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An honest politician would tell the country the truth. The era of cheap oil, easy credit and spending more than you earn is over. America cannot exist with 70% of its economy based on consumers spending at the mall. We will actually have to rebuild our manufacturing base and that means we will have to rebuild our infrastructure. We can no longer be 16th in the world in Broadband Diffusion, 26th in the world in 12th grade science scores and pay our teachers like they were flipping hamburgers. This transition is going to be painful as people pay off their credit cards, reduce their silly spending for things they don’t need and become more resistant to the 5000 commercial messages a day they are bombarded with. I am reminded of John Kenneth Galbraith’s book, The Affluent Society. Galbraith’s assertion that the perfection of modern advertising in creating desire for products we didn’t know we needed puts the modern American member of the middle class in the position of the gerbil on the tread wheel: running faster and faster, but making no progress in relation to his neighbors.

The American short story is alive and well. Do you like the sound of that? Me too. I only wish it were actually true. The art form is still alive — that I can testify to. As editor of “The Best American Short Stories 2007,” I read hundreds of them, and a great many were good stories. Some were very good. And some seemed to touch greatness. But “well”? That’s a different story.

Hanif Kureishi"The flock wallpaper was in the house when I got here. I've kept it, and indeed fought to keep it, because it is like being in an Indian restaurant, and I always wanted to spend all of my life in an Indian restaurant."

Lesser known authors aren't being sent on the road by their publishers due to shrinking profit-margins in the publishing industry, and unless the author is footing at least some of the bill many aren't touring at all. Enter the blog book tour, a new phenomenon where authors take questions or write guest posts on book blogs.