This morning brings sad news: David Mills, aka Undercover Black Man, aka writer/producer/whatever on “The Wire,” “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “Treme,” died suddenly yesterday on the set of “Treme.” The story linked above — and I have no idea what the Investigative Voice is, sorry — says it was an aneurysm.

It’s awful when a person this talented is cut down in the prime of life. I didn’t know David, but like lots of people in that orbit, we exchanged a few e-mails from time to time. This detail from the story above should provide a hint as to what we had in common: While attending (the University of Maryland), Mills started a newspaper devoted to George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. You should not be surprised to learn that one of Mills’ first big splashes in TV writing was “Bop Gun,” an episode of “Homicide” that takes its name from a P-Funk song. It also contains this priceless throwaway detail: A perp confesses to shooting someone over the destruction of a rare Eddie Hazel record, a reference maybe 12 people in the country got, but that’s why you watched “Homicide,” for the chance you might be in that 12. (Why isn’t this show in syndication anywhere? I just learned this morning that episode also features a 13-year-old Jake Gyllenhaal. And I don’t think I’ve seen it since it aired in 1994.)

Mills died barely a week before “Treme” is set to premiere — April 11.

I can’t find it now, but in one of our e-mail exchanges, I told Mills a blog post of his had prompted me to fill out my P-Funk collection via iTunes, and we went back and forth a little about guilty-pleasure pop hits. He said one of his was Diana Ross’ “Remember Me,” and then I downloaded that one, too. It’s fairly cheesy, Diana at her Diana-est, basically a more uptempo version of “I Will Always Love You.” I guess now I have someone to remember when I hear it.

Damn it anyway.

So, a little bloggage:

Google Maps added a bike feature, suggesting the most bike-friendly routes between locations. Here’s the map from my zip code to Belle Isle. I’d say they have some bugs to work out, but it’s a good start.

If you haven’t read the story I linked in the previous post, you are required to do so now. I am reminded once again of Jim at Sweet Juniper’s offhand remark: One of the great things about this city is, frequently there’s nobody around to tell you you can’t do something. Like open a strip club in your house.

Where is Jon Stewart’s MacArthur Fellowship?

If anyone cares, my windshield was only cracked, not broken, and it’s been like that for years, literally. Alan borrowed my car in 2006 and came home with a crack in the windshield the width of my hand, and claimed no knowledge of how it happened. Little by little, it expanded, and now it’s about 18 inches long. Although it’s down at the bottom and restricts my view not at all, it’s the sort of thing that would be an easy add-on ticket for a cop interested in chop-busting. Bonus: In the four years I’ve had it, the ownership of the glass shop changed and the price dropped from $590 to a little over $200. It pays to wait.

And now to think about my windshield not even a little — a bike ride.

Every so often, I tell our Wayne State students that everything you need to know about writing an engaging feature story can be learned by reading Detroitblog. I think I’m going to be doing it again soon.

I have to leave and run my car off to the broken-windshield place. Until I get back and get sufficiently caffeinated, enjoy. I promise: You will.

In my perambulations here and there yesterday, I ran across this, linked to a link to a link I was following. I don’t know how I missed it in 2008. Titled “The First Time I Heard of Barack,” it’s a gem. Ahem:

During the period of roughly February 1992 to mid 1994, I was making frequent trips to Moscow, Russia, in the process of starting a software development joint-venture company with some people from the Russian scientific community. One of the men in charge on the Russian side was named V. M.; he had a wife named T.M.

V. was a level-headed scientist while his wife was rather deeply committed to the losing Communist cause – a cause she obviously was not abandoning.

You already see where this is going, don’t you?

Bitter, bitter T. has one too many vodkas and lets the truth slip!

“Yes, it is true. This is not some idle talk. He is already born and he is educated and being groomed to be president right now. You will be impressed to know that he has gone to the best schools of Presidents. He is what you call “Ivy League”. You don’t believe me, but he is real and I even know his name. His name is Barack. His mother is white and American and his father is black from Africa. That’s right, a chocolate baby! And he’s going to be your President.”

I waited for V. to wrestle her to the ground, cut out her chatty tongue or otherwise show concern for such treasonous blabbing. No. He lets his wife go on and on:

She rattled off a complete litany. He was from Hawaii. He went to school in California. He lived in Chicago. He was soon to be elected to the legislature. “Have no doubt: he is one of us, a Soviet.”

Note to “Tom Fife,” the author of this gem: When rewriting “The Manchurian Candidate” for dissemination to Free Republic-like websites, don’t stick too close to the original. It was brilliant to have Angela Lansbury be the ultimate bad guy in the original, but it’s OK to mix it up a little for the remake. Otherwise people call you derivative.

Funny that I should run across it yesterday, when the local news was full of stories about the Hutaree, whose name I’m still not clear on pronouncing — I think it’s Hoo-TAR-ee, and for what it’s worth, I don’t find them especially alarming, although maybe if I were in law enforcement, I might not be so blasé. But I think they’re a perfect example of what we started discussing low in the comments yesterday, representatives of a certain kind of rural hopelessness. Reading the Free Press and News stories about the group’s rural Michigan stomping ground was a short course in class signifiers:

He lived in two rusty trailers in Clayton on a messy yard strewn with toy guns, a flagpole and a Porta-John.

…Spurgeon attended the wedding of Joshua Stone earlier this month at the church and said he was surprised when the groom and other male attendees wore military-type uniforms.

…Donna Spurgeon said all the Stone children were home-schooled. They were smart, polite and artistic but socially awkward, she said.

Two generations ago, the Stone clan would have lived in a ranch house down the block from the Dairy Barn. The menfolk would have worked in light industry, as mechanics at the farm-implement dealer, maybe even as insurance agents or store owners. Everyone would hunt and go to the Methodist, Presbyterian or Lutheran churches in town. No one would be home-schooled. But something went wrong. What went wrong? Daddy hurt his back, and the insurance company just wants him to take his Oxycontin and shut up. Junior went up to Detroit to see the Bob Seger show and got carjacked; he won’t make that mistake again. Shelley got a job down at the wire-harness factory, but they closed a few years back, sent the whole shootin’ match down to Juarez. And now here we are, and the kids are getting married in camo. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

The News story has photos of the camo wedding, as well as the trailer.

As part of my research for this book I’m working on, I ran across this account of the New Bethel Church shooting case, c. 1969 in Detroit. You may notice many parallel elements with the Hutarees. Separatism, violence. Old wine, new bottles.

Some may point out that you know you’re crazy when the Michigan Militia is helping the police track you down, because you give their kind of crazy a bad name. All I’m saying is, it’s out there. And who knows what they’re reading on the internet.

Bloggage? I guess I have a little:

I was intrigued to see David Brooks’ column hed today: The Sandra Bullock trade. I was not surprised to learn it had nothing to do with Sandra Bullock, beyond a vague sort of anecdotal connection. That’s Brooks, however. And that’s why we have Gawker.

Ricky Martin came out of the closet. It sounds classier in Spanish: Hoy ACEPTO MI HOMOSEXUALIDAD como un regalo que me da la vida.

And now I’m off to the gym. Where are you off to?

I regret to say that the weekend mail did not contain my invitation to the Obama family’s White House seder. As the weekend’s NYT story points out, you don’t have to be Jewish to love the springtime tradition of a long ritual dinner featuring matzoh, horseradish, charoset and four cups of wine — but it takes real guts to host one if you’re not, and I admire the first family for doing so.

I understand some Christians hold seders at Passover, as a way of honoring the first of the Big Three of Monotheism, but I don’t know if I could do that. You know how people resent converts to any religion, the way they take the plunge into whatever your particular baptismal font might be, and then surface telling everyone what they’re doing wrong? That’s what it would feel like. You need a real Jew at the head of the table. I suppose if anyone could pull that off, though, it would be our multi-racial, multi-cultural president.

One detail from that story sticks with me:

Then came what is now remembered as the Macaroon Security Standoff. At 6:30, with the Seder about to start, Neil Cohen, the husband of Michelle Obama’s friend and adviser Susan Sher, was stuck at the gate bearing flourless cookies he had brought from Chicago. They were kosher for Passover, but not kosher with the Secret Service, which does not allow food into the building.

Offering to help, the president walked to the North Portico and peered out the door, startling tourists. He volunteered to go all the way to the gates, but advisers stopped him, fearing that would cause a ruckus. Everyone seemed momentarily befuddled. Could the commander in chief not summon a plate of cookies to his table? Finally, Mr. Love ran outside to clear them.

Mr. Love is Reggie Love, whom the NYT calls Obama’s “personal aide.” The job is informally known as “body man.” A politician’s body man — Hillary Clinton has a body woman — is a combination doppelganger, stand-in and walking purse. The body man carries your cell phone and hand sanitizer, gently takes your elbow when you need to be freed from a too-clingy supporter and opens the door for you. The body man frees a big part of your brain for other things.

Remember when George W. Bush, in China, spoiled his exit by trying to open a door that was locked? He should have paid attention to his body man, who was standing by the correct exit.

It goes without saying that the body man has the best seat in the house for watching presidential history in the making, but it takes the right kind of person. If you think you’re too good to fetch a plate of macaroons, it’s not the job for you. On the other hand, note Love’s position in this photo and ask yourself: Would I be willing to carry the Kleenex for this sort of fringe benefit? I would.

It’s a relatively new position in American politics, and I don’t think any have written their memoirs yet. I expect the best ones never will.

Love will be at this year’s seder. Just in case anyone tries to bring unapproved cookies.

So, as long as we’re a little light and gossipy today, someone tell me, maybe someone who follows the gossip columns a little more closely than I do: Is Jennifer Lopez still a diva?* Still buying Creme de la Mer for her ass, still insisting that she be surrounded by her special grapefruit-scented candles at all times? Does she still keep her eyebrow shaper on retainer? Travel with a beauty entourage?

I have to wonder. Not that Lopez is some sort of hagatha at 40, but at some point you have to get over yourself, and if you keep making movies like “The Back-up Plan,” it’s going to come sooner rather than later. Just the trailer — the funniest, most marketable moments of the movie — makes you want to stick your head in the oven. The woman’s capable of doing good work. She did it once (“Selena”) and did it again (“Out of Sight”) so I guess she has it in her. But lord spare us from more rom-coms where the audience is supposed to identify with her in her million-dollar shoes.

Tina Fey — now there’s an everywoman. If she weren’t so busy making television, she could turn out three of these a year and still keep it fresh. I have to watch “30 Rock” on demand, so I can re-run it and catch all the funny lines that slipped past when I was laughing at the last one. This week’s contender was Jack Donaghy’s: “(Irish Catholics) mate for life. Like swans. Like drunken, angry swans.”

“Date Night” — now there’s a romantic comedy. That one I’ll see. Eventually. Maybe I should write one. What do you think of “Body Man” as a title?

Any good bloggage? No. It’s all depressing. Suicide bombers in Moscow, lunatics in the Michigan woods — it’s just not a good day.

So try to have a good one, and I will as well.

* I know I had some comments a few days back about overuse of this word, but I think J-Lo qualifies.

Hey, pals. I spent the morning writing a column for GrossePointeToday.com, which some of you might enjoy. Here’s the top:

For many years, center-left people like me knew who the bad guys were — the religious right. We learned to recognize their code words, their iterations and mash-ups of “family,” “values,” “faith” and “life.” (They, in turn, knew ours — “diversity,” “tolerance,” “embrace” and the all-important “people of” usage.) I suppose, in the back of my mind, I knew the pendulum would swing away from them someday, but as long as they could get respect from the people who spent my tax money, the watchword was vigilance.

What I didn’t expect was the emotion I felt watching the strange, bumbling comedy at the War Memorial Thursday night (March 25), where a little-known Grosse Pointe Farms group called Point of Relevance sponsored a presentation by one Linda Harvey, a Columbus, Ohio woman whose group, Mission: America, seeks — quoting from their website here — “to equip Christians with current, accurate information about cultural issues such as feminism, homosexuality, education and New Age influences.” Harvey came expecting to speak to the like-minded Point of Relevance. But they were outnumbered by a crowd of my people, scrambled via social networks and e-mail, holding signs and itching for a confrontation.

As a journalist, I’ve seen many such divided crowds, taunting one another. But I’ve never looked at the other side and felt this: Pity.

You can read the rest here. I’m not much for the cross-posting thing — most of you live elsewhere, I know — but I can’t be two people, people!

Besides, I have some good bloggage today:

Hank found a photo from the White House’s Flickr stream, and got a pretty good blog post out of it. It’s of special interest to those of you who write, for the living or for the love. If you follow his link back to the original on Flickr, you can blow the photo up huge and examine it in detail. It’s worth it.

But don’t stay there — on the White House’s photostream — too long. You can get lost in there.

This letter, “from a doctor who will not comply,” is racing around the internets. I’m calling b.s. on it. From the too-generic name (Linda Johnston, MD) to the suspicious lack of any identifying details (city or even state of practice), to the casual use of questionable statistics (Obamacare creates 150 new government agencies), to the oddly literate, flowing prose, the letter is pegging my meter. The time-stamp on my Facebook call on this was about 8:30 a.m. I’ll apologize if I’m wrong, but if I’m right, I want credit.

And while we’re on the subject of doctors, real ones, I know the one in this NYT story today. Mike Mirro is a cardiologist in Fort Wayne, one of the very very best, and this story is important. Read.

With that, I’m out. Have a great weekend.

I don’t know how worried to be about the threats against Congress members who voted for health-care reform over the weekend. I’ve always believed that those who make threats do so out of cowardice, that they cannot keep their mouths shut because it’s operating as a safety valve. On the other hand, conventional wisdom says people leave warnings when they’re planning violent acts, warnings that are almost always ignored because of (see above).

I told someone yesterday I expect to see a government building explode before the end of the year. I wonder what the Fox News counter-narrative on that will be.

It would be irresponsible to speculate. So let’s not. Let’s look, instead, at the state of publishing today. Exhibit A: Jennifer Love Hewitt, author.

Stipulated: It is a fool’s errand to spend even a minute of your finite number on earth asking yourself, “Why was this published, and not that?” And yet, it can hardly be avoided, can it? At least Sarah Palin sold a lot of books. (Although, ahem, I’ve seen a copy of “Going Rogue” sitting on the new-releases shelf at my public library — one patronized by many, many Republicans — for days and days on end. Common sense tells me a book that drew rock-star crowds just a few months ago should not be sitting there, unloved and un-checked out, for that long. I’m starting to wonder how many books she-who sold, after all.)

But honest: Jennifer Love Hewitt? Jennifer. Love. Hewitt. The book is called “The Day I Shot Cupid: Hello, My Name Is Jennifer Love Hewitt, And I’m A Love-aholic.” That’s under her name, so, as the NPR blogger whose work is linked above notes, this means her name is on the cover twice, with a little subliminal zinger thrown in there with “Love.” The major revelation of this book, I’m told, is that it is in these pages that JLH admits to gluing Swarovski crystals on her “precious lady” as, I dunno, kind of a day-brightener, I guess. She refers to this region as her “va-jay-jay,” and now would be the time, LA Mary, to subject her to some serious medical-level questioning:

Are you saying you glued crystals on your vulva, then? No? Well, what do you mean by va-jay-jay, then? On your pubis? Yes? Excuse me, please, I need to make a call. Be right back. …[I need security at intake, please. Security at intake. With restraints.]…Yes, OK, you were saying?

JLH’s book has a pink cover. She wore a pink dress while promoting it. That’s pretty much all you need to know about Jennifer Love Hewitt, author. Also, this:

“This is embarrassing and personal, but once a month, since I was twelve years old, I go to my favorite jewelry store and try on my dream ring.” She is 31 years old. If this is true, she has made roughly 225 trips to the jewelry store to try on engagement rings. I do not know where to go with this.

I’m going to go back to worrying about crazy teabaggers. It’s less upsetting.

Bloggage:

A suburban high school here is wrangling over its ban on so-called freak dancing at the prom, and the DetNews does a story. My quibble is with the graphic, which implies the lambada was once a “controversial” dance. My contention is that no one ever did the lambada at all, that the entire dance was invented for one zero-star movie, and I think the graphic supports me on this — the lambada couple looks like it’s doing the hustle, or whatever you call it. Meanwhile, where’s the freaking? Sheesh. (Kids at the middle-school dances I chaperone were asked to sign an agreement that there would be no freaking all year. Thank God we have held the line!)

Meanwhile, medical marijuana was approved by Michigan voters more than a year ago, and still no one knows what the law is.

And I’m lame and done.

Eighties nostalgia is all the rage these days. I told Alan the other night that “Hot Tub Time Machine” was probably sold on the basis of the title alone, but now that I know it’s about the ’80s, maybe not. Everyone wants to wear their hair in those cantilevered bang-poufs again, don’t they? Skinny ties, anyone?

For something a little different, I suggest you watch “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals” on HBO instead. I caught a few minutes the other day, and was interested enough to watch the whole thing on demand a few days later. (For someone who pays zero attention to sports, that’s something.) You want ’80s hair, ’80s glasses, ’80s TV graphics? You got ‘em. In the bargain, you get some ’80s Midwest, especially Indiana. You can wallow in it.

The title is the story — a look at the love/hate relationship between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird that stretched from college rivalries to NBA head-knocking, and like all great head-to-head matchups, transcends it all and ends up being about Something More. That part, the something-more part, feels a little tacked on, if only because you get the idea the main players didn’t give a crap about race relations, ginned-up-for-TV conflicts and clips from Spike Lee films, but just when you feel the rivets popping, the narrative skips back to clips of behind-the-back passes and arcing jump shots, and who can’t get with that?

My attention was taken more by Bird, who was at the apex of his career when I arrived in Indiana, a source of great state pride, the embodiment of all of Indiana’s beliefs about itself — not handsome, but approachable; not flashy, but hard-working; not a showboat, but a team player; not Showtime, but Grindstone. And so on. I was probably the last person in America to learn that Larry Bird mowed his own lawn in Boston, frequently with an audience of fans watching from the curb. How quintessentially Indiana, the poor boy’s reluctance to pay good money for something he can do himself in less than an hour. What else was he going to do? Read a book?

Johnson, on the other hand, was a Michigan kid, one who learned his work ethic from his father, who worked at General Motors, back when that was the dream of every blue-collar man in Michigan. Magic was another homebody who stayed close to home for college, and ended up on the other coast, goggle-eyed that in Los Angeles, you could have your own orange tree.

You could have a lot of things in L.A., it turned out, including six women in your bed at once, and we all know how that turned out for him. Bird hurt his back building his mother’s driveway back in French Lick — why pay good money for something you can do yourself? — and that was his turning point. All sports careers have to end sometime, and you could hardly pick two more fitting endings for those players.

But this was my favorite part: When the two were persuaded to shoot a sneaker commercial together, and did it in French Lick, at Bird’s mother’s house, where Larry had built a full-size basketball court to practice on when he was back home again in Indiana. The script made much of how testy their relations were, but when the crew broke for lunch, Bird invited Magic up to the house, where his mother had made lunch for them. Beautiful. There was no mention of the menu, but I bet they had fried chicken and baked beans. Just a hunch.

And now it is spring. Bright sun, etc. I didn’t think I’d live to see it. But here it is, and here’s the bloggage:

One of our GrossePointeToday.com contributors caught a lovely pheasant photo this week. Look at those colors. Pretty, pretty bird.

Wow. This is remarkable. Russell King’s open letter to conservatives. I’m probably the last person to recommend this, but there you are.

Best Twitter joke in a while: #SarahPalinonDiscovery

Off to get my oil changed.

If it’s Tuesday morning, it must be time for trash-picking. Starting in the wee hours, a person who — to use a hypothetical — absorbs her morning coffee and warms up for her day by writing on her stupid new-media weblog while looking out the front window, could expect to see a series of trash-pickers examining the neighborhood’s garbage for items of value. They arrive in beat-up vans and Sanford & Son pickups, occasionally on a bicycle, and they seem to be in the market for just about anything. Old baby toys, furniture that hasn’t been rained on too much, metal — this is the currency of the new economy.

Every few days someone discovers that Onion video on how the death of print journalism will affect old loons who hoard newspapers, but I think I have the answer: Old loons will hoard broken Little Tikes plastic toys. They will gather them from my street.

In general, I’m not one of those people who frets over the steadily filling landfills and the sustainability of our plastics obsession, but two things make me nuts — bottled water and Little Tikes toddler-size picnic tables at the curb. Get a Brita pitcher and put the kiddie goods in your garage sale. They have the half-life of plutonium, and trash-pickers can’t get them all, people.

And if you’re looking for a fresh Onion video to send around, I suggest this one: Stouffer’s to include suicide prevention tips on single-serve microwavable meals.

Last night’s big story on the drug-news beat was this AP piece about Michael Jackson’s doctor, and his curious behavior during and after the singer’s death last year. He allegedly stopped CPR on the cooling corpse so he could start collecting all the drug vials lying around the room, a spectacular, cinematic image, in my opinion. If I were staging it, I’d set up one of those arm-sweeps-across-the-table-into-a-trash-bag shots. He is also said to have done this under the eyes of two of Jackson’s children, who cried until a nanny was summoned to hustle them away. (That’s the fate of wealthy children everywhere, isn’t it? Someone is always shooing them out of the room, another stock shot from the movie playbook.) I wonder what they thought all those times when they wandered in to see their father laid out like a corpse, catching up on his beauty sleep with the help of IV anesthetic. Poor little Paris at the funeral, sobbing, “Ever since I was born, my daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine and I just want to say I love him so much.” Here’s the thing, though: All daddies are the best daddy you could ever imagine to their 11-year-olds. It’s when the kids grow up a little more and realize there are daddies who don’t need medicine to get a little shuteye that the problems start. In that sense, MJ had excellent timing.

But that was nothing, the story continues:

The documents also detail an odd encounter with Murray after Jackson was declared dead at a nearby hospital. Murray insisted he needed to return to the mansion to get cream that Jackson had “so the world wouldn’t find out about it,” according to the statements, which provide no elaboration.

The cream? Hmm. The story goes on to describe the death drug, propofol, as “a milky white liquid,” and — did I just write “death drug?” What is it about some stories that just bring out the tabloid reporter in us all, completely unbidden? — but provides no further explanation of what the shameful cream might be. Fortunately, Gawker is on the case with uninformed speculation, i.e., the best kind.

(Another trash-picker just blew through. Sanford & Son pickup this time, miscellaneous metal in the back. Someday the entirety of Detroit will consist of recycled metal elsewhere.)

I took the time this morning to read this local reaction to the health-care bill this morning. First quote of the piece:

“We all have been passive for a very long time and haven’t taken part in government and now it’s time. I don’t like the health care bill. I don’t like government intrusion. And I don’t like my loss of freedom.”

Follow-up question: Do you drive a car? Does the government requirement that you carry auto insurance restrict your freedom? No? Thanks very much. Next!

The Thomas More Law Center — a national public interest law firm in Ann Arbor — also plans to file a federal lawsuit challenging the bill, said Richard Thompson, the firm’s president.

Note the liberal-media bias in describing that outfit, which describes itself as “Christianity’s answer to the ACLU.” As they’re known more for their high-profile losses — the Dover, Pa., intelligent-design case, Terry Schiavo — than their wins, I wish them their customary luck.

OK, then. The clock in the steeple draws close to 10, and soon the trash men — the real ones — will be here. Time to put ours out.

Big night on the health-care beat last night. I started working last night just after Baby Killer Bart had struck his deal, and it became Done. I kept CSPAN on as long as I could stand it, but that wasn’t long. Does listening to the House of Representatives, or Congress in general, ever lead you to a certain stirring pride in being an American? Yeah, me neither. I can’t listen for long without getting depressed, so I turned it off. Once the deal is done, it’s all over but the whining. It was interesting to see that Mary Bono is still in Congress. Excuse me, Mary Bono Mack. Let’s check the wiki-bio, shall we?

Bono married Wyoming businessman Glenn Baxley in 2001 about 18 months after the two met in Mexico. They filed for divorce in 2005. On December 15, 2007, Mary married Congressman Connie Mack IV from Florida in Asheville, North Carolina. …Known for her dedication to physical fitness. …Her district includes the highest percentage of gays and lesbians of any district represented by a Republican. …Bono Mack followed the Republican Party line 89% of the time according to Congressional Quarterly. In 2004 she earned an 84% approval rating from the Christian Coalition, but this fell to 33% in 2008. In 1999, she voted in favor of the Largent amendment, to ban adoption by same-sex couples in Washington, DC. Bono has, however, voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment twice. …Bono Mack was a leading proponent of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the so-called “Mickey Mouse Law”, which extended the terms of copyright. Giving a speech on the floor of Congress in favor of the bill, Bono said: “Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution.”

In other words, she went to Washington, liked what she saw, settled in — married a local — and now would probably say she “votes her conscience,” or whatever. I hope you’re happy, Palm Springs. She’ll likely be there until they carry her out feet-first.

I’m trying to imagine how we might pay royalties to the heirs of John Philip Sousa every time the band strikes up “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

I can’t decide whether this blog by David Frum is brave or just the reaction of a a hard-working White House butler at the Andrew Jackson inauguration party, i.e., who let all this riffraff in?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

Whatever it is, it’s fun to read. I’ve frequently said, over the years, that the Republicans of my adulthood bore little resemblance to the ones of my childhood, i.e., the nice country-club members who wanted their taxes cut, but would have fainted from mortification had anyone asked about their relationship with Jesus. I don’t know how many of their ilk are looking around today and asking who invited these thugs into their party. I hope at least a few.

Anyway, it’s over now. The Democrats will lose seats in November; the party in power usually does. But if Frum is right — if the steadily improving economy will take some wind out of the Tea Party’s sails by fall — then there will be a reckoning. Eventually.

Side link on Frum’s site: A video extra on how Rahm Emanuel lost his middle finger, from his “60 Minutes” interview. I had no idea the accident was that serious, having only heard the Obama-at-the-roast version, in which the loss of Emanuel’s all-important second digit “tragically rendered him nearly mute.”

One last point before I move on to the fluffier bloggage: Like most moderate Americans, I was frustrated by the line Stupak et al drew over so-called abortion funding; I keep seeing the figure 80 percent of private plans offer abortion coverage — is this true? If so, are all the pro-lifers in the country who were willing to smash this bill to smithereens over a few percentages of a penny of federal money that might go to someone’s abortion, are they willing to repudiate their employer-paid private insurance coverage and either go bareback or buy from a different company out of pocket? I bet …not. Just a thought.

And from the Department of Revisionist History, Newt Gingrich predicts doom, doom for the Dems:

But former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama and the Democrats will regret their decision to push for comprehensive reform. Calling the bill “the most radical social experiment . . . in modern times,” Gingrich said: “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

The GOP: Happy to Profit From Others’ Doing of the Right Thing for 50 Years.

OK, then.

I’ve doubted Patti Smith’s status as a working-class hero ever since I learned she sent her son not to the public schools of St. Clair Shores, Michigan, but the Grosse Pointe Academy. This weekend brought more proof, via the NYT:

Necks craned for a glimpse of Patti Smith as she settled at her customary corner table at Da Silvano in Greenwich Village, a favorite afternoon haunt, earlier this month. The wonder was that the patrons, silver haired and sleekly buffed, could pick her out at all. Ms. Smith was understated, even self-effacing in her mannish jacket, boater shirt and beat-up jeans. …So it was surprising to learn that her roomy gray jacket, with cuffs that unfasten at the wrist, was designed by Ann Demeulemeester, a high priestess of Parisian vanguard chic. Her jeans were Ralph Lauren, prized by Ms. Smith for their racy lines. Her boots, a gift from Johnny Depp, who wore them as the Mad Hatter in “Alice in Wonderland,” were the perfect fit, Ms. Smith exulted, “like when the magic cobbler made your shoes.”

I guess Johnny Depp doesn’t give boots from Payless. And Demeulemeester is “a longtime friend and collaborator,” so I doubt she pays retail. And I suppose the lady can afford it. Still.

Manic Monday awaits. And we’re off!

I’m told my alma mater pulled off the first big upset of the NCAA tournament. Ohio University humiliated the Hoyas of Georgetown — and boy, I can still do that headline alliteration, ain’a? — 97-83. For the record, this pleases me. For reals, (shrug). I cannot care about this stuff. I didn’t care about sports when I was a student there, so I can hardly start now. But knowing that huge upsets are part of the DNA of this tournament, I guess I approve.

I have to say, it’s a little unsettling to think anyone cares about sports in Athens these days. A while after I graduated, the school added a program in sports management, and even that seemed strange. After growing up in Columbus, enrolling at a school where college football didn’t have the specific gravity of the Normandy invasion was like a dip in a cool lake on a hot day. I went to my share of football games, but I went Bobcat-style — after a few bloody Marys, leaving right after halftime. We came to see the band, the Marching 110, then went uptown for more drinking. I went to one basketball game. One of our party smuggled in a large bullhorn. We sat high in the Convocation Center and made prank announcements on the bullhorn, carried throughout the crowd by the dome’s freakish acoustics. “Number 32, your pits smell,” went one. Number 32, lined up for the foul shot, dropped his arms abruptly. Number 32, I apologize.

The Mid-American Conference in general is sort of a mess, I gather. I read a story awhile back calling it “the little conference that can’t,” pointing out that no MAC team has, well, let’s let the lede sum it up:

The last time any team from the Mid-American Conference won an NCAA championship, the year was 1965. The president was Lyndon B. Johnson. The team was Western Michigan. The sport: men’s cross country.

So you see the sort of culture that prevails in Athens. Which makes OU’s win over Georgetown even more surprising. Now they have the Big Mo, however, so: Go Bobcats. I’ll drink a bloody Mary in your honor this weekend. Supportin’ the team, Athens-style.

If nothing else, OU hosed the brackets.

I want this week OVER. So, bloggage? Here’s a little:

She-who sported a new hairstyle this week on Fox. She looks like she’s edging into Mormon-wife territory, a cross between submit-unto-your-husbands and ’60s-era Loretta Lynn. I mention this because it’s the most interesting thing she’s done in a while. Not that i wish to be trivial.

I always avoid celebrity editions of “Jeopardy!” It’s like asking to have your dreams dashed.

“Breaking Bad” starts its third season this weekend. What fresh hell awaits Walter White? I can hardly wait to find out.

More fleshed-out posting resumes next week. I hope.