You’ve got to hand it to Bristol Palin: The gal is working overtime to turn those lemons into lemonade.

Having spent a good deal of our time examining the path of the downturn and recovery within America’s own metropolitan areas, it’s great to see other organizations doing the same--and doing it with cool technology.

Sarah Palin’s autobiography Going Rogue doesn’t have an index. Why? Well, I’m not exactly sure. But it sure makes finding gems in the text--such as the defense of that $150,000 clothing bill, the petty attacks on Katie Couric, and Palin-isms like “maverick” and “dang!”—a pretty tough slog. So, here’s an index. A really, really long and thorough one. Want to know where Palin celebrated one of her baby showers with her gal pals? It’s in here. Want to know how she feels about the ACLU, or Ashley Judd, or Steve Schmidt?

Well, it wasn’t exactly must-see TV--which was probably good news for both of the women involved as they work to rebuild (a public image in one case, ratings in the other). There was no Tom Cruise-esque couch-jumping moment. No one wept or cursed or called anyone an ignorant slut. Both gals were unfailingly polite. Oprah was gentle with her poking and prodding. Palin neither embarrassed herself nor went after Oprah with a Bowie Knife, exceeding the extremely low expectations that only somewhat justifiably plague her.

Overall, I thought the in-studio bits weren’t particularly compelling. Palin seemed way too amped up, almost manic in her perkiness, and not terribly at ease, especially when compared to the low-key, soothing tones of Earth Mother Oprah.

For those who don’t obsessively follow politics (presumably the bulk of Oprah’s audience), Palin offered up a few new tidbits about her disappointment with the McCain campaign and her ongoing tabloid-rific spat with her grandbaby’s daddy, Levi (and his “aspiring porn,” as she calls his recent Playgirl shoot). She also voiced her annoyance over the double standards to which both she and her family were subjected during the election (that mean old Katie Couric wasn’t nearly so tough on Joe Biden), though none of that will be new to anyone who’s heard Palin open her mouth in the past year. She handled some questions better than others, and at no time did I feel we were seeing beneath the surface of Sarah Palin, Conservative Icon and Self-Styled Rogue. But it was a straightforward, safe, perfectly respectable interview.

Time's Karen Tumulty and Michael Scherer have a thoroughly enlightening, and thoroughly depressing, article in the new Time about how the drug industry got its way in health care reform. The industry spends more than $600,000 a day in lobbying, they note. And, from the looks of things, it's money well spent.

The focus of the article is the debate over "exclusivity" for biological drugs--that is, the period during which the maker of a drug can manufacture and sell it without threat of generic competition. Reformers, like Representative Henry Waxman, had been pushing to cut the exclusivity period down to five years. The industry wanted twelve. Guess who won?

The power of special interests is an old story, of course. But the reach of pharma's influence is still something to behold, as it goes well beyond the usual game of campaign contributions and revolving door connections:

Travel westward along Massachusetts Avenue, down from Capitol Hill, and you will run into Edmund Burke. He seems to be hailing a cab, hand raised high, fingers parted, his whole form tense with the attempt to seize your attention; but in fact he is in mid-expostulation. This is the torsion of argument. The bronze statue, a copy of a late nineteenth-century one that stands in Bristol, which Burke immortally represented in Parliament, is eight feet tall, and was presented to Washington in 1922 by a British organization devoted to Anglo-American comity.