Let each man do his patriotic ditty. Musical fame was Jimmie Davis's ticket to the Louisiana governorship, and Sonny Bono's fast track to the U.S. House of Representatives. But what happens when the tables are turned, when political office becomes the launch-pad for a songwriter's career, rather than vice-versa? Listen no further than the oeuvres of Senator Orrin Hatch and, somewhat more painfully, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft -- "You Are My Sunshine" it ain't.

Fourteen ninety something. I used to think the term pre-Colombian art meant objects produced in South America before 1819, the year Colombia, led by Simon Bolivar, won its independence from Spain. It always seemed an arbitrary division. But the term and its associated date, of course, refer not to the nation but to the man for which it was named: Christopher Columbus, 1492. After reaching a zenith of mythic figuredom at the end of the 19th century, Columbus has, unsurprisingly, taken a dive in the past few decades. These days, just about everyone agrees that the great navigator was a bit clueless -- he died, after all, thinking he'd discovered Asia -- and that his arrival and its aftermath made life much worse for the "Indians" he found. What's surprising, at least to me, is both how wrong he seems to have been, and how good the locals likely had it before his ships arrived.

The cult of Jon Frum. "Prayers and flowers are offered at the red cross in the village church. This is followed by a flag-raising ceremony and a military parade. Islanders carry rifles made of bamboo ... About 100 men march under the command of two village elders dressed as US Army sergeants. The soldiers have the letters 'USA' painted in red on their bodies." The South Pacific nation of Vanuatu is home to a religious tradition centering around an American king who promised, one day, to return to the island with a white ship full of gifts. The more you think about it, though, the Jon Frum legends seem less strange and exotic than just plain familiar. Consider these words, from the poet Robert Bly (author of Iron John, but that's coincidental): "The Mall of America in Minneapolis is the largest mall in the world, and it has a statue of Snoopy taller than any statue of Christ in Minneapolis. If we replaced Snoopy with a statue of [the Hindu goddess] Kali, with her fangs, her bloody cleaver, her necklace of skulls, her long tongue hanging out, we would see the true face of mall culture. Everyone who saw it would be a tiny bit more adult. They might notice also that our abundance implies insatiable hunger elsewhere in the world."