Michaela Pfadenhauer (Karlsruhe): The Lord of the Loops: Observations at the Club Culture DJ-Desk. A review of Anthony J. Rudel's Hello, Everybody!: The Dawn of American Radio. A review of Perfecting Sound Forever: The Story of Recorded Music by Greg Milner (and more and more and more and more; and more at Bookforum). A clutch of recent books addresses the ruthless commercial evolution of recorded music — from wax cylinders to vinyl records to digitally encoded compact discs, and now to the whirring bits and bytes of hard drives. A review of Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music by Greg Kot (and more). Justice for all: Robert A Delfino takes Metallica’s argument against Napster seriously. Dan Nelson stirred up controversy with his book All Known Metal Bands  — now he wants a million dollars. Why music moves us: New research explains music's power over human emotions and its benefits to our mental and physical well-being. An interview with Oliver Sacks, author of Musicophilia. Inside Russia's first School of Rock: It used to be all about the classics, but now Russian students are entering a new musical era. With major labels fading and promotional budgets cut, can rock-concert poster art survive? Spinning in the grave: The three biggest reasons music magazines are dying.

A review of Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles Pierce. America has been suffering an outbreak of especially virulent and acute stupidity recently. In America, crazy is a preexisting condition: Rick Perlstein on birthers, town hall hecklers and the return of right-wing rage (and an excerpt from Perlstein's Nixonland). Meet the Birthers: Who are these people, really? (and an interview with Orly Taitz) Jim Crow 2.0: The manufactured anger driving the birthers and town halls is the same white rage that has divided poor whites from poor blacks for all of our history. Birther of a nation: Michelle Goldberg on why the white militias are back (and more from the SPLC). Michael Crowley on why Barack Obama must beware the rise of the angry white man. Route '66 vs. Highway '94: The GOP welcomes the return of the Angry White Male. Is the South ruining the GOP? (and more). Bruce Bartlett on the GOP's misplaced rage: The person they should be angry with left the White House seven months ago. Your guide to the 2010 Census, the next political battle that'll drive conservatives batty. Rules for (Dealing with) Radicals: A guide for those not interested in surrender on climate change, health care reform, immigration, and just about everything else we stand for.

A review of Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Policy by Madison Powers and Ruth Faden. Jonathan Cohn on why liberals should not be disappointed with the current lackluster health care legislation. Richard Thaler on how an insurance option run by the government would neither invigorate nor destroy the health care system. Who needs a public option? Even without it, health care would be the greatest piece of liberal legislation in years. Here are 10 awesome things that would happen if health reform passes. Karl Marx and American health care: As the Germans and French have shown, a "public option" for health insurance needn't give government a socialistic monopoly. From Capitalism, Richard Ralston on America's fascist health care system. David Weigel on how conservatives found the town hall strategy against Obamacare in the leftist Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. Jesse Walker on understanding the clashes at the health care "town halls". An article on the swiftboating of health reform. Healthcare paranoia is part of America's culture war: By far the largest chunk of the protesters know little about the proposed reforms and have no intention of rectifying their ignorance. Is Obama responsible for the town hall chaos?

From THES, a review of Screen Education: From Film Appreciation to Media Studies by Terry Bolas; and a review of The History of Italian Cinema: A Guide to Italian Film from its Origins to the Twenty-First Century by Gian Piero Brunetta. The country that is producing high quality fear flicks these days is not in North America nor Asia, but in Western Europe. An interview with Francis Ford Coppola on legacy, creative control, and the state of independent film. A review of Elia Kazan: The Cinema of an American Outsider by Brian Neve. An article on Costa-Gavras and the Z-To-Amen of political cinema. The Heirs to Mr. Smith: How did a 70-year-old Hollywood film create the standard by which we measure all political newcomers? For decades, composer Mark Isham has been the go-to guy for making music for movies. "All movies have Christian worldview potential": One lesson to learn from A Clockwork Orange is that man is created to be free and not meant to be a mechanical being. Star Trek is back and it's logical that the religious right would want to jump into the popular movie's transporter beam. Prequels, sequels, semi-official junior prequels to penultimate graphic sequels: Joe Queenan unravels the baffling, tangled world of the movie novelisation. Here are 20 things you didn't know about movies.