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"I've never been anywhere that felt so old and so traditionally American as the Carolina Piedmont, which is the region that Dean comes from. It's tobacco country; there used to be textiles and furniture-making. And then tobacco, as we know, fell with the '90s and the investigations and the tobacco buyout and it kind of laid waste to what had been a very intact middle class and working class part of the country. Dean Price is a son of that region. His father was a Bible Belt preacher; his whole family had been tobacco farmers since the 18th century; they all live within about 10 miles of each other in Rockingham County, N.C.

"And again, around the time of the financial crisis, Dean, who had this truck stop business, watched his business fail — so he turned to biofuels. And he has this whole vision, which I think is a very American vision, of resurgence, a kind of renaissance of the countryside through alternative energy. But he's doing it on his own. No one is telling him to; there's no organization he's part of; there's no union or business trade association or newspaper that he's connected [to]. He's a loner out there; he's a Johnny Appleseed spreading biodiesel across the countryside."

On how American communities are suffering

"As Dean said to me while we were walking around Madison, N.C., the town that he grew up in, the shoe store was closed down, the pharmacy was shuttered, the restaurants were closed, there were just a couple people on the sidewalk — you see this in little towns all across the heartland. He said the guys who used to own those stores were the pillars of this community — they coached the little league teams, they were on the town council. They're gone and communities can't suffer that way without great consequences."

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Artifacts that once belonged to Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Indian independence leader who took a vow of poverty, could fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars at auction.

A pair of sandals, a shawl, a drinking cup, Gandhi's will and various other documents associated with the leader are all up for auction. Guide prices range from 200 for "a rare British Parliament paper declaring Gandhi a terrorist" dating from 1932, to 40,000 for his will. A sample of Gandhi's blood is also on the auction block at Britain's Ludlow Racecourse in Shropshire.

This is not the first time that objects belonging to Gandhi, who was assassinated in 1948 less than a year after India gained independence from British rule, have gone up for auction. It's at least the sixth such auction since 1998, according to the BBC.

The BBC says:

"At numerous Gandhi auctions around the world over the past decade, the Indian government has insisted it should have the right of first refusal because the artifacts are a national treasure."

Arrested Development returning via Netflix? Just another old-media brand reviving itself on new media.

The TV show, which originally ran on Fox from 2003 to 2006 and unveils new episodes on Netflix next weekend, finds itself in splendid company. Radiohead, Louis C.K., Veronica Mars — all found their audiences with promotion and distribution from big studios and networks. Radiohead was signed to a major music label. Louis C.K. enjoyed HBO specials and TV shows. And Veronica Mars ran on two TV networks for three years.

But Radiohead defied industry norms in 2006 by selling its album In Rainbows directly to fans for whatever price they chose — and the band made millions. Louis C.K. took a similarly successful route with a comedy special in 2011, charging viewers five dollars to download the special online. And Veronica Mars fans contributed more than $5.7 million on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter — almost three times the stated goal — to pay for a movie adaptation.

Author Grady Hendrix says these models aren't exactly replicable. These are mid-list, old-media artists, not blockbuster celebrities. But their fan bases and name recognition furnishes them with a new-media edge that won't be shared, he says, "[by] some band from Cleveland that has a small following looking for Kickstarter funds for their album."

Inevitably, some old-media brands still manage to do it wrong. The blandly impersonal Kickstarter page of actress Melissa Joan Hart might as well have been written by a publicist's intern. The former star of Sabrina The Teenage Witch is soliciting funds for a new romantic comedy, but as Hendrix points out, with the slightest of smirks, "It's raised $50,000, and it's doing really badly."

On the other hand, a Kickstarter campaign from actor Zach Braff simply oozes kinship with fans. And they've rallied, giving more than $2.7 million to support a follow-up to his 2004 movie Garden State and surpassing his goal by hundreds of thousands of dollars. "There are shots of him and his brother and all these behind-the-scenes things," Hendrix notes," And you feel like, 'Hey, Zach Braff is going to answer my emails!'"

A sense of ownership and connection leads people to donate money to movies ultimately benefiting the major studios that make them. But it's important to recognize that Warner Brothers will still invest many millions in producing, distributing and promoting a Veronica Mars movie, even with Kickstarter's help.

And there could be more to come. Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities points out that rumors have swirled that late show Heroes might be resurrected by Microsoft as an Xbox exclusive. "And the only way you'll be able to watch," he says, "is on Xbox."

Giving still-grieving fans hope for new Xbox or Netflix episodes of their canceled darlings such as Caprica, Chuck or Firefly.

Pakistanis have coped with — even rioted — over the country's frequent power cuts. Now, the government is feeling the impact, too. The country's caretaker prime minister has banned air conditioners in government offices and instituted a dress code for civil servants. Among his recommendations: no socks.

"There shall be no more use of air conditioners in public offices till such time that substantial improvement in the energy situation takes place," according to a Cabinet directive, cited by Reuters.

The News newspaper reports:

"The dress code includes white or light coloured (beige, light grey, sky blue, off-white, cream) shirt/bush shirt (full-sleeved or half sleeved) with light coloured (as prescribed for shirt) trouser or shalwar kameez with waist coat, moccasins (shoes without laces) or sandals (shoes with straps) without socks."