Hmm: The new Iraqi flag--an aquamarine crescent with gold and blue stripes on a white field--has been met with bewilderment by Iraqis for many reasons. Chief among them: its resemblance to the Israeli flag.

Is the net killing libraries? A spooky report from The Guardian: public libraries in the UK could die out within 15 years. With the US's comparatively young literary tradition, not to mention a surging trend toward privatization in all fields, when will ours close down?

On privatization: Arundhati Roy's "The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin" is a poetic and sharp-toothed look at water privatization in India: "When all the rivers and valleys and forests and hills of the world have been priced, packaged, bar-coded and stacked in the local supermarket, when all the hay and coal and earth and wood and water has been turned to gold, what then shall we do with all the gold? Make nuclear bombs to obliterate what's left of the ravaged landscapes and the notional nations in our ruined world?"

Hard facts: A study published in New Scientist this month suggests that men who masturbate frequently are significantly less likely to get prostate cancer. My mom's reply to that news? "You can't believe everything you read on the internet."