If you've never read Howard Zinn's delightful and fast-paced A People's History of the United States, now is a good time to start. Amazon's got the e-book priced at $2.49 today, so do some e-commerce in the service of the coming socialist revolution!

Mitch Daniels! Remember him? Used to be governor of Indiana, mused about running for President, big favorite of the Republican establishment. He's now the president of Purdue University. Turns out he also tried his best to ban some books!

Howard Zinn, the popular leftist author and historian who died earlier this year, was quite the target of anti-communist surveillance in his heyday! The FBI accumulated a file of 423 pages on him over the years, which it released today.

In your foreboding Thursday media column: Jared Kushner has a bright idea, Howard Zinn's reputation impugned, David Letterman plays a funny joke, and Janice Min somehow survives being rich as fuck.

JD Salinger, the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye, is dead at 91. He follows author/historian Howard Zinn, who died yesterday, and author Louis Auchincloss, who died on Tuesday. [NYT]

Howard Zinn, historian and author of A People's History of the United States, has died of a heart attack. He was 87.

Paul Giamatti ruined Twilight. Director Paul Haggis inexplicably continues to get work. The Watchmen ruins Nic Cage's DVD's dominance. Howard Zinn ruins Matt Damon or vice-versa.

[Marisa Tomei chats with Howard Zinn in Boston yesterday. She is a performer in a staged version of Zinn's A People's History Of The United States; image via AP]