BIRD'S EYE
To see, or Not to See
By Mona Charen
Is it really worth crawling through the muck to reach TV's flowers?

SIDELIGHTS
News Scraps
Driving while an iguana. Reparations for Tories. Howard Stern, censor. Lott for sale.

SCAN
Short News and Commentary
Safe public housing? Madness in Manhattan. MTV and Paradise Lost. Immigration and crime don't mix. Gangster rap and gospel rock. Washington vs. Hollywood. Clean TV, don't rate it. The NEA and all that.

"LIVE" WITH TAE
Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch, the world's most successful press baron, defends his newspapers, TV shows, and his latest venture, the Fox News Channel.

TRANSCRIPT
How to Fix Hollywood
By Benjamin J. Stein
What's right and what's wrong with Hollywood — and how to fix it.

IN REAL LIFE
First-person America
Blake Hurst recalls the family softball dynasty. Daniel Zanoza goes to Hell and back with heroin.

THE ECONOMIST
U.S. Unilteral Sanctions Are Overused and Undereffective
By Mark Groombridge
Unilateral sanctions against misbehaving nations may make us feel good, but they rarely make the world a better place.

FLASHBACK
From the Outhouse to the White House
By Bill Kauffman
Low deeds from high authors: the history of the political bio.

BOOK TALK
Reviews of New Books
Alan Pell Crawford—The Gentleman's Guide to Life by Steve Friedman, and Rules of Civility, edited by Richard Brookhiser * Jacob Neusner—The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century by Alan M. Dershowitz * Scott Walter—The Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy edited by Jay Tolson * Christopher Check—Ground Zero: The Gender Wars in the Military by Linda Bird * Francke Nick Gillespie—The Decline of American Liberalism by Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr.

DIGEST
Summaries of Important New Research
Republicans in the House...insignificant campaign spending...high-tech income inequality...deregulation history...privatizing adoption...old age in Japan.