SKIP

Meanwhile, Newsweek's cover story, “Obama's Lincoln,” may leave even some skeptics with the belief that there is a lot to Doris Kearns Goodwin's “Team of Rivals” notion as an influence on Obama's upcoming cabinet and other administration personnel choices. And most will surely learn that that the key Abe Lincoln lines quoted by Obama at his election night celebration (”We are not enemies, but friends…”) were actually written for Lincoln by his fierce rival, William Seward, who wound up as Secretary of State.

—In Nov. 24 Time's “Bourne-Again Bond,” film critic Richard Corliss calls Daniel Craig's James Bond in Quantum of Solace a “near mute: a cyber- or cipher-Bond with a loyalty chip implanted in a mechanism that's built for murderous ingenuity…He's a brute acting on instinct” Rambo of Her Majesty's Secret Service.”

So it's pretty unclear if this version of 007 could handle Foreign Policy's “The List: Five Real Missions for 007.” Back in the real world, it would love Bond to:

SKIP
—There was no shortage of analyses on Barack Obama and race during the campaign and just after his win. But if you want a really, really esoteric musing on race, try, “The Creature from the Black Lagoon: Marilyn Monroe and Whiteness” in Cinema Journal by Lois Banner, (subscription required) a professor of history at the University of Southern California and a frequent author on women and gender. “Despite the many studies of Monroe, no scholar has full examined her whiteness,” Banner writes early on. Let's just concede the point.

SKIP
–December Bon Appetit pays homage to Quebec City and its supposedly decadent eating habits, dating to 20- and 30-course meals in the 17th century. “There's a reason the clergymen were fat—what they were eating was incredible,” says one current hotel chef. Elsewhere, if you're a “crustophobic” (fear of pie crust), there is blunt counsel on what to do to avoid store-bought crust. The magazine swears its three tips will work. Good luck.

SKIP

Meanwhile, Newsweek's cover story, “Obama's Lincoln,” may leave even some skeptics with the belief that there is a lot to Doris Kearns Goodwin's “Team of Rivals” notion as an influence on Obama's upcoming cabinet and other administration personnel choices. And most will surely learn that that the key Abe Lincoln lines quoted by Obama at his election night celebration (”We are not enemies, but friends…”) were actually written for Lincoln by his fierce rival, William Seward, who wound up as Secretary of State.

—In Nov. 24 Time's “Bourne-Again Bond,” film critic Richard Corliss calls Daniel Craig's James Bond in Quantum of Solace a “near mute: a cyber- or cipher-Bond with a loyalty chip implanted in a mechanism that's built for murderous ingenuity…He's a brute acting on instinct” Rambo of Her Majesty's Secret Service.”

So it's pretty unclear if this version of 007 could handle Foreign Policy's “The List: Five Real Missions for 007.” Back in the real world, it would love Bond to:

SKIP
—There was no shortage of analyses on Barack Obama and race during the campaign and just after his win. But if you want a really, really esoteric musing on race, try, “The Creature from the Black Lagoon: Marilyn Monroe and Whiteness” in Cinema Journal by Lois Banner, (subscription required) a professor of history at the University of Southern California and a frequent author on women and gender. “Despite the many studies of Monroe, no scholar has full examined her whiteness,” Banner writes early on. Let's just concede the point.

SKIP
–December Bon Appetit pays homage to Quebec City and its supposedly decadent eating habits, dating to 20- and 30-course meals in the 17th century. “There's a reason the clergymen were fat—what they were eating was incredible,” says one current hotel chef. Elsewhere, if you're a “crustophobic” (fear of pie crust), there is blunt counsel on what to do to avoid store-bought crust. The magazine swears its three tips will work. Good luck.