Wow, what a day. So warm I drove home from Lansing with the sun roof open, IGNORING THE NEWS. I had to switch to the iPod about halfway there this morning, and it held through the afternoon commute, too. It was this story that did it; the sound of the Deep South voices saying this…

John Gentile of Crossville, Tenn., still doesn’t believe Obama is allowed to be president because his father was born in Kenya.

“I just don’t like the directions that he’s headed in, and personally I don’t think he qualifies to be president under the ‘natural born citizen.’ In the Constitution it states that you have to have two parents that were born in the United States, so that there’s no alternative allegiance by any member of the family,” Gentile said.

The Constitution actually doesn’t say that.

…just sent me around the bend. So much more calming to listen to Rod Stewart in his glory days. It made me want to learn how to play “Every Picture Tells a Story” on some random stringed instrument.

Has any one ever read anything I’ve written and said, “I wish I could turn a phrase like that girl?” I mean, other than Tim Goeglein? Because we all have gifts, but mine isn’t the guitar. (Or mandolin, in this case.)

A good day all around, today. I brought my iPad in, so Ron could watch “Game Change” on his lunch hour, and could hear him giggling from his office. His fave line: “Thanks for cutting your mullet, Levi.” I can’t believe I objected to the rate increase that made HBO Go and online streaming possible — old “Sopranos” and “The Wire” episodes have been the reason a number of boring household chores even got done in this house. Now, if only they’d add “John From Cincinnati,” a series that’s been so thoroughly scrubbed from HBO memory I’m convinced it might be my own private hallucination. Kem Nunn + David Milch = incoherence.

And now, I’m watching the returns come in from Dixie. Santorum just took Alabam’. I think I’ll celebrate with another glass of Cote du Rhone, like the urban elitist I am.

Meanwhile, some bloggage?

Charter schools by moi, mainbar and sidebar. Click and keep me employed.

A lead I think we can all agree we never want written about our death:

Charges were announced Tuesday for a gas station clerk in Detroit accused in a fatal shooting over the price of condoms in a late-night dispute over the weekend.

The kid was shot in the back. I understand the life of a Detroit gas-station clerk is perilous, but that is wrong.

I cannot get enough of Animals Talking in All Caps. Sorry, but it’s a joke that never gets old. (So far.)

Wednesday, almost! Huzzah.

As someone who has always thought it was silly that certain ethnic holidays are celebrated mainly by white people, eating in restaurants being served by the people whose holiday it allegedly is, I don’t find this cartoon — about Cinco de Mayo in Brentwood — particularly offensive. Not offensive at all, in fact.

What say you? The attached tweet says it got a Patch editor fired. Seems an overreaction to me. But that’s Patch for ya.

Sorry. All that Palin talk must have rubbed off on me.

I don’t have a great deal today, as you have probably suspected by now. The project that’s been blotting out my personal sun runs today in Bridge. Charter schools. Some of you may find this more interesting than others.

If you want something a little spicier, one of the good guys of newspaper journalism has died. Nelson Rockefeller-style.

More tomorrow, but for now — gotta work.

Someone sent me Marilyn Hagerty’s column about the Olive Garden opening in Grand Forks, N.D. about 10-ish Thursday morning. By late afternoon, the story was everywhere and, hence, played. And so the bristling pace of the Internet’s snark cycle leaves me sucking hind tailpipe once again.

But just in case you didn’t see it, here it is, a little masterpiece of business reporting:

The place is impressive. It’s fashioned in Tuscan farmhouse style with a welcoming entryway. There is seating for those who are waiting.

My booth was near the kitchen, and I watched the waiters in white shirts, ties, black trousers and aprons adorned with gold-colored towels. They were busy at midday, punching in orders and carrying out bread and pasta.

Some years back, Alan was contacted by a journalism headhunter who asked if he’d be interested in a department head-level position in Fargo. The answer: No. Grand Forks was once part of the Knight-Ridder family, so I guess that might have beem an option, too. The answer was still no. But as the tireless, steroidal snarkers at Gawker demonstrate, this is not a North Dakota thing, it’s an Olive Garden thing; the OG appears in newspaper restaurant reviews over and over. And all I have to say about that is what Hagerty herself told the Village Voice — I told you this thing went viral — today:

If you were going to review the fine dining here, you’d be done in three weeks–there’s only about three places you could call “fine dining.”

But while we’re on the subject, let’s skip to another exemplar of North Dakota journalism, the amusingly named Jon Flatland:

Jon Flatland, a columnist, a former president of the North Dakota Newspaper Association and one-time newspaper owner, has been exposed as a serial plagiarist.

When confronted with the evidence gathered by humor writer Dave Fox, Flatland abruptly resigned from his position as interim managing editor of the Times in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota and “quickly and quietly left town,” according to the paper’s publisher.

In a profile last month of Jon Flatland and his wife, whom he met online, the Minnesota native said, “Don’t try to be someone you’re not, because if and when you do meet someone through a service like eHarmony, they’re going to find out pretty quickly you weren’t being honest. Just be yourself.” It’s unclear how many humor columns of Flatland’s included stolen material, but it appears to go back many years and involves work taken from a variety of columnists.

This guy makes Tim Goeglein look like a piker. Having seen a few clips from the papers that were running him — links in the piece — I bet I know what happened: This guy thought he might as well have been stationed on Mars, and even Google doesn’t reach that far. His mistake: Once Olive Garden gets there, Google is right behind.

But what I really want to talk about today was this little moment from earlier this week, as detailed by Jonathan Chait:

Earlier this week, a pretty interesting and telling exchange took place at a Mitt Romney town hall meeting. A student asked Romney what he would do to make college more affordable for students who struggle to pay for it. Romney’s reply was jarring:

“It would be popular for me to stand up and say I’m going to give you government money to pay for your college, but I’m not going to promise that,” he said, to sustained applause from the crowd at a high-tech metals assembly factory here. “Don’t just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you’ll find that. And don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.”

Wow. This is the candidate who has promised to keep the pillows plumped for everyone now over 55, but if you had the misfortune of being born later (even by a year or two, like, um, me), too bad. And if you have, oh, children on the other side of the line? What then? Find a nice community college, sucka. Too bad you weren’t born rich, like my kids! This sort of redefines cynicism, doesn’t it? What country can long survive betting against its youngest members?

Ed Kilgore at Washington Monthly has more.

Boy, am I not looking forward to this campaign. Maybe we need some levity.

Shit girls say to gay guys.

And if you don’t like that, the Northern lights over Lake Superior, night before last. I’m sure if you were there, it made the cell-phone interference totally worth it.

Great weekend, all!

Usually I arrive at this point of the day with at least one link-worth-clicking stashed here in a draft, but today? Pfft. That’s a Wednesday for you — the craziest of the week, but the one that feels like a curve being rounded, and dare I say it? Hump Day. After seven years of freelancing, back on a Monday-through-Friday schedule feels like…well, it feels like something different. And something celebratory.

But it also feels like a catch-up day. I finally got a spare minute to read the amazing Gawker screed about Andrew Breitbart. An angry, angry piece that has the advantage of being? Mostly true. It’s an angry piece that finds its villain not in Breitbart, but in the…how do they put it? The people whose job it was to call him out, and didn’t:

To borrow a gross analogy lustily employed on Breitbart’s own websites, if today’s mainstream media was penning obits on May 1, 1945, they would have summed up with, “Despite initiating the Second World War, the German leader was fond of public architecture and is survived by his beloved dachshunds.” …Breitbart trained the media like dogs, and he was still doing so, on Thursday morning, from beyond the grave. People joked that they didn’t know if his death was a hoax, and it’s a certainty that some asked because they were afraid of telling the truth about someone by then literally incapable of hurting them. If you beat a dog long enough, it learns to cower before you reach for a switch.

It kind of builds and builds, and reaches a masterful crescendo, and… isn’t there something already over about Breitbart? He really is a sort of wicked witch of the media, isn’t he? Now that he’s gone, he’s melted into a puddle and left behind, what? That years ago, Barack Obama went to a play? Now there’s a legacy.

Actually, the high point of yesterday was when one of my students filed a story about a city council meeting that featured “activists” complaining about “smart meters,” i.e. electric meters that can be read remotely, via cellular signals. Of course, this being the United States, this has caused no end of paranoia. The meters are either emitting signals that cause brain cancer, or stealing our data. Actual quote: “It is an infringement upon our constitutional rights.”

My advice to the student: Get the utility’s comment, and then run with that sucker. Some activists are more interesting than others.

How was your Wednesday?

It looks as though HBO’s “Game Change” is worth watching, and if you can’t bear it, by all means read Hank’s review. He’s so smart about these things:

Like its star character, the movie can be interpreted a number of ways, depending on your vantage point. If you are eternally baffled by Palin’s rise, then please enjoy the horror flick. If you harbor sympathy for someone who was plucked from near-obscurity and thrust into an impossible 11-week frenzy far beyond her skills or education, then it’s a psychological thriller. If you’re just a politics wonk, then it’s basically porn.

Amanda Marcotte on the Fluke thing:

Americans are still uptight about poor women having sex, teenage girls having sex, queer women having sex, and women who openly reject the path to marriage and motherhood having sex, but they’re just fine with the Sandra Flukes of the world having sex. Cohabitation before marriage is the national norm, and not just for my generation. I’m from Texas, for god’s sake, and I can probably count the married couples I know under 60 who didn’t live together before marriage on one hand, and in all my life, I’ve never known anyone to have a fight with their family about that.

And now, whaddaya know, it’s already Thursday. Let’s hope something happens of note around here.

Googling the Black Keys the other day, I came across this year-old, sadly appalling essay by Denise Grollmus, who if you don’t know the name is the former Mrs. Patrick Carney, and he is one-half of the Black Keys. A key, if you will.

They married young and divorced only a little older, and if you think the story of their breakup is worth wading through for the special insights she will bring to the tale, something about love and commitment and fame and Grammys, you’re not going to get that. If you think it’ll be worth it because there’s lots of dirty dirt about backstage cheating and groupies and whether Mick Jagger’s equipment is really the tiny todger Keith Richards says it is, you won’t get that, either. Which is why I finished it irritated. It’s not a short piece, and frankly, the most interesting part of it was this bit from the comments:

Patrick Carney has to be screened for Marfan Syndrome, if he hasn’t already. I’m struck by his physical features and how, like many I know, fit the MFS profile. His height, lanky frame and long limbs and face and glasses.

OK, no, that wasn’t the most interesting part. This was:

I started going to therapy, where I was diagnosed with alcohol-induced mood disorder, a diagnosis that I quickly dismissed because I thought I knew better.

This is an actual diagnosis? Alcohol-induced mood disorder? Where I come from, honey, we call that “being drunk,” and a disordered mood is sort of the point. But OK, I get it: You married your sweet rocker boyfriend, you were happy for a time, and then you weren’t, and you got a divorce. If you’re really the master’s level creative nonfiction writer your website says you are, you ought to be able to do a lot better.

Why do couples do this? I guess it’s natural for a writer to seek revenge in writing — lord knows I’ve tried often enough. But this sort of thing is just squicky. No greater lessons are learned, no grand conclusions drawn, no attempt made to justify the intrusion into a couple’s intimate life with a bigger truth about our frail human hearts. It’s one of those things for which the kids have a word: FAIL.

So.

Has anyone noticed I’ve been silent on the Rush Limbaugh affair? I have. I’m just sitting here, watching the pinball bounce around the machine, only really I’m thinking about “Angry Birds,” which isn’t pinball. I had finished all levels of the game and was on the verge of deleting it from my iPad when I launched it one last time and discovered a new level, and a new bird. It’s orange. Its trick is, after it lands, it inflates like a balloon for a few seconds, then deflates and fizzles off into the ether. It’s a tricky one; if you can’t wedge it into a place where its inflation will knock a few pigs loose, it’s not much use to you.

Anyway, I’ve been wondering if Rush is the orange bird, inflated but just about to start hissing air out and flying around the room for a few final seconds. And even as the advertisers jump off his sinking ship, I don’t see this ending any way other than well for the fat man. His bunker is too well-padded with money, and there will always be someone to advertise their crap on his show. Every photo I see of him, he’s with some other old white man, who’s frequently laughing maniacally at something Rush said, mouth gaping open and double chins a-quiver. He’s yesterday. Sandra Fluke — and Denise Grollmus — are the future.

Although who knows? Maybe he’s going off his rocker. I’m told she was Tuesday’s target, a Michigan woman who’s written a book about food. And no, I can’t figure out why he was upset, either. But it’ll be good for book sales, I’m sure.

A little bloggage:

Hey, basketball fans: Amy Welborn’s son edited this. (NOTE: Link fixed.)He works for Turner Broadcasting. Discussing this with J.C., who also worked there, I wondered if Amy’s son might have ever seen three enormous Ampex 2-inch videotape decks that used to be there, each wearing an engraved name tag — Jill, Kelly and Sabrina. (The original Charlie’s Angels, for you youngsters.) J.C. said of course not, those decks were long gone, but here’s a bit of super-ultra-obscure broadcast trivia: They were originally called Larry, Curly and Moe, the names written with Magic Marker on index cards. They were sent out for service, back to Ampex, and Ampex returned them with the new names, and the fancy tags. A little joke between the company and a good customer. Their decks were angels, not stooges.

It’s been a long day. I think I’m going to bed.

A lot of links for a windy Tuesday, eh?

Well, now. This is what you might call both inevitable and inevitably depressing:

The Internet, with companies sniping at one another and blithely ignoring major privacy violations, is on the verge of the same fate as the true-blue American industries before it: losing its sense of fun.

Fun? I’d settle for something a lot less. After describing recently reported problems with security breaches of Apple’s mobile-device OS — no more lovely walled garden, but one with thieves coming over the walls — Nick Bilton tosses off an anecdote that simply drives me nuts:

Last week Apple also refused to allow “Stop Selling Dreams,” a new book by the writer Seth Godin, into the iBookstore. Apple’s reasoning: Mr. Godin’s book contains links in the bibliography, he said, which make it easy for readers to buy books from Amazon. (Imagine if a physical bookstore refused to sell a print book because it referred to Barnes & Noble?)

Yeah. He goes on to point out the fun-less atmosphere at Google, et al, and once again — hammer, nail, etc.:

I’m increasingly wary of downloading an app, or signing up for a new service or Web site, for fear that the creator had an ulterior motive. Does Angry Birds really need to take my address book when I install it on my phone? Will I really want to see constant warnings popping up to tell me an app is taking this or that bit of once-private data?

So true. I no longer download Facebook apps unless absolutely necessary, and have deleted 85 percent of the ones I welcomed back when I was a newcomer. So no more watching “SNL” sketches via Hulu for Facebook, and definitely no Washington Post Social Reader, and absolutely positively no Yahoo apps, not when they announce to your whole goddamn network that you were reading about the Kardashians. (I saw that on a friend’s timeline; she said, “I am not ashamed of my fondness for celebrity gossip.” I’m glad someone isn’t.)

I guess what I’m saying is, I’m tired of paying for free things with my information, because I suspect I’m being overcharged. I’d happily pay $5 a month for Twitter and Facebook, if I could actually keep my private things private, or private-ish. And goddamn it, Apple — if you’re going to sell books, but only books that don’t even carry the faintest whiff of maybe acknowledging that there’s another way to sell books, then go sell them to someone else.

Let’s change the subject; how about some levity?

In Laurens County, South Carolina, you cannot run for office with the county GOP’s seal of approval unless you sign a pledge:

…of 28 principles, because the party “does not want to associate with candidates who do not act and speak in a manner that is consistent with the SC Republican Party Platform.”

Among the principles, according to Vic MacDonald & Larry Franklin of the Clinton Chronicle, is standard fare like opposition to abortion and upholding gun rights, as well as “a compassionate and moral approach to Teen Pregnancy” and “a high regard for United States Sovereignty.”

It goes on. And like the kids say, it gets better.

A poignant tale out of western Ohio — the barely there village of Uniopolis, which voted big-time for John Kasich in the 2010 wave. Balance that budget without raising taxes, guvnor! So he did, in part by slashing revenue sharing to municipalities large and small, and now?

This small village of low-slung houses and squeaky swing sets in western Ohio’s farm country has already laid off its part-time police officer and decided not to replace its maintenance worker, who recently retired. To save cash, Mayor William Rolston will propose Monday that the town turn off the street lights, and that Uniopolis disincorporate after more than a century in existence.

I used to drive through burgs like this between Fort Wayne and Columbus, strung along US 33 like afterthoughts. Neptune, Pleasant Mills, New Hampshire, Rockford, Willshire. I probably made that drive every few months for 20 years, and none of the towns got any bigger or prettier in that time. (Although there was one prosperous farm between Rockford and Willshire that was almost spookily clean and neat. I never saw a human being outdoors, but every bush and blade of grass looked like it had been trimmed by the grounds crew at a championship golf course. I always thought of “A Thousand Acres” and shuddered.) On the one hand, there’s really no need for any of them to exist anymore, is there? Change is the nature of the world; maybe it’s time for Uniopolis to join all the ghost towns that populate the earth:

In the Uniopolis post office, run by Link Noykos, a good-natured postmaster with sharp blue eyes and an easy laugh, townspeople shuffle in to buy stamps, pick up mail, and just to chat. Many blame the federal government for the budget problems, accusing it of spending money on bureaucracy and fancy dinners. Others say they want the budget balanced — as long as certain bits of spending remain.

“We need to see the cuts,” said Joe Hornung, a retiree dressed in an Ohio State baseball cap and leather jacket. “I would just hate to see the police go.”

Noykos has heard it all before. He recognizes that the kind of budget cuts that so many in town seem to support could lead to the disappearance of his job — and of the town’s de facto social center. He doesn’t flinch when Uniopolis residents launch into tirades about the size of the federal government, not recognizing they’re complaining about the agency that employs their friend and confidant.

Of course not. Fancy dinners only happen somewhere else.

How many fancy dinners did you enjoy when you were employed by the U.S.P.S., Cooz?

Happy Tuesday, all.

What a weekend. Lurched into it with book club Friday, at which I had .2 glasses of wine too many, enough to require me to air many opinions about George Clooney in an outside voice. (I say so many things in my outside voice. It’s one thing about myself I really wish I could change.) It so happened many other members of the club had been drinking wine as well, perhaps not as enthusiastically as me, and many had opinions on Clooney, too. We shared and shared, and then I looked at the sole male member of the club, who did not appear to be having fun.

Sorry about that, Mike.

The book was Ann Patchett’s “State of Wonder.” Liked it very much. It had nothing to do with George Clooney. If you’ve been to a book club, you know how this can happen. Unless you have one of those non-drinking book clubs, in which case I ask: Why bother?

By the way, I’m changing the On the Nightstand book to this. I’ve finished the book, but I’m tired of looking at the Odor Eaters over there on the sidebar. Laziness, thy name is Nance.

Then, Saturday, off to the Black Keys at the Joe. I haven’t been to an arena show in years. I can’t say it’s my favorite venue, but there’s something about a sold-out crowd rising a considerable distance to the ceiling, all on their feet and dancing to “Lonely Boy,” that carries a jolt of energy. It was a good show. Two guys on a great big stage, making a shitload of noise — that’s entertainment.

And after another mild tease, the cold weather returned, although it’ll be yielding in a few days. The Tigers are playing in Florida, and spring is in the air. Here’s hoping we get a proper one, and that winter doesn’t pay us back for not being quite so tough this year by staying a little longer.

So, bloggage? Sure…

For a man who has literally made a fortune off of death, Mitch Albom remains ever-surprised by it:

Davy Jones died.

I didn’t think that was possible.

No comment.

Thirty years since John Belushi was found dead of a speedball overdose? Yep. Michael Heaton weighs in with a personal remembrance that’s worth your time (and with a lesson for journalists):

…I had to ask Aykroyd one question: Of all the media in the world — the print folks, the TV people who had been hounding him for an interview since Belushi’s death — why did he choose me, a lowly, unknown freelancer for People magazine?

“You were the only one who called,” he said.

I have no sexy memory like this, but my takeaway from the Belushi death was the reaction to “Wired,” Bob Woodward’s tone-deaf, yet exhaustive, account of his brief life. His Hollywood friends were astonished and appalled that the book wasn’t a wet kiss for their pal the comic genius, but a straightforward story of what happens when you get too much money too fast, and the wet kisses are all applied to your ass. Judy Belushi actually gave an interview admitting she thought she was talking to the character played by Robert Redford in “All the President’s Men.” An early lesson that maybe the people upon whom money and power is bestowed aren’t as smart as they pretend to be.

Until I read Roy’s short piece about it, I had no idea this was happening — the Kochs trying to buy the Cato Institute. This is what I get for trying to pay less attention to politics. I won’t be making that mistake again. Too funny.

Gotta say: I wasn’t a close observer of Andrew Breitbart. I knew who he was and what he was about, of course, but I wasn’t masochistic enough to monitor his various Big Whatevers on a regular basis. I skimmed the New Yorker profile awhile back, and came away with an impression of a fantastically angry man who brought a showbiz sensibility to a very baldly stated desire to destroy what he saw as institutions of the liberal media, blah blah blah. The fact he was able to get away with so much of this I attribute to the ability of those targets to say, Look, a truck. It’s coming this way. It’s speeding up. It’s not turning away. Isn’t that interesting?

I checked in on a few of the obituaries today, and once the shock wore off and the conspiracy theories fizzled and popped like firecrackers, a portrait like this emerged. David Frum:

The good was there. Breitbart was by all accounts generous with time and advice, a loving husband and father, and a loyal friend. One of those friends, Arianna Huffington, wrote today: “All I can think is what Andrew meant to me as a friend … his passion, his exuberance, his fearlessness.” Breitbart was unquestionably passionate and was exuberant. If by “fearless” you mean perpetually eager for confrontation, then yes he was fearless too, although in a very particular way. Nobody would ever describe Andrew Breitbart as a man of “quiet courage.” He delighted in the enraged outburst, the shouted insult, the videotaped jab of a finger into an opponent’s chest.

And I’m sorry, but this is the point where I check out. So he was a good guy in private, a jerkoff in public? I’m not interested in — no. I don’t like people like this. I understand that Don Rickles may well be a fantastic, sweet fellow after he’s offstage, but Don Rickles is an entertainer. Breitbart seemed to think of himself as one, too, but the world was his stage, and the damage was real. He told lies about people, malicious lies with very real consequences. Shirley Sherrod lost her job because of Breitbart. James O’Keefe, another trifling little liar, a nasty creep who makes Abbie Hoffman look like Willie Wonka, has a career because of him. He chose his targets and then said, By any means necessary.

Frum goes on:

Yet perhaps Breitbart’s most consequential innovation was his invention of a new kind of culture war. …Because President Obama was black, and because Breitbart believed in using every and any weapon at hand, Breitbart’s politics did inevitably become racially coded. Breitbart’s memory will always be linked to his defamation of Shirley Sherrod and his attempt to make a national scandal out of back payments to black farmers: the story he always called “Pigford” with self-conscious resonance.

Frum, whose discontent with the contemporary Republican party is no secret, goes on to add, “but he wasn’t a racist.” He was willing to use racist subtext to attack a president he didn’t like, and damn the consequences. But it was all in the game, yo.

I read some version of this — and Frum’s assessment is very good, I should add — half a dozen times today, and was left thinking that I simply have nothing but contempt for a life lived like this. I have more flaws, failings and human frailty than anyone here, but I think I’m basically honest. I try to tell the truth — and yes, my truth is not absolute and may not be yours — because if you’re in the communication business and you’re a liar, you’re a villain. It’s that simple. This is why I can’t stand phonies like Bob Greene and Mitch Albom, who do the same thing, but in a toadying, flattering way for their suburban audiences. If you write for a living, you may not always swing the sword of truth, but you cannot reject it entirely.

Oh, and may I just say? All these right-wingers clutching their pearls over all the mean things said about their boy today? Who left four young children and a wife, etc., and where is the decency? You have got to be fucking kidding me. Have you read what this man had to say about Ted Kennedy when he moved to the undiscovered country? Seriously?

A few Breitbartian links: Salon. Slate’s rerun of their 2010 profile of the man. Charlie Pierce. Mark Warren, at Charlie Pierce’s blog.

And that’s pretty much where I’m leaving it. No, one more note. Here’s what Shirley Sherrod, who had to leave her job after Breitbart colluded in a lie about her, had to say about his death:

“The news of Mr. Breitbart’s death came as a surprise to me when I was informed of it this morning,” Sherrod said in a statement sent to International Business Times by her attorney, Thomas Clare. “My prayers go out to Mr. Breitbart’s family as they cope during this very difficult time. I do not intend to make any further comments.”

Speaking of the truth, here’s one I need to pass along: I got my Amazon gift card, the one that arrives every few months, my cut of the Kickback Lounge. The range of these payouts ranges from around $17 to — in a Christmas month — $45. But this one? Ninety bucks. I’m speechless. I’m not sure why it’s so high, whether we had more shopping or just one shopper with a fondness for big-ticket items, but I’m not sure it matters. I’m grateful. Really.

OK, now the weekend awaits. I hope yours is spectacular. We’re going to see the Black Keys! Carumba.

Wow. As Catholic moments go, this one is, well, er:

Deep in grief, Barbara Johnson stood first in the line for Communion at her mother’s funeral Saturday morning. But the priest in front of her immediately made it clear that she would not receive the sacramental bread and wine.

Johnson, an art-studio owner from the District, had come to St. John Neumann Catholic Church in Gaithersburg with her lesbian partner. The Rev. Marcel Guarnizo had learned of their relationship just before the service.

“He put his hand over the body of Christ and looked at me and said, ‘I can’t give you Communion because you live with a woman, and in the eyes of the church, that is a sin,’” she recalled Tuesday.

At her mother’s funeral. Classy, Fr. Guarnizo.

Now she and her family are trying to get him removed:

“You brought your politics, not your God into that Church yesterday, and you will pay dearly on the day of judgment for judging me,” she wrote in a letter to Guarnizo. “I will pray for your soul, but first I will do everything in my power to see that you are removed from parish life so that you will not be permitted to harm any more families.”

I would never do something like that. The priest was wronger than wrong — unless, of course, he’s also denying communion to the Gingriches — but my instinct in a case like that would always be to turn on my heel and never go back. If the Lord works in mysterious ways, He certainly has his own plans for Fr. McJudgey.

Wednesday nights belong to me, and so this night I shipped myself off to the big Elmore Leonard lecture at the War Memorial (our community center). I don’t often sit in a crowd of people and think, “I’m the youngest person here,” but I did tonight. Well, Leonard is 85 or 86 now, so I guess it all fit. He told all the stories, many of which I’ve heard before, about showbiz, mostly, and why so many of his work’s film adaptations suck. His favorite was “Jackie Brown” (my second-fave). “Out of Sight,” my first-fave, almost fell apart, but didn’t. And now, new life with “Justified,” which won a Peabody last year.

The event was staged as a conversation, with his longtime assistant/researcher, Gregg Sutter, guiding the show. Leonard forgets things from time to time, but the two have a good rhythm, and he (Leonard) always manages to squeeze a laugh out of his senior moments. It was a nice hour or so.

He said he didn’t like the idea of ending “Out of Sight,” the film, with Clooney. “It’s her story,” he told Scott Frank, the screenwriter. “It’s his movie,” Frank replied. Righty-o. That movie made the Cloonster a romantic lead.

Jeez, I’m beat. I’m aware the blog has been suffering of late, but until the end of April, I simply don’t have the time or energy to give it my all. But now that it’s March, that’s only eight weeks away! I will survive!

And now that we’re on the downslope of the week, I’m feeling a lot perkier.

Watching the Michigan returns come in tonight. Santorum went down by three points, although, as these things go, results are infinitely spinnable. It’s either the end of Santorum or a time for Strange New Respect. But it was fun while the two Republican frontrunners were hanging around, soaking their socks in all their foot-in-mouth moments. I imagine this is probably the beginning of the end of Santorumentum. By the end, he was claiming the recession was caused by high gas prices.

Not crazy about robocalls, however. They were coming in at a fast-and-furious pace toward the end, and for two weeks we could count on at least one or two messages on the machine at day’s end. New wrinkle: They now call you by name. “Hi, Nancy,” etc. And as always, someone wrote a piece about them, in which someone claims they must work, because otherwise the campaigns wouldn’t waste the money. I’d like to meet the person a robocall works on. It would have to skew old (more likely to have a land line), crazy or senile (actually listens to the call, perhaps thrilled that the phone has rung at all, and it’s for me! For me for me for me!) and extremely gullible (he voted for the debt limit five times? Count me out!). And then consider: These people vote. And young people don’t.

I look forward to being old myself. I think I’ll vote for Ron Paul.

One note: Nearly all the calls came from the Romney campaign or his super PAC, Restore Our Future. Those people weren’t taking anything for chance. I’d like to know what this easy walkover ended up costing the native son. Couldn’t have been cheap.

If you’re looking for great graphical presentation of the information, by the way, Talking Points Memo is very fine.

A quick skip to bloggage on Leap Day:

Watching Barry speak when he’s in the groove is like watching Secretariat eat up the homestretch in the Belmont Stakes. And he is en fuego here. Please, watch the video.

Roger Ebert makes a connection between Oscar nominees and “the base,” observing:

All nine Oscar finalists were, like Mitt Romney, good enough to be nominated. But none of them appealed to average multiplex moviegoers, just as it’s said Romney doesn’t appeal to the GOP base.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think there is a base anymore. Not in moviegoing, anyway.

Stephen Colbert finds a candidate for the GOP’s next rising star in Fort Wayne’s own Bob Morris. Represent, Hoosiers.

Have a good Wednesday. It’s a rainy one here. It starts with work and it ends with Elmore Leonard speaking in Grosse Pointe tonight. Can’t be bad, eh?