Please note that I’ve updated the post I wrote about the New York Times Magazine story about the future of book publishing. (After nosing around some more, I found out that one of my assertions wasn’t true.)
The edited and updated version of my post is here.

Since I wrote this post, half of the content has been superseded by my own research. My original post was about what appeared to be the mysterious online truncation of text from the dead-tree version of the cover story in today’s New York Times Magazine.

I posted and then went back to the site to do some more digging. The full article is indeed available, but only in the “print-view” version of the online story…as far as I can tell.

There is still a discrepancy between the cover page of the print version of the magazine—which says this:

What Will Happen To Books?

Reader take heart! (Publisher, be very, very afraid.)

Internet search engines will set them free.

A manifesto by Kevin Kelly

and what you see when you log on to the magazine page–i.e., those scary words aren’t visible; they’ve been blacked-out.

So it’s a non-story. Editorial discretion. Whatever.
The piece is definitely worth a read, though, for anyone interested in the future of books, and all old media. It’s explosive (as in “Books Explode,” a la Jeff Jarvis): a lengthy, cogent examination of what’s standing in the way of the digital revolution in books. In short: copyright law.

It’s way more complicated and fascinating than that. Read the whole thing. Here’s one insightful observation:

But the universal reign of livelihoods based on [copies of isolated books bound between inert covers] is not over….Too many creative people depend on the business model revolving around copies for it to pass quietly. For their benefit, copyright law [which holds back the digital revolution in books] will not change suddenly.

There were some downright chilling words too (emphasis mine):

…the only way for books to retain their waning authority in our culture is to wire their texts into the universal library.

Now, this is a frightening thought. But I would like to think that we’re all grown-ups and can handle it.

Coming from a different political place than Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens but sounding some of the same notes (see this post), British-Dutch writer Ian Buruma gets prickly about Radical Chic, vintage 2006:

The left has a proud tradition of defending political freedoms, at home and abroad. But this tradition is in danger of being lost when western intellectuals indulge in power worship. Applause for autocrats undermines the morale of people who insist on fighting for their freedoms Leftists were largely sympathetic, and rightly so, to critics of Berlusconi and Thaksin, even though neither was a dictator. Both did, of course, support American foreign policy. But when democracy is endangered, the left should be equally hard on rulers who oppose the US. Failure to do so encourages authoritarianism everywhere, including in the West itself, where the frivolous behaviour of a dogmatic left has already allowed neoconservatives to steal all the best lines. [emphasis mine]

Buruma is calling for a “loyal opposition.”

Unfortunately, “progressives” and the netroots don’t recognize such a stance: they have decreed that unless you’re against All Things Bush, you’re part of the problem, not part of the solution.

That’s the tenor over at Arianna’s place, too.

This will not end well. And there will be a lot more heartache, and a lot of blood on the floor.

Why am I the only one writing about this?

Has no one else noticed that “documentaries” are the new tool in politics?

No, I’m not talking about Fahrenheit 9/11 or Control Room or Outfoxed, though they are both a precursor and a continuing phenomenon. I’m not talking about Baghdad ER.

I’m talking about documentaries that target or elevate a given political candidate—not convention-hall hagiography like The Man from Hope but “non-fiction” films that track real people and real events and come with a point of view and an agenda. In other words: the kind of partisan or agenda-laden material that you can’t air on TV news (because it has a bias) but which you can throw out into the markeplace as entertainment.

I’m talking about films that you can air on (maybe) HBO or (definitely) PBS, or that you can run in movie theaters—films that get their message out into the marketplace of ideas via the seductive medium of film.

I’m talking about Street Fight (the 2002 documentary that may have helped bring down Newark mayor Sharpe James—a subject I’ve been meaning to follow up on…but there’s never enough time!).

I’m talking about Giuliani Time (which its creator hopes will remind people of the “Little Mussolini” side of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and which was the subject of a very thoughtful and interesting review by A.O. Scott in Friday’s New York Times. Maybe I’ll get around to writing about that one day, too.).

I’m talking about American Blackout, “starring” the creepy laugh-riot Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

I’m talking about An Inconvenient Truth, which was supposed to relaunch Al Gore onto the political stage, an idea I made fun of here. And which, a mere two weeks after its appearance, has sunk without a trace… I’m just sayin’.

I’m sure there are more in the works—I haven’t been following this trend, and I’m too busy to look any further into it. It just became obvious from reading the papers.

Now, Mr. James appears to realize the impact of the cameras he so vigorously shoved aside during the filming of “Street Fight.” His State of the City address last month included a 10-minute documentary tracing the city’s history from the riots of 1967 through the present, and a video of his visit to a new Home Depot on Springfield Avenue. Both films are now prominently displayed on the city’s Web site, www.ci.newark.nj.us.

Rahaman Muhammad, president of the local service employees union, said that “Street Fight” had awakened city officials to the power of the moving image, beyond just 30-second commercials. He said he might even make videos of his own if he sees any campaign tearing down signs or limiting access to public events.

Boldly, I predict this new political tool will become very popular. And did I mention that it’s infotainment?

Axis of feeble

May 11th 2006
The Economist

With Mr Blair weakened and his own political capital trickling away, Mr Bush will find it harder to trust his own instincts, let alone rise Churchill-like to the challenges in the remaining two and a half years of his presidency. Critics of the improbable partnership—those who think Mr Bush and Mr Blair overreacted to September 11th, lied their way into Iraq, trampled over law and liberties and inflamed the very clash of religions that Osama bin Laden was so keen to ignite—will rejoice. In a world of one superpower, some say, people are safer when its president is too weak for foreign adventures.

They are wrong. That Mr Bush has made big mistakes in foreign policy is not in doubt. He oversold the pre-war intelligence on Iraq, bungled the aftermath, betrayed America’s own principles in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, ignored Mr Blair’s pleas to restart peace diplomacy in Palestine. But America cannot fix any of these mistakes by folding its tents and slinking home to a grumpy isolation. On the contrary. In his belief that America needed to respond resolutely to the dangers of terrorism, tyranny and proliferation, Mr Bush was mainly right. His chief failures stem from incompetent execution.

What is required when Mr Bush’s term ends is a president no less committed to the exercise of American power when it is necessary, and no less willing to rise to external threats. Perhaps that will be a John McCain or a Hillary Clinton.

Hillary “Morally Correct” Clinton hasn’t had much to say about the war lately. She has, however, been up to her usual preaching, this time injecting her comments with lame-ass culture-war crap—now she’s complaining that our young people don’t know the meaning of the word “work.” And as usual, she has found a culprit that “everyone” can agree on (emphasis mine):

The former first lady blamed cable TV, high-speed Internet, cellphones and iPods for creating a culture that “really argues against hard work. It’s a culture that has a premium on instant gratification.”

Please. Please.

Meanwhile McCain, with loftier matters on his mind, made a stirring speech down in Falwell-Land.

I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq. Many Americans did not. My patriotism and my conscience required me to support it and to engage in the debate over whether and how to fight it. I stand that ground not to chase vainglorious dreams of empire; not for a noxious sense of racial superiority over a subject people; not for cheap oil; — we could have purchased oil from the former dictator at a price far less expensive than the blood and treasure we’ve paid to secure those resources for the people of that nation; not for the allure of chauvinism, to wreak destruction in the world in order to feel superior to it; not for a foolishly romantic conception of war. I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country’s interests and values required it….

Americans deserve more than tolerance from one another, we deserve each other’s respect, whether we think each other right or wrong in our views, as long as our character and our sincerity merit respect, and as long as we share, for all our differences, for all the noisy debates that enliven our politics, a mutual devotion to the sublime idea that this nation was conceived in – that freedom is the inalienable right of mankind, and in accord with the laws of nature and nature’s Creator.

Like Andrew Sullivan, I’m a little bit of a sucker for McCain. I’m left-ish, and I disagree with many of McCain’s political positions and some of his moralistic campaigns. What I like is his unabashed love of his country despite its many, deep flaws.

It’s a breath of Reagan-esque fresh air, and I think that those who ignore or downplay the importance of McCain’s esprit de corps (bleeding heart liberals, New York Times, Democrats, libertarians, netroots folk, the anti-Bush mob, I’m talkin’ to you) do so at their own peril.