• Jay-Z's appearing in videos with Bill Gates? Hmmm… [ABC]

• Canadians for Barack Obama! Not that it matters. [CTV]

• In the U.S., our presidents' kids go to Ivy Leagues and campaign for their parents. In France, they produce songs for David Banner. Cultural differences. [AHH]

• Snoop doesn't want his kids following his show biz path. Who would have though Snoop would make a better parenting decision than Will Smith? [NW50]

• More black people get arrested for weed in Seattle than whites. All the white kids there should take a bong hit to toast their good fortune. [SPI]

• As you settle down for Thanksgiving dinner, think of Malinda Russell, who wrote the oldest-known cookbook by a black author in 1866. Incidentally, she didn't include any recipes for fried chicken. [NYT]

• If you're black and Hispanic and even thinking about majoring in computer science, do it. Bill Gates wants you to. [IW]

• New Orleans shifting racial population plays out in the new, majority-white City Council. [NYT]

• Ian Smith, the last white ruler of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), is dead. [LAT]

• Critics are saying that Barry Bonds should have an askerisk next to his home run record because of his steroid use. But where are all the asterisks on the records won by the white old-timers when blacks were surpassing them in the Negro Leagues? [USAT]

Bono, the entertainment business's resident bleeding heart, took over as guest editor for July's Vanity Fair issue and focused on his favorite continent, Africa. To commemorate this historic event, famed photographer Annie Liebovitz shot 20 different covers.

As for the covers themselves, I was wondering why it looked like Madonna was about to kiss Maya Angelou's ear and why Bush was violating Desmond Tutu's space like that until Jossip informed me that the whole thing was supposed to look like a game of telephone. I'm not sure that is readily apparent, but the covers — featuring Alicia Keys, Brad Pitt, Condoleeza Rice, Don Cheadle, and Barack Obama, to name a few — are impressive nonetheless.

[VF]