Detroit loves nothing better than hosting a huge sporting event. The city is really at its rowdy, friendly best when thousands of out-of-towners drop in for a Super Bowl, or an All-Star Game, or a Final Four.

Of course, it would be nice if the weather cooperated, too.

Eh, I guess it could be worse. The forecasts called for anywhere from one to 10 inches — talk about hedging your bets — and it seems we fell well into the short end of that zone. It won’t last, but it’ll leave a lot of North Carolinians convinced they made the right call in moving south. I suppose I’m backing the home team, although truth be told I have no interest. No one in the house does. Guess what my husband said Saturday night: “Until I saw it spelled out, I thought Michigan State was playing a team from Alaska.” UConn, Yukon — what’s the difference, really?

OK, so: On to today.

Let’s start with a stipulation: Everyone is blind to their own side’s faults. And so the argument that starts “If (my guy, whom you hate) and done the same thing as (your guy), you’d be screaming bloody murder” just isn’t worth having.

Or if it is worth having, at some point someone is going to say, “Well, he started it.”

So there’s the stipulation. Ideas have consequences, the right lectured the left for, oh, years and years and years. The inventor of the birth-control pill envisioned it being used by married women in their 40s who wanted no more children, and whoops, he touched off the sexual revolution. And so on. To this day, you can still find conservatives trying to link whatever they disapprove of to a “culture” that encourages it, everything from sexy Bratz dolls to gay marriage to whatever has a bug up their butt at any given moment.

Only here’s something they’re strangely silent on: Our current trend of mass murders and shootings. Guy bursts into a Unitarian church, says he wants to kill liberals. Silence. Guy kills three cops, friends say he fears “the coming Obama gun ban.” Crickets, also caviling. Who, us? Encourage an atmosphere of fear and suspicion? I don’t know who you’re talking about. Certainly not us.

I knew the cold-dead-fingers contingent had passed a milestone when, after one of these slaughters, the talking points became “well, if only one of the potential victims had been packing, s/he could have expertly returned fire and taken the maniac out.” (This isn’t something you heard after the guy shot up the nursing home last week, I noted.) Not so much soul-searching, however.

Of course, if there was, it would be easy to miss. I recommend Eric Boehlert’s excellent column for Media Matters, “Rampage Nation,” about the steadily declining interest in the steadily increasing number of massacres nationwide:

Killing sprees, especially the ones that have erupted since the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007, just don’t hold journalists’ attention like they used to.

Even more telling was the way the press avoided addressing the issue of gun control in connection with the Alabama rampage. There was a virtual media ban on the topic last week. And that’s become the media’s trademark pattern when covering the mass murders that stain the country — they’re treated as though they’re isolated incidents and as though there is no larger public policy issue that ties them together. The press has pretty much embraced the old NRA mantra: Guns don’t kill people. People do.

That I would disagree with. Rather, I think gun control doesn’t come up because gun control is absolutely a lost cause in this country. As I have been cynically telling people for years, America has made its bloody bed, and now it has to lie in it. What’s more, any talk of gun control, no matter how reasonable or incremental, only serves to make things worse, as we saw in Pittsburgh this weekend. There’s nothing like a tentative policy statement made by some C-list legislator somewhere for firing up the troops, and before you know it some lunatic is taking out cops because the president is coming for his guns.

How good is this sort of talk for the gun business? Very, very good.

Meanwhile, Dave Cullen has produced what sounds like an excellent book on Columbine, 10 years later. Seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?

OK, so the week begins with snow, but somewhere in here we have baseball and, by week’s end, spring again. So fingers crossed.

This made me cry, in every way it’s possible to cry:

It was a noisy place to work. Dozens of typewriters hammered at carbon-copy books that made an eager slap-slap-slap. Phones rang–the way phones used to ring in the movies. Reporters shouted into them. They called out “boy!” and held up a story and copykids ran to snatch it and deliverer it to an editor. Reporters would shout out questions: “Quick! Who was governor before Walker?”

There were no cubicles. We worked at desks lined up next to each other row after row. Ann Landers (actually Eppie Lederer) had an office full of assistants somewhere in the building, but she insisted on sitting in the middle of this chaos, next to the TV-radio critic, Paul Molloy. Once Paul was talking on a telephone headset and pounding at a typewriter and tilted back in his chair and fell to the floor and kept on talking. Eppie regarded him, reached in a file drawer, and handed down her pamphlet, Drinking Problem? Take This Test of Twenty Questions.

When you went on an interview, you took eight sheets of copy paper, folded them once, and ripped them in half using a copy ruler. Then again. Now you had a notebook of 32 pages to slip in your pocket with your ball-point. You had a press card. You knew the motto of the City News Bureau: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. You were a reporter from the Chicago Sun-Times.

By Roger Ebert, newspaperman. Sniff.

This is the dog who lives in the house that Jack built:

(At least, I think so. I figure, in 1947, the chances of at least one Jack working on this house’s construction are pretty high.)

This is the dog who grew very old, and lives in the house that Jack built.

This is the dog who’s due at the vet’s, and lives in the house that Jack built.

This is the vet, who’s expecting a stool, from the dog who grew very old, who lives in the house that jack built.

This is the rain, that falls on the land…

including the vet, and also the dog, who grew very old and lives in the house that Jack built.

This is the Nance who owns the dog who’s due at the vet’s who needs a stool despite the rain that falls on the house that Jack built:

(You can see why she’s blue, maybe.)

And this the blog that gets ignored because of the Nance who owns the dog who’s due at the vet’s who needs a stool despite the rain that falls on the house that Jack built.

Time to get the Ziploc. And the umbrella. Have a good weekend.

From the way the right-wing blogs are reacting, you’d think the president gave the queen of England a Magic Wand, instead of an iPod and a rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers. Coming in the same week as Hillary’s “gaffe” — allegedly asking a Mexican priest “who painted” Juan Diego’s “miraculous” cloak, and that remains a one-source story, so buyer beware — and followed by his gift of DVDs to the British prime minister, well, you can just imagine. Rule of three, worstpresidentever, game over.

Yes, I’m sure HRH would have enjoyed a nice crystal bowl, or perhaps a gift basket from Hickory Farms.

Gift-giving is an art that not everyone does well. Take the Queen, for instance — her gift to the O’s was a framed photo of herself, her default gift for visiting dignitaries and, frankly, the sort of thing that makes an iPod look like a deed to one’s own private island. Diplomatic gift-giving is another breed of cat, as there are all sorts of nuances to consider. I agree the DVD set of classic American movies was pretty tacky in comparison to Gordon Brown’s gift to the president, an ornamental pen holder crafted from the timbers of a Victorian anti-slave ship. That’s a perfect diplomatic gift, acknowledging history and the relationship between nations, while being nothing more difficult to find room for in a home than an ornamental pen holder.

Obama needs a better gifting advisor, maybe. But I disagree that the iPod was off-the-charts awful. The key to great gift-giving is empathy, asking yourself, “If I were this person, what would I like to have?” Put yourself in the Queen’s shoes, your daily life a damp ordeal of Duty, Protocol and accepting bouquets from schoolchildren. Maybe you’d like a nifty gadget that would allow you to pop in those earbuds and escape from it all for a while, a symbol of American ingenuity, rather than a tapestry or one more proper token of national esteem. Maybe you wouldn’t. But at some point everything gets logged and shoved in a closet somewhere, so what’s the dif?

Ronald Reagan was a horseman, and over the course of his presidency someone was always handing him the halter rope leading to a magnificent steed. One, I think, actually made it to the ranch in California. Now there’s a gift.

The queen should have given the Obamas a Corgi puppy from her own kennels. Failing that, maybe she deserves an iPod.

Over the years, LAMary has entertained us with many tales of her ex’s lousy gift-giving, but I’m calling on the rest of you: What’s the worst gift you’ve ever given or gotten? Herpes, a praise-music CD, a signed copy of a book by an author you hate? I cannot participate. My husband gives the best gifts ever. He remembers an offhand remark I made in July and it finds its way under my Christmas tree in December. A marvel of thoughtfulness I do not deserve. Oh, wait, there’s probably one, during a bad breakup when a boyfriend said, “Let’s go shopping and buy you something expensive.” Unspoken: So I can then be shut of this relationship guilt-free. I refused to go.

So, bloggage:

I tried to make time to read this story all day yesterday, and failed, so you take a stab at it. Once before I die, I’d like to attend a full production of Wagner’s Ring cycle, which is why it caught my eye. I didn’t realize Wagner has a cast of hangers-on not unlike the Grateful Dead, or Phish. Now I do.

Short shrift today, I know, but that’s why I depend on you guys. Maybe something later. Ciao.

Thanks to all of you who made Day 1 of the Amazon store such a success. I earned $15.43! This is better than Google has done me in a single day, ever, and while I know it can’t last, I’m pleased to know how many of you are willing to do me this small favor.

I’m equally pleased to see my report from Amazon tells me what you bought. No names attached, alas, although some of you announced your purchases in comments. So I know Del is probably the one behind “The McCleers and the Birneys;: Irish immigrant families-into Michigan and the California gold fields, 1820-1893,” but I have no idea who might have picked up “Strip To It: Core Moves and Fantasies Sexy Striptease (exotic dancing)” on DVD. Although I have my ideas ::koff::BrianStouder::koff::. And truly, I am delighted, because it would seem to indicate we’re drawing a younger demographic. Money in the bank!

One of these days J.C. and I will put together a proper button for the sidebar, but for now click either the current On the Nightstand book or the link below. Oh, and Laura Lippman, if you’re reading this, we also sold a copy of “Life Sentences.” Onward to the bestseller list.

So. I haven’t said much about the General Motors situation, mainly because the more I read, the less I know about this company — or know that I know, anyway. I don’t want to be one of those pundits whose advice to the company boils down to “duh, make cars people want to drive,” as though running the largest industrial corporation in the world, with a few hundred thousand employees, plants all over the globe, a product line that takes years to develop and produce, that’s expensive and prone to the vagaries of commodity and labor prices, trends and a fickle public — all this is no more difficult than running a cupcake bakery somewhere.

Fortunately, in Detroit, there are lots of people who know more about this than I do. I e-mailed one and asked him his take on the Wagoner business. I don’t think he’d mind if I pasted his thoughts:

I think Wagoner got a raw deal. But I also think GM could use a little outside agitation. It’s a huge company. And huge companies are hard to turn around. Maybe a new face at the top will help. Certainly the government has the right to call some shots.

But two of the biggest problems of GM were created a long time ago – shitty cars and bloated union contracts. The third – healthcare costs – is out of their hands. Wagoner went a long way to turning quality around. (It’s ironic that he’s out a week after Buick officially ended Lexus’ 14-year run at the top of JD Powers “Most Dependable” list.) And he took a huge step in bringing union costs in line with the last contract. He certainly blew it when they decided not to build a Prius-like hybrid when Toyota did. But he’s admitted that mistake and GM is catching up. (And he gets no credit for the fact that GM was developing that technology as fast as Toyota and Honda. They just made the strategic mistake of not thinking the market was ready for it … a mistake that must be viewed in the context of the fact that GM struggles to make money with small cars under the weight of their staggering health care costs.)

True to Wagoner form, he didn’t stamp his feet and make a fuss. He is the rarest of birds – a CEO with very little ego. GM is in trouble, much of it by their own hand. But that trouble started a long time ago. Rick Wagoner was the guy turning it around … until a banking and credit crisis clipped him from behind.

…One more thought. I made this prediction late last year, and this latest news makes me think it’s more likely that this scenario will unfold: The government overseers will, with support from Nancy Pelosi et al, righteously force GM to shift its focus to smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Not much will be done about health care costs, of course. So these cars won’t make money. Toyota and Honda, meanwhile, continue to invest billions in their truck fleet, fighting for a spot in this sector. With Detroit money sucked away from truck development – Chevy’s new Silverado gets better gas mileage with its V8 than Toyota can get with its V6 – Toyota and Honda will rush in and seize this highly profitable high ground. And that, my friends, will be all she wrote.

I might add: While gas prices remain low, lots of Priuses are sitting on lots, too. And Toyota sales are down as much as the domestic companies’. When people are losing jobs and can’t get credit, a car that flies would be a tough sell, let alone a Volt. Although Toyota saw something in hybrids that GM didn’t, and was willing to carry the Prius for a good long time until it wormed its way into the zeitgeist. And now when people think of Toyota, they think Prius, not Sequoia, Highlander or Tundra. And GM will forever be the makers of the Suburban. (Which I still see a lot of on the streets, btw.)

A bit of bloggage before we depart? OK:

Detroitblog unearths another great story, about a old-time west-side schvitz patronized mainly by Russian geezers, but on weekends? It’s an orgy venue. More pix (nothing spicy) at the first link, easier-on-the-eyes black-on-white text here.

Oh, it’s so cute when newspapers have April Fool’s Day stories, isn’t it? I’m amazed they’re toying with subscription cancellations at a time like this, frankly.

I am stupid and law-abiding, because my first question, reading this, was, “Why not sell at a loss?” I know nothing.

But I have a lot of work to do. So off I go.