America between the 2004 election and the first 100 days of the Obama administration - its knights and knuckleheads, its fears and joys, its new ironies and old habits, its capacity for change and transition - is topic A in this collection of essays and blog posts from a longtime observer of American life, politics and popular culture. A veteran reporter, essayist and critic, Michael E. Ross brings an incisive eye to presidential politics, press ethics and accountability, television news, activism in pop culture, the impact of Hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq and other issues. In an often funny, always insightful collection of recent writing, the author offers takes on George Bush, Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Michael Richards, Apple, Rupert Murdoch, FEMA, Mitt Romney, the GEICO cavemen, Michael Jackson and others in the national life. Valedictories for James Brown, August Wilson, Hunter Thompson, Norman Mailer, Coretta Scott King, Gerald Ford, Norman Whitfield, Tim Russert and Michael Jackson are spirited salutes to indispensable voices in the public discourse. Throughout, he explores with honesty, empathy and a jagged wit the ways we transform the nation and the ways the nation transforms us. The American bandwidth is wider than it's ever been before. This is part of how that happened.