Election Day. Considering how I spent Election Day eve — covering a three-and-a-half-hour school board meeting, because with 20 students in my public-affairs journalism class, of course every single one wasn’t available last night — I don’t have much for you folks to chew on. But may I make an off-site suggestion?

Stop by the Michigan Truth Squad site, and savor what we’ve been dealing with here for the last month. And we didn’t even get to all of them. But there’s Debbie Spend-it-now (video now scrubbed from the internet) and Lookalike Mitt and Rhetorical Question-fest.

Me, I’m off to the polls. But you have a fresh thread to pile up in.

It seems too much to hope that the copy for Jennifer Lopez’ and Cameron Diaz’ presentation speech at the Oscars was written with the former’s ghastly outfit in mind, isn’t it? But how delicious to see J-Lo, with her nipples nearly exposed, reading the line about how Edith Head believed a dress should be tight enough to show you’re a woman, but loose enough to show you’re a lady.

I know, I know, they’re lovely breasts and she’s a lovely woman. But she has two kids now, and criminy — put ’em away once in a while. Long enough for us to miss them.

Nice to see T-Lo agree with me.

I actually fell asleep for a large chunk of the broadcast. I’m sure millions of others did, too.

But I was awake for Meryl Streep. I knew she was going to win when I saw her show up in that gold dress. Match the statue, girl. You know what I find so amazing about her? She was crazy in love with John Cazale back in the day, and was going to marry him, but he died tragically young. She picked herself up, dusted herself off, married a nice sculptor six months later (yes, six months — the unimpeachable Wikipedia says so) and has stayed married to him to this day — thirty-some years. Impressive, for two artists.

And “The Artist” it is. Haven’t seen it.

With that, award season is officially wrapped and we can assume films released after today won’t suck outright. We watched “Exporting Raymond” on HBO over the weekend, a film made for on-demand cable, in the sense that it was slight enough you’d have been pissed to pay $8 to see it in a theater, but still worth watching, especially for a Russophile like me. It’s about the development of the Russian version of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” retitled “Everybody Loves Kostya,” but mostly about the ways Phil Rosenthal, the show’s creator, can’t communicate with Russians, even with the best translators at his disposal.

And God help me, but I think I want to see “Goon,” too. It looks like 90 percent of its humor comes from Canadian accents. Which are funny.

OK, so: Campaign season in Michigan, let’s see what the boys are up to. Rick Santorum “presses culture-war attack,” the WashPost says. Oh he does, does he? Ahem:

Campaigning here Saturday, Santorum said Obama’s focus on higher education constitutes “indoctrination” into the president’s way of thinking.

“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob,” said the former senator from Pennsylvania. “There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor to try to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.”

…Asked Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” how his faith fits in with his ideas about governing, Santorum said he disagreed with the “absolute separation” between church and state outlined by Kennedy in a 1960 speech.

Santorum said reading the speech made him want to “throw up.”

(Dryly rubbing hands together.) Excellent.

And how was your weekend?

Late Thursday evening, and I’m waiting for snow. We’re supposed to get a pile overnight, and I’d like to get a sense of what it might be before I turn in. If the pile arrives, I’ll work here tomorrow. No pile, off to Lansing (City of Light, City of Magic) at oh-dark-30.

In the meantime, I’m watching “Cellblock 6: Female Lockup” on TLC. Women in prison is an erotic archetype for some guys, a fact I’ve been aware of since seeing “The Big Bird Cage” at a drive-in in Ironton, Ohio, sometime around 1972. In an early scene, one of the birds makes a break for it, running for her life while naked and covered with grease. Oh, brother, I recall thinking, wondering how much longer until “Superfly” started.

The first few minutes, featuring a young Pam Grier in a white halter top/bellbottoms outfit. Also, this exchange, between an abducted woman and her kidnapper:

Woman: What are you going to do to me?
Man: Well, first I’m gonna rape ya.
Woman: You can’t rape me. I like sex.

I miss the ’70s. (Except that part.) Not ashamed.

(Later.)

As we’ve come to expect this winter, the snow underwhelmed here in Michigan’s banana belt. Between here and the capital, however, it’s deep and messy and so: It’s an at-home day for me.

But I have to get to work. So here’s some bloggage:

I got through most of this yesterday, Slate’s exhaustive look at Mitt Romney’s evolving abortion position. It’s pretty clear to me that there’s been little evolution at all, except in Romney’s packaging of his beliefs. For me, I keep coming back to Ann Keenan, the sister of Romney’s brother-in-law, who died of a botched illegal abortion in 1963. Once it was important to Romney. Not anymore, I guess. Well, 1963 was a long time ago.

The only voters in play for this primary are the tea partiers, anyway.

Via one of my FB network, “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?,” in French. Because.

Slush. This is winter? Please.

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.