Phoebe Connelly

Thursday brought to an abrupt end the months-long hunt for Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. But as authorities seek to piece together a timeline of his final moments, some striking reminders of his extravagant lifestyle have emerged. The Washington Post reports Friday that when investigators performed DNA testing on Gadhafi's body, they learned that the vainglorious strongman was wearing a wig.

A political writer I know once told me he felt guilty turning in a piece analyzing class issues in Veronica Mars. "It felt like a cop-out," he said. "I was getting a free pass to write about my Tuesday-night television habit." Pop culture may be an all-purpose fallback for party conversation, but even among critics there's a sense that applying political or cultural analysis to the fluff churned out by Hollywood can't be serious work.

There's No Jose Here: Following the Hidden Lives of Mexican Immigrants | Gabriel Thompson (Nation Books) The passage of HR 4437, aka the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, caused cities across the nation to erupt last year, drawing protesters into the streets in numbers that enshrined immigration as the public policy hot button of the moment.