries, favors traded and debts repaid, not always in good faith. More on How Fiction Works by James Wood. Heinrich Heine was a great poet — yes, but a marvelous prose writer too. Franz Kafka, party animal: Life wasn't really such a trial for the supposedly tortured artist (and more). The state of the nayshun: Stupidity is the most respectable life-stance available in New Millennium America. Daniel Born on learning how to learn. Once you stop complaining and start getting back to work, it becomes clear that the barbarianization of all things affords some interesting opportunities. The suburbs have been hit hard by the housing crisis, but reports of their death are exaggerated. A review of Is Milton Better than Shakespeare? by Nigel Smith.

From Wired, an article on Shai Agassi's audacious plan to put electric cars on the road; and the critics need a reboot: The Internet hasn't led us into a new Dark Age. From Technology Review, "it's not a revolution if nobody loses": A new age of "technological reproducibility" is here — Ugh. Google, 10 years in: Big, friendly giant or a greedy Goliath? A look into the future: The pros and cons of a Google world. Dr. Doom: Two years ago, Nouriel Roubini predicted the current economic crisis; now he sees things becoming far worse. Bush 36,000: The invisible hand slaps conservatives again. From Hipster Book Club, an interview with Michael Ian Black, author of My Custom Van. Some ads generally never have a telephone number; that is usually the case for the ads placed by girls trying to sell their virginity, and there are lots of them. More on John Zogby's The Way We'll Be. From The American Interest, John Lewis Gaddis on Ending Tyranny: The past and future of an idea. From HNN, an interview with Ted Sorensen. From Prospect, politics gets personal: How the Conservatives are responding to the "politicisation" of private behaviour; and against ideology: The Labour party should ignore those calling for a return to ideological roots and instead embrace pragmatism. English spelling: You write potato, I write ghoughpteighbteau. Out of the mist: Is Rollie an exception, or are all gorillas as clever?

From National Journal, an article on how unity tickets have met bad ends. How Democrats can take back the South: Bob Moser, author of Blue Dixie, says don't give up on the region, but don't pander to it with Clintonian centrism (and a response by Thomas Schaller). We're Not All Friedmanites Now: Thomas Frank on the Milton Friedman Institute; and more and more on The Wrecking Crew. If conventions are so ridiculous, what's the one thing you would do to improve them? A review of Hollywood's Cold War by Tony Shaw. Hurricane Katrina wiped out the New Orleans public schools; it also created a rare chance to build a system that might solve the biggest problem in urban education: how to teach disadvantaged children. From The Atlantic Monthly, Caitlin Flanagan on how Patty Hearst’s kidnapping reflected and ravaged American culture in the 1970s; and Heart of Darwin: The places in and around London that shaped the naturalist as a young man. A review of Totality Beliefs and the Religious Imagination by Anthony Campbell. From PopMatters, a review of The United Symbolism of America: Deciphering Hidden Meanings in America's Most Familiar Art, Architecture, and Logos by Robert Hieronimus and Laura Cortner. More on Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. Michael Dirda reviews Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari.