I like a man with a sense of humor, and this one is going to need it.

The Times reports that Mr. President has retaken his oath:

For their do-over, the two men convened in the White House Map Room at 7:35 p.m. for a brief proceeding that was not announced until it was completed successfully.

“Are you ready to take the oath?” Chief Justice Roberts said.

“I am,” Mr. Obama replied. “And we’re going to do it very slowly.”

The true luxury of hindsight: schadenfreude

I've gotten behind on my New Yorkers--I subscribe to the audio edition--and am just now getting through October's issues, which were filled with news and commentary about the upcoming election. It is infinitely more fun to read about this way--leisure to gloat, of course, but also no nervous tension. I'm getting an idea of why my friend GraceAnne DeCandido says she likes to read the end of a book first.

Add 'em up, Bobby

Could somebody do this math for me? If Sarah Palin did in fact receive seven million dollars for a book contract, how many copies would the publisher have to sell to recoup its cost? Would it be possible?

Yes, I intend to use song references for my blog headings until I get good and tired of it.

Poor Kate!

Via Andrew Sullivan, this account of schoolbus cheers:

Matthew Whoolery and his wife aren't blaming the school district for what happened on the bus but they do think all parents need to be careful about what they say and teach their children.
Whoolery and his wife couldn't believe it when their second and third graders got off the bus last week and told them what other students were saying.
"They just hadn't heard anything like this before," said Whoolery. "They were chanting on the bus, 'Assassinate Obama. Assassinate Obama.' Then adding in a name sometimes of a classmate on the bus, 'Assassinate Obama and Kate.'"

When the Joke's On You

I'm having some trouble with PW editor Sara Nelson's hand-wringing over the use of King & King by advocates of California's Proposition 8, which this past Tuesday overturned the right of gay couples to get married in that state. Nelson was upset by a TV ad produced by the Yes on 8 campaign that featured a Massachusetts couple, Robb and Robin Wirthlin, who objected to King & King being read in their kid's school. (The Wirthlins were in the news here when they filed a lawsuit attempting to stop their school district from using the book.)

Like Nelson, I'm no-on-8 and ok-with-King & King. But while I can buy her assessment of the situation ("a book made of socially liberal intentions is being used to defeat those intentions--against the wishes of its publisher and, perhaps, its creators, who are Dutch and, so far, silent on the matter") I can't share in her dismay. If a book can be used to speak to public policy (which King & King surely does), why can't it be used to protest it? It's not as if the book is being misrepresented, and it's certainly not as if anyone needs to secure the blessings of the creators or publisher in order to use a book to make a point.

I think this is what happens when you forget you've chosen sides. Republicans were horrified when Tina Fey and Saturday Night Live used Sarah Palin's own words to make her look foolish, while those of us who were against Palin found it all an example of karma writ hilariously. Freedom of speech and freedom to publish will always include the risk that someone will turn your own words against you.

Just one more musical moment

Gertrude Stein by Robert Indiana

Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's opera The Mother of Us All is a wildly fantasized biography of Susan B. Anthony, who, wondering and worrying over whether her celebrity has obscured her cause, asks of her supporters (in her tremendously moving final aria), "Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know do you know?"

You know. Go vote.

A bipartisan moment

in honor of the election. Ginsburg and Scalia find common ground in Leontyne Price.

Here she is, in what looks to me like an earlier White House appearance:

Yes, boys, but when no one is looking?

Katie Couric apparently asked McCain and Obama about their favorite books and got pretty convincing answers: McCain chose For Whom the Bell Tolls and Obama Song of Solomon.

As I said in the comments on yesterday's post re Palin's reading choices, "What are you reading?" and "What is your favorite book?" aren't as easy to answer as they look. Both the presidential candidates give clearly deliberated answers (so would I), meant to convey Who They Are. I'm more interested in knowing what they read off the clock--beach, bedtime, bathroom.

There Is No Shame in Loving The DaVinci Code

People magazine (November 3, 2008 issue) gives Sarah Palin three chances to enlarge on her claim to be a "voracious reader" and three times she escapes:

People: What do you like to read?

Palin: Autobiographies, historical pieces--really anything and everything. Besides the kids and sports, reading is my favorite thing to do.

People: What are you reading now?

Palin: I'm reading, heh-heh, a lot of briefing papers.

People: What about for fun?

Palin: Do we consider The Looming Tower something just for fun? That's what I've been reading on the airplane. It's about 9/11. If I'm going to read something, for the most part, it's something beneficial.

I don't know if you have to be a reader to be President (although I did find myself liking GWB a little more when he said he was reading Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons, a terrible book I thoroughly enjoyed) but I am reflexively suspicious of someone who only reads "improving" books and claims to love reading. They are lying about one thing or the other.

Listen to the children, one more time

Scholastic gets out the vote. And so does Hayden Panettiere (sound NSFW, but I was grateful to learn how she pronounces her name). Personally, I wish she spent less time on electioneering and more on making Heroes stop sucking so hard.

Tips for Teens

I'm really loving Cory Doctorow's Little Brother (Tor), which Jonathan Hunt is reviewing for the July Horn Book. It's rare--always has been--to find YA realistic fiction that engages the political dimension, especially one so enthusiastic about disturbing the status quo. And it does so contagiously--I totally want to go out and hack something now.

And now, I can! Doctorow has compiled some how-to's for such plot points from his book as encrypting Gmail, starting a flash mob, blocking an RFID chip, and getting over a barbed-wire fence. Also included: "What to do when the police stop you."

What good do do-good books do?

I just received a press release from HarperCollins for Declare Yourself: Speak. Connect. Vote. 50 Celebrated Americans Tell You Why (Greenwillow, May), a compendium of essays about the importance of voting and civic participation by such allegedly teen-friendly names as Hayden Panettiere (Heroes) and Atoosa Rubinstein (a name I know only because Gawker makes fun of her); YA writers including Naomi Shihab Nye, Meg Cabot and Chris Crutcher; and NPR-friendly types like Norman Lear and the late Molly Ivins. Ugly Betty's America Ferrera is the "celebrity editor," a job I would kill for.

Published in association with the teen-voter registration organization Declare Yourself, the book supports a worthy cause and could, in fact, be a good book, although I always feel a certain degree of self-inflicted social blackmail when reviewing anything whose profits support a 501(c)3: be nice to this book or a dog will die. And while "it's for a good cause" has caused me to buy plenty, it's never gotten me to actually read anything.

Vote for Claire!

cuz she's got a new booklist up about politics.

And speaking of which, did anyone catch Al Gore on 30 Rock last night? He's huge.