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There may be more English-language spellings of Muammar Gaddafi than there are supporters of the quasi-deposed Libyan dictator.

Vanity Fair
Spelling of Qaddafi

There may be more English-language spellings of Muammar Gaddafi than there are supporters of the quasi-deposed Libyan dictator,writes Juli Weiner in Vanity Fair. The writer picks from a list of 112 variations of the name curated by Nexis users at ABC News and looks for the spelling that connotes the right balance of diplomatic savvy and artful allure. Here is Weiners pick:

Muammar Qaddafi: Pluckily refutes golden rule of U following Q; appeals to rugged grammatical anti-authoritarians. Orthographic Brethren: Vanity Fair,The Christian Science Monitor,Fox News,The Onion.

Muammar el-Qaddafi: Monogram M.e.Q. would look sophisticated on a leather valise or personalised stationery but writers have trouble remembering if such a spelling requires a hyphen or an n-dash. Orthographic Brethren: The New York Times.

Moammar Gadhafi: Once shortened into nickname,allows for classic aphorism Mo Gadhafi,mo problems. But Gadhafi is difficult to spell. Orthographic Brethren: The Associated Press,CNN.

Muammar Gaddafi: Makes more sense phonetically than Qaddafi but G lacks seductive qualities of a more unusual Q. Orthographic Brethren: The BBC,Reuters,Wikipedia,WhiteHouse.gov,Al Jazeera.

The New Yorker
9/11 colouring book

How do you explain 9/11 to a child who was born after September 11,2001 and who has no first-hand knowledge of it? Elizabeth Minkel writes about a colouring book,We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids Book of Freedom,from Really Big Coloring Books,Inc. that explains it allrather inelegantly,though. To cite one example of the tastelessness,the book gives kids the opportunity to colour in a member of SEAL Team Six taking aim at a veiled woman and,cowering just behind her,Osama bin Laden himself. The book comes with a parental guidance suggestion and has sold out its initial 10,000 print run. A four-year-old somewhere is probably trying to figure out exactly which crayon to use to colour in the World Trade Center.

The Guardian
25 years of Def Jam

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Gareth Grundy writes about the rise of record label Def Jam thats credited with bringing New York street culture and music to the masses. And helping elect the US presidentBarack Obama. In April 2008,Obama famously dismissed criticism from Hillary Clinton by brushing specks of imaginary dirt off each shoulder. Pundits applauded his ability to rise above the mud-slinging but for a different audience,there was a second meaning: Obama was deliberately mimicking dance moves from the video to Jay-Zs 2004 hit,Dirt Off Your Shoulder a Def Jam record8230;Although not the only label to export the music and culture of inner-city America to the world,Def Jam is the most significant, Grundy says.

The Washington Post
The worst month

Obama must have heaved a sigh of relief when he flipped his desk calendar to the month of September. August was a tough moth for the presidentalways has been,writes Chris Cillizza. The debt-ceiling fight,the first-ever downgrading of the nations credit rating,a debate over the Obamas vacation during an economic downturn,a hurricane8230; That the month ended with the White House bowing to House Speaker John Boehners demands that the president reschedule his jobs speech this coming week seemed somehow fitting, says the writer.