The rumors that Idris Elba will follow Daniel Craig as the next James Bond come and go, but they’re back again. I’m obviously in favor of this potential development on the grounds that Idris Elba is awesome (though I also think you could make great cases for David Oyelowo or Chiwetel Ejiofor) and it would give me an excuse to make a lot of “Able was I, ere I saw Elba” jokes. But there are a lot of reasons that it would be great to have a black Bond, and Elba in particular, beyond his simple excellence as an actor:

1. It would clarify that Bond is a rotating identity: James Bond is sort of like that other venerable British pop cultural institution, the Doctor. He’s been around for decades, he’s played by a rotating cast of actors, and there’s not the most rigorous continuity between incarnations, particularly between the old-school ones and the re-imagined version. But unlike the Doctor, Bond doesn’t have a clear means of passing the torch. A black Bond would be a clear break with tradition. The franchise could either nod at what this means for James Bond as an identity unmoored from a single man’s identity (it would explain why M likes Daniel Craig’s Bond more than Pierce Brosnan’s), or come up with a mythology for passing it on to the next man. Either way, this would permanently open up the franchise to different kinds of men, allowing for some experimentation in styles within the basic elements of Bond-dom.

2. It would be a nice reminder white guys aren’t the only people who can be hypercompetent national icons: It’s not as if Will Smith hasn’t been saving American bacon for a long time. But it’s one thing for a black man to be the unexpected savior of the world and for him to be anointed as the best a nation has to offer. It’s past time.

3. It would give Elba a chance to play a lover, as well as a fighter: I’ve written about this before in the context of Luther, but given how good Elba is at playing sensual, passionate, or nailing the contours of a difficult marriage, it’s too bad that so many of his roles have steered him away from being romantic or sexual and strictly towards the commission of a great deal of very stylish violence. Bond girls (or in Eva Green’s case, Bond Women) are an inherent part of the package. It would be lovely to have Elba in particular and a prominent black actor in general get a chance to play one of the world’s most famous seducers in a context where it’s evidence of his awesomeness, rather than a showcase for suspect stereotypes about black men and sexuality.

4. It might encourage the franchise to think more creatively about other elements of the Bond formula: Casino Royale worked so well because it upended almost every element of the excess that marked the Brosnan years: the villain was pegged to actual geopolitical realities, the decisive action sequences went down in a polite casino private room rather than on a grand tableaux, the violence was personal and painful rather than flashy and fake, the woman in question’s brain mattered as much as her breasts. Craig’s helped bring the franchise part of the way into the future. Maybe a black Bond would augur even further exploration of the limits of the formula.

5. It would be interesting to see a slightly older Bond: Daniel Craig remains under contract as Bond for a while, and I’ve seen some suggestions that Elba couldn’t take the role until he turns 46. Part of what was fun about Craig in Casino Royale was that the movie was an origin story about how a callow, confident young spy lost something and gained mastery as a result. It would be fascinating to see a movie that’s self-consciously about a great fighter and great lover entering the period of his decline, sort of a Casanova In Bolzano for the action world.

It’s always amazing to watch Tina Fey get her dander up, but I think she hits on something particularly important at the Center for Reproductive Rights Inaugural Gala in calling out “grey-faced men with $2 haircuts” who display an unnerving confidence in telling women what does and doesn’t count as rape and what happens to them, or should happen to them, physically and psychologically, when it happens:

The important line is actually one before the catchy burn on older, male, Republican legislators who don’t trust women: “I wish we could have an honest and respectful dialogue about these complicated issues, but it seems like we can’t, right now.” For me, that’s part of what’s been frustrating and frightening about this latest round of statements by politicians on women’s bodily autonomy and functions. This isn’t a conversation, and the people on both sides of it have wildly different assumptions. The idea that I’m supposed to trust someone who doesn’t even understand how my body functions, much less how I might react intellectually or emotionally to trauma, to make decisions on my behalf is so frightening and rage-inducing it’s an immobilizing experience. As someone who is inclined to niceness, to sticking with reason even against all odds, Fey’s issuing permission slip to abandon courtesies that aren’t being extended to women, to call crazy crazy, and standing up for the idea that being driven nuts by this stuff isn’t a sign of oversensitivity. It’s a rational reaction to being treated with condescension and threatened with a substantive deprival of rights that are dear to me, whether it’s my ability to have an abortion if necessary or to get easy, affordable coverage to contraception. Waves like the recent one of anti-woman we’ve been caught in can be immobilizing. Fey’s speech is a reminder that to save yourself, you have to keep swimming.

The genius of the schtick of Billionaires for Bush, a media campaign and street theater group that came into being during President George W. Bush’s administration, was that they turned subtext into text. Most people who are possessed of a billion or more dollars would not actually be caught saying something like “For much of the 20th century, democratic notions like ‘opportunity for all’ and ‘public services’ dominated American public policy, seriously threatening the privileges of wealth all Billionaires depend on.” Though to be fair, there are always people like Gina Rinehart, the Australian mining heiress who sallied forth earlier this year to declare: “If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself — spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working.” But those moments when the facade drops, and people with ugly ideas or worldviews say or act on what they actually believe about people less fortunate them, are rare, and revealing.

Such it apparently was at Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake’s wedding, which apparently featured this video, obtained by Gawker’s John Cook made for them by Justin Huchel, a Los Angeles realtor, in which Huchel asks people who appear to be in such dire economic straights as to be homeless, to pretend to be friends of the couple and to send them congratulations on their wedding, which was held in Italy. There’s no way I can think of to read this video that isn’t horrifying. Is it meant to be mocking the people who appear in it for believing they’re friends with, or have an emotional connection to the famous couple? Is it a riff on the idea that Biel and Timberlake would lower themselves to friendship with people who are poor, intoxicated, or mentally ill? Is it simply that the idea that the juxtaposition of very poor people with the lavish setting of the wedding is uproarious? And this is before we get to the questions of whether the people in the video are actually indigent, and if so, were they paid, and if not, why Huchel thought it was hilarious to pay people to play homeless?

Huchel’s attorney, Michael J. Saltz, sent a takedown notice to Cook, telling him that “Mr. Huchel made a video to be used and exhibited privately at Justin Timberlake’s wedding as a private joke without Mr. Timberlake’s knowledge.” It’s a nice attempt to protect his more famous friend, but it doesn’t actually help all that much. What does it say about Timberlake that Huchel thinks he’s the kind of person who would find this video funny, and not just funny, but funny as part of a celebration of his wedding?

I don’t pretend to know Timberlake, Biel, or Huchel’s hearts. I don’t begrudge them what sounds like it was a pretty fun week-long wedding celebration in Italy (though I have All The Thoughts on Biel’s pink wedding dress). And I have no problem with rich people spending their money on silly things. But unlike a lot of extremely rich people, who can get away with being cheerfully and publicly horrible a la Rinehart, both Timberlake and Biel’s careers depend on people finding them generally endearing, and on audiences developing enough of an attachment to both of them to buy their products. This incident is ugly, but it’s a useful reminder that there’s a gap between the personas both of them sell us, and who they actually are. And that if your subtext would be awfully awkward if it were to turn into text, that maybe it’s time to reevaluate some of your private values.

After Donald Trump’s Joker-esque stunt yesterday promising to donate $5 million to charity if President Obama released his college transcript and passprt, Trump went on Piers Morgan’s CNN show to explain himself. Given that Trump gave Morgan his first claim to American fame when Morgan won the first edition of Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice show, it wasn’t a particularly challenging interview.

But Morgan’s deficiencies as a journalist aren’t limited to his friendship with the Donald: Piers’ 9 PM hour has been a ratings mess and a trainwreck, a perfect storm of substanceless, venal chatter glued together by Morgan’s uncanny ability to make everything about him. But to understand the five biggest problems in Morgan’s approach to journalism, you have to see him in the act:

1. Piers Morgan Interviews An Empty Chair

Morgan booked Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin shortly after the infamous “legitimate rape” comments, only for Akin to cancel at the last minute. Morgan’s response was to lecture an empty chair — before Clint Eastwood made it cool:

While it’s admittedly amusing, the rant is a perfect example of how Morgan makes everything about Piers. The host notably does not lecture the chair about either its limited understanding of the human reproductive systems or the misogynist underpinnings of the idea of sorting rapes by their supposed “legitimacy.” Instead, the issue is Akin inconveniencing Morgan; the congressman cancelled at “the last possible minute,” making him a “gutless little twerp.” Even in his follow-up interview with Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Morgan shies away from the substantive issues raised, asking Schakowsky “[Akin] bailed on us. What do you think is going on here?”

2. Piers Morgan Interviews An Empty Chair…Again

While technically this interview with another GOP Senate candidate, Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell, didn’t involve an physically empty chair, it might as well have. After asking O’Donnell a series of questions about the witch comments and her, er, idiosyncratic views about masturbation, he asks her about marriage equality and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. When she declines to address either issue, Morgan harangues her, prompting O’Donnell to get up and leave while he continues to ask her questions:

This interview illustrates Morgan’s incredibly frustrating habit of being on the right side of an argument, but prosecuting it in nearly the most counterproductive fashion imaginable. If Morgan wanted to have a substantive exchange with an anti-equality advocate, O’Donnell might not have been the smartest guest to book, and it’s hard to see what value comes from haranguing her on the issue. Indeed, Morgan’s has a noxious habit of treating LGBT issues as a cudgel with which to beat his guests rather than a critical rights campaign. His interview with Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) is not a genuine attempt to point out the deficiencies in her worldview, but rather a referendum on whether or not she’s “judgmental.” Of course she’s judgmental! But she’ll never say that, and making the debate about Bachmann’s personality and rhetoric rather than policy isn’t telling us anything we don’t know or making a single viewer more supportive of LGBT rights than they were before.

3. Piers Morgan Loses A Debate To A 9/11 Truther

Speaking of Morgan’s argumentative acumen…

In this segment, Morgan invites former Governor Jesse Ventura (I-MN) onto his show with the express intent of debating his crackpot theories about 9/11. Usually, the purpose of such an exercise on a major cable channel would be an epic debunking, as otherwise the host is simply broadcasting insane ideas to a wider audience. Unfortunately, Morgan isn’t prepared to do that — he simply asserts over an over again that Ventura’s claims are madness, ridiculous, or irrational, which is, needless to say, totally unpersuasive. This problem isn’t limited to Morgan’s interviews with conspiracy theorists – he repeatedly approaches argument as a contest of who can say “no, you’re wrong!” more, an approach to discourse that ends up being somewhat less than enlightening.

4. Piers Morgan Degrades An Already Frivolous Story Into A Parody of Frivolity
It’s not a problem that Morgan often interviews celebrities on somewhat fluffy issues — such interviews can be very and interesting and he did, after all, inherit his timeslot from Larry King. But it’s one thing to cover less important stories, and another thing entirely to degrade the quality of journalism even on frivolous issues:

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Here Morgan interviews Casey Anthony’s lawyer about a conversation that Morgan had with Anthony, supervised by the lawyer, in which he generally allows Anthony’s lawyer to expound on his client’s behalf without the faintest challenge (see the full interview if you don’t believe me). The problem here isn’t that he’s covering Casey Anthony; I’m not Aaron Sorkin. Rather, it’s the inane topics of conversation like Anthony’s purported weight gain and reading list that drags down an already gossipy story.

5. Piers Morgan And The Phone Hacking Scandal

Finally, we arrive at the most important issue on the list – Morgan’s utter shamelessness in using his program to cover his ass on an issue that seriously threatens his own credibility. Morgan worked as an editor at several Rupert Murdoch papers in the UK during the time period in which, according to an investigation last year, Murdoch employees routinely hacked private voicemails to get scoops. CNN failed to publicly probe its new hire’s connections to the issue when it broke (he was a former News of the World editor, the paper most heavily implicated in the investigation) despite suggestive evidence from his own book that Morgan was involved in phone hacking. Morgan, for his part, did a series of segments sympathetic to Rupert Murdoch’s line, including this fawning (unembeddable) interview with another former Murdoch employee.

As evidence continues to mount that Morgan was involved in phone hacking, including allegations in the past few days that another paper helmed by Morgan was involved, the importance of Morgan giving an honest public accounting of his past grows exponentially. His seeming inability to come clean creates a credibility problem that dwarfs the other concerns with his show.

The bridge is yours.

-The World Series’ odd intersections with politics.

-I am the serious Pink fan Emily Yoshida thinks doesn’t exist.

-100 ideas that changed photography.

-NetCoalition will be replaced by the Internet Association.

-In praise of Speed Racer.

Up and coming rapper Angel Haze took the instrumentals from Eminem’s efforts to exorcise his relationship with his mother, “Cleaning Out My Closet,” and laid down an account of sexual abuse she suffered as a child. The track’s been getting passed around a lot recently, and for good reason:

The physical details of the assaults and the way they were discussed in her community are horrific, and the song is powerfully emotionally precise, describing how Haze starved herself to avoid appearing attractive to everyone, and suggesting that she pursued relationships with women rather than men because her terror of male sexual attention was so deep-seated. “It happened so often he was getting particular,” she says of her abuser’s escalation. And I’m hard-pressed to think of a more concise explanation of what it means to come to terms with yourself in the wake of trauma than Haze’s line: “I’m sane, I’m not insane, but not the same as before.”

It’s rare songs like this that use hip-hop as a powerful confessional vehicle for women that make it disconcerting to listen to “White Dress,” Kanye West’s track for The Man With The Iron Fists, that began circulating around the same time as “Cleaning Out My Closet.” It’s ostensibly a song about a couple’s wedding, flashing back to their meeting—which includes Kanye letting her know that even though he met her in the club he still thought about wifing her, because obviously girls who wear form-fitting clothing aren’t normally marriage material, or something:

But in the first verse, there’s an unnerving line that’s meant to be sweet but that actually makes me, uneasily, think more of sex by surprise than a romantic seduction: “Just a satin gown, you asleep with no make-up / I’m just tryna be inside you ‘fore you wake up.” It says a lot that Angel Haze has to say the details of her own sexual assault are disgusting, an apology for recounting them even in a confessional song, but something like this Kanye verse is presented like it’s utterly innocuous.

Ken Burns looks to be having one heck of a fall in between The Dust Bowl, which airs on PBS in November and is excellent, and The Central Park Five, which examines the railroading of five young men in the so-called Central Park jogger rape and assault case, and which Burns directed with his daughter Sarah:

I was struck by the moment in the trailer when former New York City Mayor Ed Koch—the attack happened in April of his final year in office—said “Central Park was holy. It was the crime of the century.” If something holy is profaned, the people who profaned it must be monsters. And some of the easiest people it is to transmute into monsters, the so-called “wolfpack” who attacked Trisha Meili, are young men of color. That’s an awful kind of magic, born out of emotional needs that often spring from dark places, rather than any particular desire for the truth.