It’s safe to say that Maureen Tkacik is exploring a new form of hate journalism with this piece on Steve Jobs. It begins like this:

Steve Jobs smelled so foul that none of his co-workers at Atari in the seventies would work with him. Entreating him to shower was usually futile; he’d inevitably claim that his strict vegan diet had rid him of body odor, thus absolving him of the need for standard hygiene habits.

It continues like this:

In 1982, he was so repulsed by the “messy and inelegant” sight of so much “work being done by hand” in a Tokyo Sony factory that he refused to order their disk drives. His underlings circumvented this particular decree by hiring a Sony engineer whom they banished to the closet whenever Jobs visited.

And it ends like this:

But like all the other internal contradictions that seem to endlessly fascinate the punditry elite about Steve Jobs, this apparent conflict between Jobs’ profound affinity for technology and his bizarre unwillingness to allow it to save his life is another pointless straw man that only serves to further elide the very Jobsian simplicity that lies beneath:

There once lived one of those really obstinate assholes who will constantly tell you he couldn’t change his assholic ways if it killed him. It killed him.

And you know what? I read every word. It ran in the blog section of Reuters’ site, so I guess it didn’t have to be “balanced” or anything. It most assuredly isn’t. But most of the hagiography we’ve been reading since October isn’t very balanced, either. So here’s some balance, a piece that throbs with life, if a bile-infused form of it.

She says some mean things about Phil Knight, too. Now that I can get behind.

It does raise the question, though: Why are we so intent that people who do one thing well have to be “good,” too? Miles Davis played trumpet like a dark angel when he wasn’t bouncing Cicely Tyson off the walls. We all know how Bill Clinton blew off steam. One of the things I admire about Apple is how it doesn’t sit around waiting for a focus group to tell it what comes next. No, you don’t need a floppy drive, it told us, and gave us a floppy-less iMac. Now it’s saying you don’t need a CD drive, either, and voila, MacBook Air.

Jobs was an asshole, for sure. (Or maybe he just had “assholic ways,” a phrase I’ll be stealing, I think.) But he moved the game forward in a significant way. We don’t have to like him, but we should give him that.

Another day, more Truth Squad-ery. The Club for Growth is really pounding that “he voted for the bridge to nowhere” thing in ads these days. I understand the boys mixed it up on the very same in the CNN debate. I’m going to write a blog about this for 42 North, I think, but let me just break the sound barrier here first: I agree with Rick Santorum on this. The bill that contained the BtoN was SAFETEA-LU, a giant highway appropriations omnibus, loaded to the roof with cash, trundling around the country leaving piles of it for local projects. OK, the BtoN wasn’t the wisest way to spend $368 million, but it was never built and besides, who should decide where Alaska should spend its federal highway money? Washington, or Juneau? Rick Santorum, on this we can agree. This one thing. Maybe there is a god.

Any bloggage? How about this: I love it when I read a headline that tells me, you need not waste another second of your time reading more. In this case: Will a dash of bitters do anything at all? Thanks, copy editors.

In Fort Wayne, an antidote to Cookie Bob: Man saves 11-year-old from double dog attack, using a discarded bottle. What a mensch. And a nice job by my former colleague Ellie Bogue, who got the story, got the pix and even included one of the dead dogs.

But here’s a live one. Because not all pit bulls are bad. From the Dogs Against Romney pack, who bring the energy of a thousand terriers to their work:

I ride inside, too. Snowstorm tomorrow night. Finally!

Today, because I have no time, two videos of politicians. First, Rep. Bob Morris doubles down on the lesbo-aborto witch cabal selling you Thin Mints.

Second, the president trades a few lines with B.B. King last night at the White House.

OK, so those aren’t exactly equivalent. So one more oldie but goodie: John Ashcroft belting his hit, “Let the Eagle Soar.”

And Mitt Romney, doing “America the Beautiful” a capella.

I’m really sorry for those of you who don’t have video-watching capabilities at work today. But I cannot be everywhere today.

P.S. Politicians should sing more often.

I think Caliban was asking the other day what an orthodox Catholic was. Here’s a perfect example, methinks, an Indiana legislator who is covering my former hometown with glory:

INDIANAPOLIS – A Fort Wayne lawmaker has refused to sign on to a resolution celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts, calling the group a “radicalized organization” that supports abortion and promotes the “homosexual lifestyle.”

Rep. Bob Morris, R-Fort Wayne, sent a letter to his fellow House Republicans on Saturday explaining why he would be the only member in the House not to endorse the nonbinding resolution.

He said he did some web-based research and found allegations that the Girl Scouts are a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood, allows transgender females to join and encourages sex.

Follow the link to his Indiana House site, and learn that Morris has been married 12 years and has six children. That sounds about right — one every two years, spaced via extended breastfeeding and natural family planning, which leaves Dad lots of time to scan the internets, where this entire story appears to teeter on a single source, i.e. a Washington Times column. Which is of course of indisputable integrity.

I can’t stand it. I hope the blowback — and let me tell you, there will be blowback, especially at cookie time, and the Limberlost Council is an active, high-quality group — singes this idiot’s eyebrows off. I hope there is not even a hint of apology from anything or anyone associated with the Girl Scouts. Because if this nonsense isn’t nipped in the bud, you just ask for more of it.

Related: A fairly smart piece on the sexual counter-revolution, which lots of people aren’t even aware exists.

Eh, this nutter leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Let’s move on to Downton Abbey. What did I think of the finale? Eh. This is what I think. The gap between the first and second season was as yawning, in the end, as the one between the first episode of “The Killing” and the last. I keep trying to find that light place where I can let the bad part slide away and the good part stick, but I think my patience is paper thin. By the final moments, I didn’t give a fat rat’s gluteus if Matthew and Mary would get together, because if they didn’t, some other guy with bandages wrapped around his face would lurch onstage and set off another crisis that would be cleared up in 20 minutes or so.

“Mad Men” it is not. But then, neither is “Mad Men.”

At least I can bid the drawing room farewell for another year or so. “Eastbound and Down” is my new Sunday-night destination.

Which is another post. I’m interested in how far you can push the boundaries of frat-boy grossness. If it’s just right, it’s funny. But just wrong is so, so close.

So, do we have any more bloggage today?

A ghastly shooting in Detroit over the weekend.

The president’s “radical Islamic policies.” Yup.

With that, let’s take a bite out of Tuesday, eh?

Man, I need to get out more. Friday night, a friend is having her 50th birthday party, which came about in a fairly roundabout way. She and some of her pals were at a charity auction a few days back, and someone bought a cake. This one:

What girl doesn’t want a Barbie cake, especially a glamorous bridal Barbie in a dress made of snow-white fondant? Once she’d been secured, the party was scheduled for a fortnight hence, and Barb spent the interval wrapped in plastic on the birthday girl’s unheated sun porch. The plan was to go to one bar and then to another bar, where they have a dance floor and a DJ and all the rest of it. I skipped bar no. 1, and arrived so early at no. 2 that the bartender and I looked at one another across an empty room. Oh well, I thought — this is why casinos were invented. I was in Greektown, and figured an hour of low-stakes blackjack might pass the time. So I walked a block, and, well.

When Michigan passed a law banning smoking in restaurants and bars statewide, they exempted casinos for the usual bad reasons (lobbyists). It must have convinced a lot of unapologetic smokers to take up slots, because of the hundreds of people crammed into two floors of gambling, at least three-quarters were puffing away. I understand that over time, I’ve lost my tolerance for smoke, but this was ridiculous. And that was only the beginning. The lowest minimum bet on all blackjack tables was $15, ditto on poker. There were a couple of craps tables that looked interesting, but I’ve never understood the game, and the table is so bizarre — COME and DON’T COME sounds like stage direction in a dirty movie, as does “hard eight.” I ended up doing a few slow circuits of the room, leaving and getting a little snack before heading back to the bar, where Barbie was glowing under dim light on a table in back.

From there, it was the usual night with buddies, with a few observations:

1) Anyone who drinks any alcoholic beverage mixed with Red Bull is insane.
2) Those jobs on Craigslist offering to hire young people for “fun PR jobs” are really for the miniskirted blondes who pass through the place in their branded clothing, passing out free samples of their branded cocktails, leaving T-shirts in their wake, but not before asking everyone to pose for glass-in-air pictures. Which is fine if you always wanted to be a cocktail waitress, but not get any tips.
3) Marketing alcohol to young people is a big business. When I went in, the street was deserted but for a few strollers. When I came out, a branded RV from some sort of booze concern was parked across the street, and the block was thronged. I wondered if I’d trade all the physical degradation of middle age — back pain, knee pain, avoirdupois, gray hair and the rest of it — for a second chance at youth, and this would be what I’d do on weekend nights. Decided: Nope.

Drink responsibly!

Barbie finally gave it up yesterday. Once the fondant was peeled off, she sported three layers of vanilla-and-chocolate goodness, plus buttercream. My mother made me a doll cake when I was little. Whatever else they are, they are memorable.

What was your best birthday cake?

Bloggage? Sure:

Newt Gingrich is practically dead, but we’ve said that before. The WashPost digs deeper in his background and finds all that Reagan butt-kissing isn’t exactly a consistent position for him:

In an unnoticed 1992 speech, Newt Gingrich in a single utterance took aim not only at a beloved conservative icon but also at a core tenet of the conservative movement: that government must be limited.

Ronald Reagan’s “weakness,” Gingrich told the National Academy of Public Administration in Atlanta, was that “he didn’t think government mattered. . . . The Reagan failure was to grossly undervalue the centrality of government as the organizing mechanism for reinforcing societal behavior.”

A review of thousands of documents detailing Gingrich’s career shows it wasn’t the first time he had criticized Reagan, whom he regularly invokes today in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. When Gingrich was in the House, his chief of staff noted at a 1983 staff meeting that his boss frequently derided Reagan, along with then-White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III and Robert H. Michel, the House Republican leader.

Mittens might pull it out in Michigan after all. I’ve learned not to bet on this race, but I’d guess the outcome will depend on whether Sweater Vest actually pledges allegiance to the Pope before it’s over.

Flag-burning we can all get behind:

Wyoming, Mich. — A Michigan man whose son was killed while on patrol in Iraq in 2005 burned the New Jersey flag on his outdoor grill in protest after learning flags in that state were ordered flown at half-staff for the death of Whitney Houston.

Via Hank, why the Oscars are so lame: Oscar voters are overwhelmingly white (94%), male (77%) and old (86% older than 50). Now you know.

Monday! Come and get me!

So, one week after the death of Jeff Zaslow comes this: Anthony Shadid, dead in Syria of…an asthma attack? How ghastly. Suffocated by your own body. I interviewed a woman with severe asthma a few years back. She said, “Imagine you’re breathing through a drinking straw.” I didn’t want to. Still don’t. Shudder.

Sorry for today’s late posting. I’m doing some cramming at the other job, and haven’t been moved to write about much other than what I’m writing about there. However, comments are growing burdensome on the last post, so here’s a new one.

First, something I’m sure you are all intensely worried about: With new New York City health codes explicitly prohibiting dogs in restaurants, what will happen to the traditional day-after steak dinner at Sardi’s for the winner of the Westminster Dog Show? Not to worry: A loophole has been found. Bonus: Pix of previous winners tucking in, including this year’s dustmop.

You all know this, but Dahlia Lithwick says it so well: The vaginal-ultrasound probe law in Virginia is an abomination. Where is the outrage? she asks. Well, here, for one place.

Santorum tells an audience packed with automotive executives that they’d be better off bankrupt. They responded “politely and modestly,” which is to be expected — the Detroit Economic Club isn’t exactly a pelt-’em-with-Parkerhouse-rolls type of crowd. Best damning with faint praise quote:

Afterward, small-business owner, Charley Mancuse, 32, CEO of the Detroit-based mustard manufacturer Charley’s Foods, said Santorum “was more articulate than I expected.”

Well, at least they’re not saying it about the black guy!

OK, comment away. I’m back to the Truth Squad.

I made fun of Mitt Romney’s op-ed in the Detroit News the other day, but it had a more serious focus that’s getting serious blowback:

Former Obama administration auto czar Steve Rattner called Romney’s position on the $85 million bailout “clueless.”

“Romney’s op-ed piece once again demonstrated that he is either completely clueless or thoroughly disingenuous when it comes to the auto rescues,” Rattner said Tuesday. “The fact is that had the government not stepped in (under both President Bush and Obama), GM and Chrysler would have closed their doors and liquidated, bringing down the entire auto sector, with them. With suppliers also closed, Ford would have had to shut, at least for a time. More than a million jobs would have been lost. Michigan, and the entire industrial Midwest, would have been devastated.”

“Romney’s suggestion that private capital could have been found is utterly fantastical. The Auto Task Force spoke diligently to every conceivable provider of funds and at that moment, with the stock market in free fall and the economy shedding 700,000 jobs a month, no one — I repeat, no one — had the slightest interest in funding these companies on any terms. I challenge Romney to produce one single individual, investment fund or other source of money that can demonstrably disprove the conclusion of every member of the Auto Task Force and virtually every independent expert who was consulted.”

Well, hell yeah. How can memories be so short? It was only three years ago. Those were nail-biting days around here. Around everywhere. But especially here. The government arranged a shotgun marriage between Fiat and Chrysler. Private equity? Private equity was all on the phone with its bankers in Geneva, screaming about krugerrands and safe rooms.

Still, tomorrow Romney will win the endorsement of the governor. No hard feelings, I guess. Whether it’ll be enough to fend off the Santorumentum remains to be seen. Two weeks to the primary, and the ads are just starting. Here’s one of Romney’s. It’s kind of the opposite of the imported-from-Detroit spots — Detroit sucks, ain’t it a shame? Rope-a-dope!

And I think the Hoekstra ad was a rousing success, having spread his name far and wide, even as every passing day brings more umbrage. Mission accomplished.

I can already feel the teeth-grinding setting in. Oh, it’s 2008 all over again.

Can we lighten up? Sure.

The hair and shoes I’m not crazy about, but I really like this dress of Katy Perry’s. I’m such a sucker for a good color-blocking.

Sorry, can’t stay light. Vaginal-damn-wanding? Are you kidding me? I think Roy has the best one-liner on this.

I’m going to bed.

A great lunch with the Lansing colleagues today. One told us about the time he managed a nude beach near San Francisco. The social culture there seems right for nude sunbathing, the weather not so much. Nevertheless, on days when it was warm enough for seaside lolling, i.e. above 70 degrees, a few hardy souls would come out, strip off and catch their share of rays.

“What’s involved with managing a nude beach?” I wondered. A short list: Stringing up the banner warning away those who might not know what they were getting into, opening the sunblock concession, a few other minor chores, “and then I was on masturbation patrol.” Wow. I get that men like to look at naked women, for sure. It’s just that I’ve never seen a nudist encampment with even a small handful of people you’d actually want to see naked. Throw in the chilly Pacific breezes, the sand, the lack of cover, and you’d think a person would have enough sense to hang out at home with a magazine about nude volleyball tournaments.

Speaking of nudity, the New York Times had a feature today on Kate Upton, the social-media supermodel who was unknown a year ago, and this week debuts on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She owes her fame to YouTube and, duh, her naturally wonderful body. How wonderful? This video, called Kate Upton Slow Motion, should give you an idea. You know what I find amazing about material like this? The comments. There’s a strong faction that says she’s “fat.” OK, sure. Enjoy mom’s basement, kiddo.

How was your Valentine’s Day? I hope you got through it, one way or another. I rolled out of the driveway at 6:37 a.m. and back up it at 5:27 p.m. In between was work and driving. And too much NPR. I love NPR, I donate monthly, but there’s a moment every few weeks when the syrupy voices and preeniness gets on my last nerve. So I switched over to a commercial rock station, the sort of thing I used to listen to regularly. Someone was talking about doing furnace work for a stripper who let her puppy crap all over the house. Wasn’t the idea of getting a lap dance from a stripper who might have puppy poo on her shoes disgusting? he asked. And with that, I snapped the radio off and swore my next car is going to have XM, and I don’t care how much it costs. A few weeks ago I met a guy who said he worked for Clear Channel.

“Oh,” I said, and he and I spoke the words in unison: “The evil empire.”

Now I’m watching Westminster, nursing a single glass of wine, and don’t think I’ll make it to best in show. I called the Doberman as winner of the working group, so the evening was a success. I think it was a fluke, but she set up so nicely. Name was Fifi.

We have much good bloggage today, however.

I touted Animals Talking in All Caps a few days ago. I’ve been working my way through the whole blog, a page at a time, since. This might be my single favorite.

These goddamn Chinese. Can you believe this? Steal the design, steal the profile, and even steal the blue oval:

It looks like a Ford F-150, right down to the iconic blue oval.

But inside the emblem is not the classic Ford script. Instead it’s the three-letter-brand of a Chinese automaker that has borrowed many of the F-150’s details — the hood contours, rectangular grille and extended cab — to emulate the most popular vehicle in America. The JAC 4R3 is set to launch in April during the 2012 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition.

Tommy Tomlinson finds a writing lesson in “Ode to Billy Joe.”

Thank you all for hitting the Bridge links on the right rail; your generosity with your clicks has been noted. There’s some good stuff over there on prison reform, and a short blog piece by moi on a rather dunderheaded misstep in an op-ed “written” by Mitt Romney. It’s not my catch, but it’s a good one.

Finally, I’m growing a little weary of the Jeff Zaslow tributes, but I thought this one, by Neil Steinberg, was very very good.

My eyes feel rubbed raw. Time for bed.

Happy Valentine’s Day. And thanks to the Carolina Biological Supply Company, which in return for providing today’s image would like a linkback. Yeah, whatever. That’s the organ all the fuss is about, the twitchy little fist of muscle that keeps it all going. Bisected. Kind of gross-looking, isn’t it?

But let’s move on from this Hallmark holiday — yes, yes, I love you all. Very much. THIS much. Mwah. This, on the other hand, is amazing: Sweater Vest is beating Mittens in his home state. What’s more, Santorum is “surging,” the polls say. Santorumentum! (As Roy would say.) How did this happen? How does Romney find the strength to get out of bed day after day and face an electorate that, frankly, dislikes him so much it would vote for Rick Santorum as an alternative? I’ll say this for the last two presidential election cycles. They’ve been excruciating, but they haven’t been dull.

Meanwhile, I hope your VD is going well. I think this date hits some people harder than others. Alan and I are both working hard enough that we’ve agreed to put off any celebrating to the weekend. I think a chocolate pie will be involved, and yeah, probably some wine because what else is there to do in February? (Did you know that more babies are born in November than any other month? Because what else is there to do in February?)

I don’t have any more links. I’ve been up to my eyebrows in research and student papers all day. And all I want to do is imagine Mitt Romney, candy and flowers in hand, being kicked to the curb by Michigan. So chime in with your own. Please.

Two noteworthy deaths over the weekend, which lately I’ve been trying not to take personally. Every light extinguished before the threescore-and-ten mark is a reminder to be aware of how close eternity is, how suddenly it can be your time. Although, if longevity is your aim, it helps not to be a crack addict, too. Right, Whitney?

Right.

First was Jeff Zaslow, the Chicago/Detroit journalist and best-selling author. He plowed the same ground as Mitch Albom — inspirational, uplifting nonfiction — and managed to make you want to smile rather than roll your eyes, no small trick for a veteran eye-roller like me. I confess I didn’t read any of his books, but only because inspirational, uplifting nonfiction isn’t my thing between hard covers. But I was a fan of his columns and longer features in the Wall Street Journal, the former of which were loosely organized around themes of personal growth and change, the latter just good stories. Poynter has organized a links page with some of his best work. My favorite — an account of the Miss Cass Pageant here in Detroit — is there, but the link only takes you to the teaser page. Grr. There’s plenty more to read, however.

Many people in Detroit knew him well, but I barely knew him at all, having toiled alongside him in the press corps at the 1983 Miss America pageant. Zaslow was working in Orlando at the time, and Miss Florida that year was a real spitfire, the wealthy daughter of an orange grower who came into the pageant just weeks after being arrested for drunken driving. He was following her. I was following Miss Ohio, who wasn’t a spitfire, just a pretty girl with an operatic singing act that didn’t get her into the top 10. Miss A was still proudly clutching its modest pearls at the time, and getting 10 minutes with a random Miss was only slightly less difficult than scoring a nothing-off-limits, full-access week of immersion with Callista Gingrich. So we reporters spent a lot of time hanging around together, throwing stories back and forth. Zaslow had a lot of them. Miss Missouri, the youngest contestant at just 18, had fingernails so long her mother had to help her get her pantyhose on. Miss Florida’s talent, Jeff told us, was “an erotic dance,” which made us all laugh, but then her night of the prelims came and, well: Her 90-second routine featured a move where she put her hands on her butt, rolled a distinctly oh-mama move, threw her hair over her shoulder and gave the audience a look that suggested she was a Miss in the technical sense of the word only. I think we went to the boardwalk parade together, the early-week news event, featuring 50 classic convertibles, 50 Misses perched on the back deck, and thousands of howling Atlantic City gamblers bellowing, SHOW US YOUR SHOES. I think Miss Florida slipped hers off and waved it for the crowd. I don’t think Miss Ohio did.

Zaslow was a bundle of energy, curiosity and fun, the ideal mix for a reporter. Everybody loved him. His week was going great, mine less so — around about Wednesday, I learned that my stories were being cut by 30 percent and wedged inside the B section. “Too much Nancy Nall and not enough Miss America,” one copy editor reportedly sniffed in a meeting, and if she’s reading this, she is still invited to kiss my ass. I was sitting in the press room, sending my copy via Teleram or something, and I wondered aloud why I was bothering. Zaslow asked why. I told him. He became indignant on my behalf. “They should be putting this on Page One,” he said. I wondered what it was like to work in a functional newsroom, where everyone wasn’t fighting all the time and writers got the support they needed.

Another writer I hung with that week: Elsa Walsh, the future Mrs. Bob Woodward.

A real loss, Zaslow was. The one weekend we get some actual snow in Michigan, and this happens.

As for Whitney Houston, well. Never much of a fan, so I don’t feel the loss. I heard a segment on some NPR show a few weeks ago about vocal health, featuring doctors and a Broadway warbler whose name was unfamiliar to me; I was impressed by the work that goes into staying in good voice, and my takeaway was that the more extraordinary the voice, the more it must be treated with care. It’s probably safe to say inhaling crack cocaine year after year was not the best idea for either her career or her life, but that’s addiction for you. It reminded me of a piece by Mark Steyn — perhaps the only piece of his I think I ever liked — about the dangers of entourages for wealthy performers. The column was pegged to the 2001 death of R&B singer Aaliyah, whose overloaded small plane crashed on takeoff, weighed down by equipment and a couple of 300-pound bodyguards. If I recall correctly, Steyn describes an incident where he was asked to escort Houston across the street in New York one night. He was at some event with her, and she needed to go to her hotel across the avenue, and evidently the very idea that she could make such a trip by herself was unthinkable. Amazing. I mentioned this to Alan after reading it, and he said, “That must have been like leading a racehorse through a forest fire,” a pretty good quip for Alan. I tried to find the column, but it has disappeared from the internets, and isn’t available on Steyn’s website, either. Sorry about that. As we all know, nothing needs protection like decade-old newspaper columns.

So, bloggage?

Eric Zorn is collecting the various over-the-top things being said on the GOP campaign trail these days. Hey, Zorn: Here’s one for you, via Fort Wayne’s own Tim Goeglein, who is apparently now wearing bow ties (!!!!), perhaps because he heard they were extra-masculine or somethin’. Stripped of some of its adverbial filler:

In the history of the United States …we have never had a president who has more radically, but more intentionally, savaged and attacked man-woman marriage, the dignity and sanctity of every human life, and now… has begun to redefine and therefore attack our basic religious liberties and individual consciences.

That link takes you to a one-minute-and-change video. I urge you to check out this weekend’s iteration of the man our own Coozledad said made Fred Rogers look like Dick Butkus. I wonder if they realize how fucking obnoxious that sort of statement sounds to a person who isn’t quite as full-up with the Kool-Aid as they are. And now they’re the anti-birth control party. Good luck selling that line to the moderates, guys.

Maybe because I’ve written my share of pieces like this, I still read them, but can’t like them, not even a little bit. Novelist Walter Kirn on the Super Bowl:

A ball was tossed around and then Madonna sang. She’s the diva of super-prosperity, that woman. Her high-kicking legs and vast, pansexual dance-troupe conjured up glitzy memories of the boom years, back before our national descent into paranoid partisanship and pessimism. She ran through her hits and the years melted away, revealing a core of American contentment that suddenly seemed like our default condition, the one that the candidates labor to convince us will never return but has really never left us. I missed the Clint Eastwood commercial intoning that “It’s Halftime in America.” But I gazed at the faces around me. They had that look of people who who understand that they’re watching live, in person, what tens of millions of their countrymen are taking in electronically, on screens. One nation under Nike, is how it felt.

Oh, shut up, Mr. Pretentious Novelist Butthead.

Finally, a long video to sit through, but fascinating. Rachel Maddow on how the Ron Paul organization is gaming the GOP’s system to pile up delegates, contrary to the generally accepted idea that delegates belong to the winners of individual primaries and caucuses. This is a good story. I’d like to hear more about it.

And with that, I think IIIIII-eeee-yiiiiii-eeee-yiiiii have bored you enough. Happy Monday and good weeks to all.

Pix ‘n’ links starts today with this guy, taxidermy’d into eternity but relevant just the same:

A coyote was spotted in my neighborhood, so there was a stand-up on the news today and the usual blah-blah about not taking shots at them, and so on. I’ll be careful putting the bunny outside, but what else can you do? Detroit is a wild-ass place.

That photo’s from Flickr, taken by someone named…Kristymp, and all rights are? Reserved, yes.

Links? A few:

One week later, the brush fires continue to flare up at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, already going down in the history of screwups as one of the best EVAHR. Is Nancy Brinker the next to go? At this point it’s a little too-too for me, but hey — it’s still got legs.

You know what bugs me about these stories? They play the news media like a fiddle, that’s what.

The miracle of makeup: Some of you have seen this before, but it bears repeating — O’Brien from “Downton Abbey” is a babe. And quite a good actress, ’cause she sells dowdy.

Oh weekend, come to me. I promise I’ll be good.