“It transpires that the lifeboats are useless”

Gov. Bentley, on the state’s new immigration law.

That’s via The Daily State. (Update: That site later noted the most prominent sponsor of that bill has lost his job as head of the senate rules committee. Sen. Scott Beason has been … less well-measured than the governor.)

Speaking of politics, Newsweek is dropping the best feature they had:

It has been one of Newsweek’s signature ventures and a staple of American political journalism since 1984.

Every presidential election season, the magazine detached a small group of reporters from their daily jobs for a year to travel with the presidential candidates and document their every internal triumph and despair — all under the condition that none of it was to be printed until after the election.

Then two days after Election Day, the sum of their reporters’ work would appear in the magazine. But the ambitious undertaking, known inside the magazine simply as “the project,” is no more. Newsweek, bleeding red ink and searching for a fresh identity under new ownership, has decided the project would not go forward this election season.

They’re blaming the faster news cycle, because rich, in-depth coverage gets trumped in 140 character increments. But not always.

As indulgent journalism goes, this was good stuff, but the bigger problem for the series is money. Following the campaigns at length is an expensive proposition. Shame, too. I stopped reading Newsweek years ago, but always picked up this election edition, but it will be no more.

There is an alternative.

Politico and Random House have teamed up to produce serialized campaign e-books that will be released in four installments as the presidential race unfolds. The first is due out Nov. 30 and already has a title: “Playbook 2012: The Right Fights Back.”

Might be worth checking out.

Speaking of e-books, the Los Angeles Times is publishing their first one, an expanded version of a two-part series, one of their most popular stories of the year. They’ve got several more in the pipeline, which seems a good idea. That might be a nice piece of supplemental content in the near term.

Otherwise your typical Monday, preparing for classes and things. Wrote a current events quiz I decided not to give. Did some more reading. Watched Pirate Radio, marveled at the music and the musical anachronisms. The movie was set in 1966, but a lot of the songs were newer than that. And there was a great Seekers line, but they were never played, as far as I noticed. This wouldn’t fit into the feeling of the film:

The writing was rather witty, the title of this post comes from late in the action, though not much that took place was unexpected. Still, a fine thing to listen to in the background. This was in the movie, but it is from 1968:

Same deal here, two years too young, but a fantastic song:

Cutting edge Australian rock from 1966:

And I could have put Dusty Springfield here, or the Isley Brothers. But a 1962 Otis Redding track is in the movie, and so it really isn’t a consideration:

Wondered where the day went, even as it was full of little things here and there that filled up the afternoon. Today having already slipped into some realm of memory, and tomorrow remaining out there on a horizon of possibility, maybe it is more important to know where tomorrow is going.

I have a pretty good feeling about that.

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