News Bits, In Brief

Tintin in the Congo finally feels the heat over its racist...er..."colonial" imagery. It portrays Africans as primates, and they're calling it "colonial"?! I suppose that that's simply spin 101 when Hollywood is hoping to make the Tintin into the next Harry Potter and millions of dollars are potentially at stake.

The Library Journal.com briefly reviewed their visits to the Boston Athenaeum ("a library and cultural center for members and scholars") and the Boston Public Library (a library for the rest of us). The BPL actually gets better marks, but then the Athenaeum only let the reviewer explore the first floor/public area.
Mark my words, dear reader. When the class war finally arrives, I'm hosting torchlight tours of all five floors.

If novels are going to go the way of pop music and be digested primarily digitally, does that mean that writers will soon become like pop stars, whoring themselves out via gimmicky TV contests in an effort to get publisher and audience attention? Apparently so.