Bob ‘Velveeta’ Greene: The Globe’s “Ideas” section takes a crack at Chicago columnist Bob Greene, who was recently fired for (or so they say) having an affair with a 17-year-old girl he wrote about in a column. Ah, that infamous column. It’s cheesy. Bob Greene is cheesy. But is being cheesy a firing offense? Peter Canellos makes the case.

Postscript: Last week, Hub Blog mentioned that I wasn’t too impressed with the Globe’s new “Ideas” section. Well, this week it looks like it’s beginning to hit its stride, though the article on bathroom breaks is a puzzler. Besides the piece on Greene, “Ideas” also examines whether the Age of the New York Intellectual is over. And it also has a piece on Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher's photography collection ''African Ceremonies'' -- and the debate over whether the book accurately portrays contemporary Africa and Africans. Hub Blog’s view: It doesn’t. But that’s not the point. The book is about vanishing tribal rituals, not about contemporary Africa. But critics do have an excellent gripe (though it’s unfairly aimed at Beckwith and Fisher): The media does a horrible job covering Africa. Quickly, here’s the real Africa you don’t read about: Hub Blog was recently in downtown Yaounde, Cameroon, with banged up cars darting all around, merchants selling their wares, customers lining up outside a bank, patrons buying baguettes at nearby bakeries, teens running around in American T-shirts, tourists snapping pictures and buying bogus African artifacts at the local art market. And then a shephard disrupted the bustling urban scene, snarling traffic as he herded his goats to market. Then: “Beep, beep, beep!” A cell phone went off. Dozens of people suddenly checked to see if it was their phone. Who’s was it? The shephard’s. And there he was, in the middle of this urban setting along with his goats, yapping away on his cell phone. Now THAT is the Africa you don’t read about.
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