So very “2004” by now – the days when the kickoff question for an interview on black issues was whether you agreed with the views of Bill Cosby. What was interesting was how many black people actually did – those who had a major problem with Cosby’s new tack were mainly a writerly contingent, itchy to see someone so prominent arguing against the tacit but potent assumption that there needs to be a second Civil Rights revolution.

Last month, rapper Kanye West interrupted an MTV Video Awards ceremony to protest the selection of Taylor Swift for “Best Female Video.” So widely did the fallout from this episode spread that President Obama soon weighed in against West (“He’s a jackass”). Obama himself would soon become the subject of a similar award-related imbroglio, when he was bizarrely chosen as the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Classy and well-played. He makes it about others, not himself, and effectively admits that he doesn't deserve it:

I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee.  Let me be clear:  I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.

Comes from the NYT's Mike Hale:

I DEAD IN ATTIC
By Chris Rose
(Chris Rose Books, 158 pp., $13)

BREACH OF FAITH: HURRICANE KATRINA AND THE NEAR DEATH OF A
GREAT AMERICAN CITY
By Jed Horne
(Random House, 412 pp., $25.95)

THE STORM
By Ivor van Heerden and Mike Bryan
(Viking, 308 pp., 25.95)

THE GREAT DELUGE: HURRICANE KATRINA, NEW ORLEANS, AND THE
MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST
By Douglas Brinkley
(William Morrow, 716 pp., $29.95)

PATH OF DESTRUCTION: THE DEVASTATION OF NEW ORLEANS AND THE
COMING AGE OF SUPERSTORMS
By John McQuaid and Mark Schleifstein
(Little, Brown, 386 pp., $26)