The Lyndon Johnson books by Caro, it’s our Harry Potter. If there were over-large ears and fake gallbladder scars that we could wear instead of wizard hats while waiting in line to get the book, we would do it.

– Conan O’Brien

Daphne Keller:

Many would say there is a moral imperative for platforms to take down legal-but-offensive or harmful speech – including seriously disturbing material like Holocaust denial tracts and suicide how-to videos. In any case there is a clear commercial reason for platforms to weed out content of this sort, since it alienates both users and advertisers. That means we are unlikely to get away from some form of the current situation: platforms enforcing discretionary rules that ban legal speech, and users disagreeing vehemently with the platforms’ choices.

“I can deliver an unlimited amount of views to a video,” Mr. Vassilev said in an interview. “They’ve tried to stop it for so many years, but they can’t stop it. There’s always a way around.”

Abraham Riesman for Vulture:

In the real-estate bubble of the mid-aughts, when collateralized debt obligations were being passed around like joints at a Dead show and it seemed like the party would never end, the big banks did something unusual: they started investing in Hollywood.… [Post-crash] Faced with uncertainty and austerity, it became clear that it was only worth it to make movies if they either cost a pittance to conjure up or if they were big-budget spectacles that were sure to get butts in seats (and, in the wake of Avatar, could have tickets sold at a premium for 3-D screenings).

The crash made studios more risk-averse, and they were hungry for reliable tentpole flicks. Marvel was perfect for this new post-collapse film landscape.

Scott Meslow for GQ:

Watchmen feels like it came from a different era—a time when Hollywood was still figuring out this superhero thing, which allowed this dark, weird movie to slip past the Hollywood gatekeepers and into movie theaters around the world.

Polific by Frank Bruni. Less of this please.

It might not be Apple-like or right, but it shouldn’t be surprising.

However important the iTunes Podcast Directory, its value approximates zero in comparison to the App Store. My assumption is that Apple treads lightly with the App Store primarily to avoid coming under any regulatory scrutiny and potential government interference with what is perhaps the core pillar of the iPhone experience.

Add the Infowars dilemma to a growing pile of evidence that the reputations wrapped around our beomouth conglomerates are exposed to too many facets for their own longevity.

The utter lack of shame amongst Republicans remains bewildering.

The utter lack of shame amongst Republicans remains bewildering.

♫ Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York… ♫