Oh, it can be so, so fun to lurk on Mark Souder’s Facebook page. (My former congressman, for you casual readers. Until he was caught having carnal knowledge of a staffer in an Indiana state park.) As I think I mentioned in the comments yesterday, after the Mourdock rape comment hit the internet, I thought I’d drop by to see what he thought of all of that. A near-perfect answer, he opined.

(I had a colleague at my first newspaper job who loved that verb — opine. I think it fits here.)

The next day, when it was clear this was playing as one more stand-up act in the GOP Rape Follies, I went back to see how he was taking things. Post? Deleted. Oh, well.

Now he’s back, furious — sorry, very angry at President’s cheap shots and acting like Letterman Show is for literate people — at the liberal media, which is bias.

Just a hunch, but I think he’s going to be really pissed in another couple weeks.

A political observer of my acquaintance is very calm about all this, and likes to point out the demography of it all — the far-right wing of the GOP is being finished off by the grinding millstone of time. Gay marriage? Compare and contrast the opinions of those under 40 and over 60. Did you see “2016?” How many of the heads in the theater had a full head of hair that wasn’t gray? Which is not to say it’s all going to be sunshine and roses for the left, or moderates, going forward. But I can’t help but think one thing that has Souder, the ultimate “gray-faced man with a two-dollar haircut,” to borrow Tina Fey’s already-classic phrase, so pissed is that no one is buying this bullshit anymore. No one is twisting anyone’s words because this is what these guys really believe. You don’t get a rape pass if you get pregnant afterward in their world; you get a precious little baby.

Take that how you will, Hoosiers. He gets elected, he’ll be voting on a Supreme Court nominee or two.

Oh, is it Friday already? I took a break this afternoon to take a bike ride that seemed longer due to a) extended sloth in September and October; and b) lots of wind. It was 75 Thursday, but that wind is bringing something else our way. Tomorrow’s high will be 20 degrees colder. But even with a chill in the air, we will be that much closer to Election Day, after which things at our shop will slow down considerably. So there’s that.

Any bloggage? I loved “Cloud Atlas” like few other novels in recent memory, but I can’t decide whether to see the movie. Sounds long and maybe not as good. If anyone sees it this weekend, report.

And have a great weekend. Cold and rainy though it may be.

The World Series! Playing on my television box! And I’ve had three beers — my limit, and really, enough to enjoy the game without falling asleep. And…Justin Verlander just threw a big fat pitch up the middle to Pablo Sandoval, who sent it out to the kayaks. Maybe I should turn it off. My interest jinxes teams from Little League to the pros. Don’t want to wreck the boys’ chance.

OK, so.

(And now I’ve been watching the game for a while, and it’s 4-0 in the fourth. Universe? I am making it clear: DON’T CARE ABOUT THIS, NOT ONE LITTLE BIT. THE GIANTS CAN WIN, SURE! COOL CITY, COOL TEAM. WHATEVER.)

I should watch “American Horror Story.” Save your jokes, please.

Well. So, after Donald Trump’s October surprise fizzled from irrelevance into silliness, I’m feeling like November is a foregone conclusion. Every vote counts, guards up, etc., but if I were a betting woman, I’d bet on Nate Silver’s frontrunner. But it’s still a horserace, and so it must be a narrative. Only today we’re calling it a trajectory.

It’s like the D.C. sniper, only not, because this guy hasn’t killed anyone (or even hit one). But unless they catch this guy soon, I think you’ll be reading about him. I drove through this area Monday. Didn’t take evasive maneuvers.

Finally, what Tom & Lorenzo might call your daily pretty: The very best in nature photography. Love the fox shot. Enjoy.

After a few weeks of emailing crossword completion times back and forth with Eric Zorn, I stopped doing the Chicago Tribune/LA Times online puzzle on a daily basis. We were both shooting for a sub-five minute time, and once we made it, the fun went out of the game.

But I’m back into it, and lately my interest is in seeing how my aging brain works. Today’s asked for the first name of the former Soviet premier named Kosygin. I knew I knew it, but my Russophile brain refused to cough it up. As it turned out, I got it via the clues in the other direction, but didn’t go back to check the answer. At mid afternoon, it popped into my brain: Alexei. Of course, Alexei. Alexei Kosygin. I knew it at 3 p.m. but couldn’t dislodge it with dynamite at 8 a.m.

Maybe Dave Barry is right — as we get older, our brains fill up with song lyrics and there’s no room for anything else. At 2:30 p.m., driving home from the boatyard, I heard Burton Cummings on a Canadian talk show called Q. He sang “Laughing” live in the studio, I sang along in the car and didn’t miss a word.

Mental exercise. It’s the easiest kind, except when it isn’t.

My time today was over 7 minutes. Crappy, for a Tuesday.

Yeesh, I’ll be glad when election season is over. I know the animosity will remain, but it might drop a few notches. Perhaps Janice Daniels, mayor of Troy, will be recalled. A Tea Party darling, her first significant act of office was rejecting a transit center the local chamber of commerce had been working to put on the ground for years. Oh, and she also mentioned on her Facebook page how she was going to give up her I (heart) NY tote bag because “queers” could get married there now. For a taste of how she rolls, here she is in action just this past Monday, maing a mess of the simplest and easiest duty of her office — presenting a proclamation to a worthy local resident. Deadline Detroit sums it up, if you don’t have video capability:

For some reason (maybe voices in her head told her it would be a good idea) The Janice interrupted reading the proclamation to say Kerwin’s “Distinguished Citizen” honor was awarded by the “Troy Democrat Club.”

For starters, there are two kinds of people on the planet. The first kind of people understands the Democratic Party’s name is the Democratic Party. The second kind are the clinical morons who say Democrat Party.

Ah yes, the Democrat party.

So, a little non-political bloggage?

Hank Stuever gave his lecture at the University of Montana Monday. Read all about “Liner Notes for the End of the World: My Adventures in Covering American Pop Culture” in the Kaiman, the campus paper.

With all that my colleague Ron has been writing about the importance of early childhood education, I was amused to read this, in the Journal Gazette, although frankly, I’m not surprised to learn that a contributor to the Indiana Policy Review finds the idea “thorny.”

Back to work tomorrow, after a Tuesday off to take the boat out. It’s out, with hopes for more water next year, or else we’re screwed.

Yesterday a flyer was pushed through the mail slot. Our neighborhood association will be having a residents-only trick-or-treat event “by popular request” a couple days before Halloween. Why? “To see our children and enjoy their costumes in a safer environment.” At the bottom, in small type: “This activity does not discourage participation in any other Halloween trick-or-treating traditions.”

Something you should know: We get lots of trick-or-treating tourists on Halloween. Of course it’s dangerous to make assumptions by the way people look and dress, I’d be willing to bet at least half of the kids who ring our doorbell are from either Detroit or other nearby, less-white communities. This bothers a lot of people. It used to bother me — back when it was the case in Fort Wayne — but I got over it. Essentially, all I really want is a costume and a smile. For this, you get a Reese’s Cup.

I read the flyer, and figured it out: Participate in the neighborhood t-or-t, then leave your porch light out on Oct. 31 and you can feel you served the local kids without having to serve the tourists. Alan read it, without me saying a word, and said the same thing. Kate read it, and reached the same conclusion. As it turns out, I have to be gone Halloween evening, and won’t be able to participate anyway, but now it’ll look like I’m participating in this stupid charade.

P.S. To my knowledge, no child — local or tourist — has ever been seriously hurt on Halloween since I’ve lived here.

This all comes as yet another kettle of shit bubbles in our local schools, over the question of “non-residents” sneaking into our schools. There are always a few caught and removed over the course of the year, although it’s usually a case of families moving in or out and being briefly, not chronically, in violation. This explanation never satisfies those who believe the district is crawling with illegals, so to speak, and starting this summer a group of these people have been insisting on tougher penalties. This plays into the hands of critics on the left and right, and frankly, makes the community look crazy and mean.

Which is my way of saying, sometimes I don’t like my neighbors very much. Not the next-door ones, but all the rest.

Getting ready to watch the de-bate — for some reason I feel like stressing the first syllable these days — and fixing a bowl of buttered popcorn. Ready for an extremely good and well-written, but utterly sad, story? It’s a 1995 flashback dug up by the Washington Post and pegged to the death this weekend of George McGovern. It’s about the death of his daughter, Teresa, of alcoholism. A cautionary tale, not recommended if you’re feeling fragile and sad today.

The Onion spoofs TED talks. And nails them.

Rest in peace, Russell Means.

Let me know how the debate went, eh?

I was up very early Saturday morning (PSAT chauffeur duty) and after dropping off the testees, thought I’d take the long way to the Eastern Market. It’s important to do that every so often — step out of your groove, that is — if only to foil kidnappers. I drove down Mack Avenue, which goes from Grosse Pointe through the worst of the abandoned east side, and deep in the latter region I passed a building with the brick facade painted black, yellow caution tape stretched here and there, and this painted over all: HAUNTED HOUSE.

You have to laugh. Much of the surrounding neighborhood resembles a haunted forest, but what the hell, why not add a house? Of course no one was there at that hour, but later that day Alan and I were coming back from our evening o’ fun, and decided to drive past. Smoke was rising from the site; is it possible someone actually torched it? As we got closer it was revealed to be someone cooking barbecue on the sidewalk, presumably for the patrons.

While I applaud the entrepreneurial spirit, you couldn’t pay me enough to go through that thing.

Our evening’s entertainment was this, a pop-up Euro-style biergarten, now in its second year of popping up. The beer was great, the bratwurst even better, and we ran into some people we know. Not a bad evening for about $30.

Pop-up businesses keep your city on its toes, and well-fed with barbecue. And brats.

Then, today, raking leaves. Because that’s what you do here in KeepUpYourLawnville.

Oh, and there was a pie. Apple, with Northern Spies. Which means that no matter what else happened over the weekend, it was a success.

I know we’ve gone over the Lance Armstrong story to almost an enervating degree, but I had the time to absorb this NYT story, about how the case against him was built, and it left me, once again, sort of agog at the guy:

Antidoping officials on multiple continents had pursued Armstrong for years, in often quixotic efforts that died at the wall of silence his loyal teammates built around him as the sport’s global king. Armstrong kept the dark side of his athletic success quiet, investigators and cyclists said, by using guile and arm-twisting tactics that put fear in those who might cross him.

And from the USADA report released last week:

On July 23 in the 18th Stage at the 2004 Tour de France, (Filippo) Simeoni (who testified against Armstrong’s doctor) joined a breakaway. However, Armstrong rode him down and threatened if Simeoni did not return to the peloton Lance Armstrong would stay with the break and doom it to failure. As a consequence, Simeoni retreated to the peloton. There was no potential sport or cycling advantage for Armstrong’s maneuver. In fact, it was dangerous and impetuous, as Armstrong rode away from his supporting teammates to catch Simeoni, wasting valuable energy and unnecessarily incurring greater risk of a mishap while riding without assistance.

As Simeoni and Armstrong fell back to the peloton, Armstrong verbally berated Simeoni for testifying in the Ferrari case, saying, “You made a mistake when you testified against Ferrari and you made a mistake when you sued me. I have a lot of time and money and I can destroy you.” Armstrong was captured on video making a “zip the lips” gesture which underscored what Armstrong had just said to Simeoni about how Simeoni should not have testified against Dr. Ferrari.

This sounds like the behavior of a Mafia enforcer. And yet, I’m still hearing what a good, if flawed, man he was. I’m sure he did it all for the love of cancer patients.

Something for Jeff and Brian — a man who actually saw Abraham Lincoln shot at Ford’s Theater, appearing on “To Tell the Truth.”

His dream was to be an architect. He settled for carpentry. And earlier this year, he was the one who alerted the city that they might have a collapsing grocery store on their hands. A sweet story about an ordinary guy. It put me in mind of the assistant manager at a movie theater who, during the freakish F4 tornado in Van Wert, Ohio, a few years ago, had the presence of mind to scope out the building, correctly identify the strongest part (the bathroom), stop the movie, herd everybody into the bathroom with only moments to spare, and all survived. (In fact, he was the only one with an injury of any kind — a cut on his arm. A couple of cars ended up in the seats where everyone had been sitting. A hero who woke up that morning and probably thought, “Hmm, what a warm day for November.”

Finally, paranoia in Northern Michigan.

Happy week, all. Two weeks until the election.

We’re facing a truly unusual election this year in Michigan. There are five proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot, and you don’t have to be a strict constructionist to ask yourself why some of these things — a renewable-energy edict, a measure to create a registry of home health-care workers — belong in the state’s legal foundation document. (The answer: Because a lot of special interests rolled the dice on a petition campaign.)

But perhaps none will be more wrenching, for the state, than Proposal 2, which would put collective-bargaining rights for public employees in there, too. It would also make it impossible to pass a right-to-work law, among many other things. The advertising is plentiful and whack, with the pro side saying, “Hey, what’s the big deal?” and the other screaming THIS IS SUCH A BIG DEAL.

Yeah, a little oversimplification there. If you really want to, you can read Bridge’s coverage of this here and here. The conventional wisdom is that if Prop 2 passes, it would set off a series of cascading legal dominoes that will enrich lawyers for years. And if it doesn’t, the business community will demand a right to work law.

Michigan with a right to work law. Imagine that.

Brian Dickerson, the Freep columnist, gets to the heart of things here. It’s not exactly a civil war ahead of us, but it won’t be fun:

As it stands, whatever happens on Nov. 6 seems certain to destroy the fragile détente Michigan’s employers and organized labor have established.

…And it’s a pity, because all most Michiganders really want is to live in a state where neither side has the option of running roughshod over the other.

Meanwhile, his wife, Laura Berman, who writes for the other daily, examines the weirdness that is the 11th district congressional district, utterly fubar’d by the same party that gerrymandered it in the first place, now about to send this guy to Washington:

Kerry Bentivolio has been a flop as a homebuilder. His teaching career ended abruptly last year under pressure. His Santa Claus credentials once were rejected by the White House.

When he popped up on the 11th District ballot, his own party leaders tried to mount a challenge against him in the August primary, dubbing the libertarian Ron Paul acolyte “Krazy Kerry.”

Yet Bentivolio, the unlikely Republican candidate for the 11th congressional district, is riding a gerrymandered jet stream toward a $174,000 a year job in the nation’s Capitol.

Three weeks to go.

But hey — how about those Tigers?

Have a great weekend, all.

Alan took a spontaneous three-quarter day off today, after his scientific study of lake levels determined that if he didn’t get his boat out of our marina today, he wasn’t going to get it out at all. Day after day, blue-sky high pressure. We had a little rain the last couple of days, but not enough. If we don’t have a shitload of snow and spring rain and maybe a little dredging, we’re going to have to find a new place for Lush Life next year.

Yes, I know. First world problem. But it is ours.

So, now: The debate. I’m starting to loathe these affairs. Who the hell is still undecided on October 16? If these are actually helpful to voters, I’ll eat my damn hat. So if Jeremy Epstein is worried about getting a job, all I have to say is, hey, did Mitt get a haircut? And did he just say “Mr. Gas?” Sounds like the villain in a Beano commercial.

Mr. Gas, Mr. Coal. I did not have those in the drinking game.

God, I hate this. Candy Crowley, stick your head in an oven. Put a sock in that guy’s mouth first.

What? No taxes on capital gains or dividends? Good news, Paris Hilton! (And all the Romneys!) I must have misheard that.

I can’t stand that smirk. He really does remind me of the boss who laid you off. Yeah, that guy.

I hate these 72 percent questions. Too, too reductive. But is Mitt endorsing affirmative action? OMG.

Champening. It’s what small businesses need.

I will say this: It’s good to see the prez with a head of steam again. The pension answer was great. “It’s not as big as yours.” NURSE, BRING SOME ICE FOR THIS BURN.

Tigers up by two in the sixth. Ohhh-kay.

Annnnd here comes the 47 percent zinger annnnd scene.

This one wasn’t even close. What’s your call?

I don’t know about you, but clicking the link to Felix Baumgartner’s historic skydive today was either the best or worst thing I did Sunday. Unlike some people, my cable internet came through and I had a clear, glitch-free picture the whole time. I checked in at about 6,000 feet and really couldn’t turn away.

By the time they reached this moment…

…my heart was in my mouth. When I stopped to consider the scientific value of such a stunt — and at this point, I’m going to call it a stunt, unless someone corrects me — I was distracted by the amazing photography. The balloon was literally a shiny object, and watching it grow larger as the air pressure abated only increased the drama. The description of the thing was “an inflated dry cleaning bag that would fill the Los Angeles Coliseum,” and it looked so utterly fragile. I guess I was utterly suckered in that sense.

I don’t know how important this exercise was. I’ll take Red Bull at its word that the data the mission gathered was important, but I don’t think this was another Mars Rover, either. Joe Kittinger was a nice touch. His gentle reminders to Baumgartner to reply to each directive gave the final moments of the flight some extra drama. What if he hadn’t answered back, or had a panic attack? Would it be possible to talk the guy down when he’s 24 miles above the earth?

Baumgartner’s stab at Neil Armstrong’s speechifyin’-in-a-sentence was a little lame, but that might be because once he let go of the capsule and fell into the void he disappeared from sight so quickly I gasped. Two seconds and he was a dot. Now there was a visual. In space, no one car hear you scream, but I think they must have heard me.

Watch for yourself. That’s pretty dramatic.

Did I just fall for a worldwide free-media publicity barrage for a vile soft drink? You tell me, but I enjoyed it.

And that was the weekend. We saw “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” which Kate said was the best movie she’d ever seen, so I guess that’s an endorsement. My former student Dustin had to work, but at least he got a good story out of it:

Some of the concertgoers at a late-season Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson concert at DTE Energy Music Theatre will have the chance to compare the venue’s acoustics to those at the Oakland County Jail.

Later on, Rob Zombie is quoted, and referred to on second reference as “Zombie.” Excellent.

Oh lord, another Monday. Let this week pass smoothly, please. Hope yours does.

One of the right-rail Bridge stories is mine this week. A couple, actually, but this is the one I’m thinking of, about Proposal 6, about bridges past, present and yet to come. In the course of trying to nail down one fact — does any other state with an international border crossing over water have a similar law to the one being proposed? — a nice lady in the Texas Department of Transportation sent me a list of the four Rio Grande crossings in private hands.

One was the Los Ebanos Ferry, family-owned, a two-minute crossing across a narrow spot in the river. Hand-operated. It rang a bell that got louder until it finally pierced the fog — a John D. MacDonald novel, but not one of the Travis McGee series. What was it called? I know I own it. A glance at the bookshelf. Yes! “The Damned,” published 1952. A group of strangers find themselves at a Mexican ferry crossing, stuck — the ferry isn’t working, so they’re free to sit around in the broiling sun and fight, love and have interior monologues. In true JDM style, they’re vivid, pulpy characters with just enough realness to keep them from tipping over into parody.

A minute or two with Professor Google, and I found this marvelous review, with lots of quoted passages, so I don’t have to retype them. One of the marooned is a businessman who, two weeks previous, had found himself poleaxed by a juicy young thing, and on impulse, bundled her into his car and took off south of the border. A couple weeks later, the erotic heat having burned off, he’s coming back home, despising the girl, disgusted by himself and wondering what he had been thinking. What a wonderful picture MacDonald paints here; you can almost smell the sour booze coming off the philanderer’s pores:

He had tried to call it a deathless romance, a great love. And the rationalization had shattered suddenly, leaving him naked. He saw a gaunt foolish man of middle years spending his savings on a raw, big-bodied young girl with limited IQ. The pores of her cheeks and nose were unpleasantly enlarged. In conversation she repeated herself interminably, expressing childish infatuations with movie actors, TV stars, disc jockeys. Her love-making was an unimaginative compound of all the movies she had seen, all the confession stories she had read. He stared in wonder at the meaty mass of her hips, at the lactic, bovine breasts, startled that he should have thought this worth the risk of destroying his world.

It turns out the ferry in this book, fictional or not, isn’t over the Rio Grande, but the Rio Conchos. Oh, well. It was a nice trip down Pulp Lane.

Watching the debate now, enjoying my third glass of wine, so we’ll see how long I last. I’m having #3 because Kate had a great bass lesson today, and I’m entitled. She took on the upright a couple months ago, and is coming along swimmingly. Such a beautiful instrument, but as I always say when we load it into the car, in my next life my kid plays piccolo.

A little bloggage for those who

The latest variety of hoo-hah from Up North: (ominous chords, organ sting) Agenda 21!!!!!!

Back to the Joe and Paul show.

So, Miguel Cabrera clinched baseball’s triple crown night before last, and where was Detroit’s highly paid celebrity sports columnist? Beats me. I hear he’s on a book tour, but wherever he was, he wasn’t in the paper today.

Mitch did write about Cabrera. On September 23rd. First paragraph:

I remember Carl Yastrzemski. All the kids followed him. It was 1967, the Summer of Love, but for boys sporting high top sneakers and baseball cards in our bicycle spokes, it was the summer of the Triple Crown — or another summer of the Triple Crown. Frank Robinson had won it the year before. And being wide-eyed fans, we figured someone would win it every year.

Ooooohkay, then. Tell me, though: Did anyone ever put baseball cards in bicycle spokes? I remember that trick, but you used playing cards. Baseball cards were for trading, but then, if you’re phoning in yet another soft-focus remembrance of the good ol’ days, it sounds better to make them baseball cards.

Oh, I just don’t have it in me today. It’s the end of the week, it’s been a long one, and Mitch isn’t my problem. But considering this guy is now writing about twice in a blue moon, don’t you think he’d have the time to give us a better ending than this?

Cabrera stays away from newspapers or Internet sites or even TV shows about sports. He said he was spending time watching movies or playing with his kids to keep the pressure off when he’s not at the park. He even has read a few books.

“‘Fifty Shades of Grey?'” someone joked.

“Huh?” he said.

“‘Fifty Shades of Grey?'”

“No.”

Right. Who needs 50 shades of grey when you’re chasing three points of a crown?

And that, as Deadspin might say, is how the winner of the Red Smith Award puts a cherry on top. Booyah.

So let’s go to the bloggage, and congratulate Deborah on her well-earned retirement. Now she can write to us about the Frito pie at the Santa Fe Woolworth’s.

Tina Fey on the end of “30 Rock.” I would so like to work in a writer’s room. It sounds like a newsroom at its best moments:

What are some of the made-up words you’re going to miss from the 30 Rock world? What are your favorites?

I mean, sometimes they come out of skits, skits that we’re shooting in our writers room, so that’s where “lizzing” and “high-fiving a million angels” came from. Some of them came from my daughter [Alice] when she was smaller and didn’t speak as well. [Laughs.] “I want to go to there.” I remember our head of post, when we were trying to cut that episode down to time, said, “We could cut that,” and I was like, “I think we should leave it,” and I’m so glad we did, because you never know what’s going to stick in people’s brains.

Why should hurricanes get all the good stuff? The Weather Channel announces it will name winter storms this season. Bundle up for Orko!

Eh, I’ve hit a wall. Have a great weekend, all, and I’ll see you back here Monday.