Wart, Kindle, polar bears

Sherman Alexie, flogging a new book of short stories, opines on Warty in Mother Jones:

The tribes he claims he belongs to don't even claim him. Let's put it this way: You guys are all way behind in terms of what you know about his identity and his politics. Indians have been having those discussions since the beginning. His words got him in trouble, but he had lost plenty of Indian credibility before he lost white people's credibility.

We knew that. Alexie also weirdly defends his notion that the Kindle is elitist:

I got hundreds of emails insulting me, accusing me of being some caveman. I am by no means a Luddite. I have two iPods. I have a cell phone. I have cable TV, HDTV! If I had been talking about drowning polar bears, people would have been weeping with me. But nobody recognizes that a bookstore or library can also be a drowning polar bear. And right now in this country, magazines, newspapers, and bookstores are drowning polar bears. And if people can't see that or don't want to talk about it, I don't understand them at all.

Update: The New York Times (l) next to Ward Churchill.