Very entertaining article in Monday's Los Angeles Times about the epidemic of fakes and forgeries in Moscow.

Some of you may remember the dramatic 2002 Newark mayoral elections, in which the corrupt incumbent Sharpe James waged a successful but vicious campaign against a reformist outsider by the name of Cory Booker. Under the James administration, city workers who did not support the mayor were demoted and disloyal businesses were targeted for code enforcement. One opposition campaigner was even accused of terrorism and detained. During the election Booker, a Rhodes Scholar from Stanford and a graduate of Yale Law school, was accused by James of being Jewish, Republican, a "faggot white boy" and funded by the Ku Klux Klan, none of which was true. (Booker is in fact black.) Perhaps predictably, his campaign workers received a torrent of parking tickets, broken windows and slashed slashed tires. James ended up winning the 2002 election, but choosing not to face Booker a second time he retired in 2006, allowing Booker to win the next election. The swearing in ceremony was today.

The Washington Post has a long feature article about Booker that is well worth the read. Booker, it turns out, is an incredible human being who opts to live in a foul-smelling ghetto apartment where he has not had heat or hot water since November. His predecessor, in contrast, drove a Rolls Royce. Among other interesting tidbits from the article, Booker has gone on hunger strikes in protest of gang violence and has recently been the recipient of multiple death threats from gang leaders. He is brimming with charisma and is about as popular as a rock star, and many believe he can be the next Obama or the next Clinton. Much will depend on the extent, if any, of the Newark revival he hopes to usher in, but successful or not he is certainly a man to watch in the coming years.