Thanks for your patience this morning. Evidently we had a server crash, but it’s fixed now, and y’all are free to move about the cabin.

This is one of those mornings where I feel like I’m living in a parallel universe than the one I woke up in yesterday, one where I can open the newspapers and read several different takes on the Jon Corzine grilling before Congress yesterday, and not read the following line:

At several points during the questioning, members of the committee leaned across the table and hissed through clenched teeth, “Where is the money, Mr. Corzine? WHERE IS THE GODDAMN MONEY?!?”

Because this is where I am simply in over my head. Maybe I don’t read closely enough. I certainly don’t understand finance at this level, other than the banal observation that it has a lot in common with a casino, only with computer screens instead of slot machines but the same hookers.

How does…I think the figure is up to $1 billion now, according to that NYT DealBook story linked above. How does $1 billion in customer money just up and walk away? WHERE IS IT? Because you tell me a billion dollars is missing, and my first thought is of the “Die Hard” movies, the last one of which featured Jeremy Irons stealing all the money in the world in a parade of dump trucks. Is Simon Gruber sitting on a beach in Tahiti, digging his toes in the sand and cackling over the unbelievable score sitting in his Swiss bank account?

And yet, scrolling through the stories about the implosion of MF Global, I read passages like this:

“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” said Corzine, 64, in his first public comments since his resignation was announced four days after the bankruptcy filing.

Or this:

When pressed by lawmakers at the House Agriculture Committee about whether he authorized a transfer of customer funds to firm accounts, Corzine said: “If I did, it was a misunderstanding.”

Or this:

“I’m not in a position, given the number of transactions, to know anything specific about the movement of any specific funds,” said Corzine, who took over as CEO more than a year and a half ago.

So, there were a “number of transactions” that siphoned off $1 billion? And now it’s gone, and no one knows where it went, and presumably a team — hell, an army — of forensic accountants are going to be billing a lot of hours for months on end, but for now, sorry, no one knows where it is?

I’m in the wrong business. And Simon Gruber, you sly dog.

I don’t always participate as fully in comment threads as I’d like — frequently I’m reading them on my phone while running errands, or otherwise can’t get to a keyboard, but I read every one, and I’d like to call a couple to your attention, if you don’t usually dip into the comments. One is MMJeff’s experience in dealing with Richard Cordray, which you should read if you haven’t yet, and the other was an offhand remark made by Basset, to the effect that his wife is a nurse and occasionally sees young women who make the living workin’ a pole, so to speak, with terrible skin infections. I’d like to know more about that, Basset. Also, don’t look at this picture.

Also, don’t read this story, although the headline is great: Castrating lambs with your teeth may make you sick. This must be a Spanish technique. I’m sure Cooz knows more.

I remember when Tim McVeigh was executed, his last statement was the text of “Invictus,” which my friend Lance Mannion, a former English professor, explained was kitsch, a killer going down with some bad 19th-century he-man poetry. It would appear he has a spiritual brother, Rod Blagojevich, who is fond of quoting Rudyard Kipling. Fortunately, Neil Steinberg found a more appropriate poem than “If,” the one Blagojevich likes to wave around.

One for you grammar nerds, from Nancy Friedman.

Excuse me. I seem to have something in my eye…

I’ll leave you with that. Let’s get this weekend under way, shall we?

I hope you guys are having a better Monday than I am. Funny how a gloomy morning after an all-night rain means one thing on Sunday — brew a bigger pot of coffee, read the entire newspaper front to back, maybe make gingerbread because we won’t be doing yard work today — and something else entirely on Monday. That is to say, ich.

But this is the Monday we have chosen, and as usual — AS USUAL — it intends to be difficult. So let’s go to the bloggage, eh?

You know how we can make education SO much BETTER? Turn it over to the American businessman, with his endless ingenuity and his new perspectives, unencumbered by the oldthink of the education establishment! Take it from this sadder-but-wiser student at something called Brown Mackie College in Fort Wayne, an institution that didn’t exist when I left town seven years ago. I think the deal was sealed for me when I learned this about the school’s corporate parent:

Goldman Sachs owns 41 percent of the company.

Say no more!

Seriously, though, it’s a good read. When I went to the TED conference last year, I ran into a guy who was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at Michigan, my brother in fellowship. He was a beat reporter for the AP, and was planning to spend his year studying this exploding field of for-profit education. It’s not that the schools are all as bad as this one — which has students with felony convictions enrolled in the criminal-justice program, a field they will never be able to enter — but they are mostly far more expensive than community-college options. In this particular case, 3X more expensive.

I don’t know how I missed this on the health beat when it was new, but its warning is timeless: Men who have sex with animals have a higher risk of developing penile cancer. The gems are in the last two paragraphs, in which we learn about the length of these relationships and, of course, the preferred species. Whinny!

JeffTMMO posted this on his Facebook, about the Kindle Fire:

Amazon seems to have learned a lesson from the late Steve Jobs, who derided the original Kindle: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore.” The company’s business model for the new tablet reflects the fact that Americans prefer to juggle a wide variety of games, apps, and videos rather than sit and focus on a book or essay. The case of the Kindle Fire demonstrates that today’s consumers embrace a lifestyle of interruption, multitasking, and limited focus. Unless we use the Fire and devices like it to read more books, our society may be driven to distraction.

I’ve embraced e-books, but not wholeheartedly. I think my one-word New Year’s resolution (a tradition introduced to me by Laura Lippman) will be: Focus. In other words, I’m going to be reading more paper books.

But I won’t be reading anything unless I get moving. So I am.

I’m a fan of prunes. Not gonna apologize. I’ve eaten them since I was a kid, although less in adulthood — their famous fiber-richness makes me fart, which becomes less cute in a woman as she ages. But for a quick sweet that doesn’t cost much, calorie-wise, you can’t beat a prune, and I buy a box from time to time.

I’ve watched the contortions of the California Prune Board over the years as they try to overcome their image as producers of something old people gum in a vain effort to get their bowels moving. Some of these have been more successful than others. You see prunes now offered in individual wrappers; I guess you’re supposed to toss a few in your gym bag or purse for when you feel your energy flagging. Then there was the rebranding as “dried plums,” which didn’t do any good, I gather. They’re back to prunes, but it appears this year’s marketing strategy is snob appeal:

You can see a package of the individually wrapped ones peeking out there.

Who knows if this will work in boosting American per-capita prune consumption. I have a booklet somewhere of prune recipes, and once tried to tempt my family into eating some prune bran muffins. (It didn’t work.) They weren’t very good — the heat from the oven made the prunes kind of leathery, and the batch turned out tasting a little like commune cuisine, c. 1970. No, your best bet with prunes is just to eat a couple at a time right out of the box. And then spend the next couple of hours in a private place with good cross ventilation.

Let’s have a linkfest today, shall we? I’m tired and I’d like to get some Christmas shopping done this afternoon. So…

Whoever came up with this gimmick — destress the law students at exam time with an order of puppies to go — certainly earned their paycheck. How do I get one? I’m under stress, too. Maybe with a side of kittens.

Whenever Newt Gingrich considers the world outside the Tiffany’s showroom, he steps in it. I can’t believe this guy was ever a teacher. I’d love to see what Rate My Profs would do to his doughy ass.

Guns N Roses — what’s left of them — played the Palace last night. One of my Facebook friends just posted that her husband left at 11 p.m., and they still hadn’t taken the stage yet. Axl must have had some doughnuts to clean off the backstage buffet yet. Anyway, sounds like no one missed much; an “inescapably generic experience,” the DetNews critic said (without mentioning the delay, oddly). Show still went three hours, with Axl leaving the stage during the many extended guitar solos. Doughnuts…mmmmm….

A short video that’s basically an audio clip, filed under Strange Bedfellows.

OK, I must flee. A good weekend to all.

Just to show that the day could still deteriorate, yesterday’s driving rain continued all damn day, although the wind picked up late morning, and sometime around noon, I got the screechy chirp from the CO detector that announces: Power failure.

And that went on all day.

Tuesday is Kate’s heavy-homework day, so the remainder of it was spent as a Flying Dutchman of wi-fi, cruising from the library (slow) to the coffee shop (slower), all in the slashing rain, until 10 p.m., at which point I threw in the towel, thanked my colleagues for covering for me (via instant message, the way we all communicate) and went home. At least I’d get a good night’s rest. Alan had a fire going and even though the house was 60 degrees by then, all was right with the world. I went to sleep at 11:30, unimaginable luxury for a weeknight.

The power came back on at 12:15 a.m., with the CO alarm shrieking. It was just the device resetting itself, but try going back to sleep after that.

At some point, the rain changed to snow, and we got our first dusting of the season. It’s all very picturesque. Just looking at it makes me want to hibernate. Pass the mashed potatoes.

No, not this year! I just took delivery on a pair of water-resistant workout pants, and I intend to layer them up with some high-tech longjohns and take on winter. Embrace it, even. Five months is too damn long to spend on the couch eating root vegetables in elastic waistbands.

And with that, Wednesday commences. Snow on the ground, massive puddles everywhere, the solstice still three weeks away. I hope it doesn’t kill us.

I have a couple questions for you deer-hunters out there: Do you age your meat at all? I ask because it’s the season, and I’m starting to see references to venison meals here and there, and all of them sound — how to put this? — repulsive. Here’s one from my Twitter feed today:

Paleo-bachelor Breakfast: ground venison and mustard.

May I just say? Ew. That’s from the guy I interviewed last year, the “cave man” who was featured first in the New York Times and later on the Colbert Report, which led to a book contract and a big advance and, as far as I can tell, an awful lot of tweeting and not much book-writin’. He amuses me as I watch from afar, because like so many people who’ve discovered a Thing, he spends a lot of time retrofitting everything he likes into his new lifestyle, and declaring it Good. When I interviewed him, I teased him because he called himself a hunter-gatherer, but had never been hunting (he had taken a class about it, though) and did all of his gathering at farmer’s markets and various high-end delis in Manhattan. How can you grow up in Michigan and know nothing about deer-hunting? I asked. Quite easily, evidently.

Well, he must have finally gotten serious about it, because he went out during gun season and bagged what looked from the photos to have been a yearling at best, but no worries — we have many more deer than we need here, and that’s one less for me to hit with the car next spring. And now I’m hearing about every meal via social media, and it’s reminding me why I can count the decent venison meals I’ve eaten in my life on one or two fingers. To be good eatin’, an animal has to be either fat or the meat well-aged, in my experience. Aging requires a constant low-but-not-too-cold temperature, and while most garages would probably suffice, the time it would take to properly age a deer carcass might make the “constant” part tricky. A duck hunter I know hangs the birds in his breezeway/mud room, but ducks are pretty small and ripen quickly.

So, just wondering. Basset?

I should get a little work done before I hit the shower. For you among my constituency who ever toiled at newspapers in the region known as Michiana, you lost one of your best readers last week. Ron Reason writes about his mother:

As early as I can recall, Carolyn had the Michigan City News Dispatch and/or the La Porte Herald-Argus (or weekly Town-Crier) in her lap, was awaiting their arrival or remarking on their contents. It was just a household habit – to get the paper, devour it, fight over the sections, talk about it. Even if it became a lament at times of “there’s nothing in this damn thing,” my parents have regularly received two or more regional papers for decades. It wasn’t unusual to see one or two other papers bought from the newsstand, lying on the family room floor or waiting to go into recycle, when I’d return home to visit. The South Bend Tribune was always added to the mix on Sundays.

…Her devotion to typo-hunting, I think, made us kids try harder on spelling tests or when taking our turn at a spelling bee. Her laughter at the latest Erma Bombeck column (I know I’m taking some readers way back here, anyone else who doesn’t know Erma, just Google her) made us appreciate the wacky side of life, and made me try my hand at column writing. I tested the waters in my high school paper, then in the teen pages of the Westville Indicator and Herald-Argus, and later at the Indiana Daily Student, my college paper at IU-Bloomington. I got hooked.

It’s a wonderful remembrance, but I have to say that if my daughter were to follow her parents into newspaper journalism? (Shudder.) My BFF held a variety of positions at the Michigan City News-Dispatch. I trust Mrs. Reason wasn’t the lady who called one day to chide her for printing all those front-page photos of black children playing at the beach in summer, “because people will see that, and think we’re as bad as Gary.”

I’m glad the cool weather is here, and Coozledad has more time to update his blog. He got a new solar-powered farm vehicle. Looks like it’d be great for deer-hunting.

Dexter mentioned the death of Patrice O’Neal yesterday. He was a funny guy.

Have a good Wednesday. Let’s hope everything stays turned on, dry and out of the ditch today.

We’ll know we live in a just society if someone goes to jail for this:

During MF Global’s last chaotic days, the brokerage firm overdrew an account at JPMorgan, according to another person who is close to the matter. Some investigators now believe the firm used customer funds to patch at least some of the hole, which would have been a significant breach of federal law.

This is a story on the discovery of one-third of the missing customer funds at MF Global, which you might recall amounted to $600 million. So this is $200 million, “found” at JPMorgan.

Who should go to jail? Let’s start at the top, with Jon Corzine, and yes, pals of mine, he is a Democrat. Noted. Democrat Democrat Democrat. Then let’s work our way down. When five or six of these clowns are wearing jumpsuits, including at least one member of the board of directors, I’ll be happy. However, I believe true justice in this matter will be like finding a film violent enough to warrant an NC-17 rating. It can’t be done.

You know what kills me about these stories? How these alleged financial geniuses essentially run their firm’s finances the way your average paycheck-to-paycheck working slob does — moves a little here to there, borrows from mom, has markers out throughout the network. It’ll all be OK in a few more days, when that check arrives.

Who woke up with the grumps this morning? I guess that would be me. Last night the second of our three laptop power cords fell into the sure-go-ahead-and-use-this-BURN-YOUR-HOUSE-DOWN range, so there’s another $77 expense in December. In the interest of noting that this development represents a serious shortcoming in my own constituency, I will acknowledge that power cords are the Achilles heel of Apple products — at least the laptops — and even veer into the realm of serious suckage. I’ve never had one last the life of the computer. They all break at the end that connects to the unit.

And it rained all damn night, hard, continues to rain, and will likely do so for another couple of hours. It’s a perfect day to stay in bed, but it’s a Tuesday, and so: Extra coffee.

What other free-floating irritants are there on my radar today? How about Ohio State’s new football coach, the $4 million man? Four million. A year. Please, the next time one of these entitled douchingtons is caught covering up for a boy-buggerer, let’s spare the world our shock and dismay. Of course it won’t be Urban Meyer, because he is a “devout Catholic,” I learn via the always authoritative Wikipedia. But it’ll be someone else, and at least we’ll know why it happened. Money talks. It just doesn’t always say what you want it to.

Anything else? I can only laugh about Herman Cain, which is what I’ve been doing from the beginning. Ginger White has a moll’s name, doesn’t she, although “Roxy” or “Tootie” might be even more fitting. She said Herman made her feel special and took her out of her “humdrum life” by flying her around to conferences to meet him as his paramour. Will this affect his stock on the Fox News exchange? Doubtful. Might even bump it a little. Shows he can play with the big boys.

Oh, and you journos won’t want to miss this from Craig Newmark, of the eponymous list, complaining that he can’t trust the news anymore. I am reminded of a line from Brian Krakow, my favorite character from “My So-Called Life,” who once observed, “How much more ironic can you get without, like, puking?” That’s unfair, of course — newspapers were felled by their own stupid management, which Newmark only nudged along. But if I can just say this: The link within this note, about how to improve “fact checking” in the media, promises coverage of an event held by Jeff Jarvis (red flag!) on the topic, featuring “a bunch of players in this arena (playing) well together.” The link leads to something on Storify, which is another 21st-century new-media nightmare, a startup that creates “stories” out of social-media postings, i.e. tweets and Facebook status updates, I gather. Just looking at it made me summon my inner Hank, and bellow I AM STICKING TO MY WAYS, and if you want me to read a story about your fooking event, take the fooking time to craft a coherent narrative of the fooking thing, because otherwise, I’m gone.

But that’s just me. YMMV, as we say on the internet.

OK, it’s getting late and it continues to rain. The coffee is fully engaged and I’m actually feeling pretty good, for a Tuesday. Don’t mind the bitching. I’m off to grade papers!

Around this time of year, my night-shift job becomes rather tedious, as the holidays ramp up and health journalism turns to two tired topics: how to avoid overeating (before the new year) and how to lose those holiday pounds (after).

I have already seen a dozen iterations of this story — 15 tips, er, “useful suggestions” on how not to gain weight at Thanksgiving — and will see dozens more by New Year’s Eve. I’ve always despised this sort of filler copy; as my husband likes to say, “Where would we be without newspapers to remind us to wear sunscreen?” What’s more, so much of it simply pure, unadulterated bullshit:

Turkey skin has considerably more calories than the breast. Turkey skin is very high in fat. …Supposedly healthy low fat foods, such as some vegetables, carrots, soups, or mashed potatoes may have been prepared with lots of butter and are laden with fat. If you are cooking, try putting a little less than you did last year. If you were not involved in their preparation, try to find out (discreetly) how they were prepared. …If you are trying to watch your calories, don’t have a second helping. You should not be hungry if you have chewed carefully, consumed plenty of water, and selected a good quantity of low calorie foods.

That last passage? There really are earlier tips advising people to chew thoroughly and drink lots of “calorie-free water” during their meal.

How many Atkins dieters have to lose how many millions of pounds on a diet of fat and protein before we acknowledge that perhaps we’ve been led down the primrose path when it comes to dietary fat? Atkins isn’t for me, or for anyone who really cares about food, but there’s no question that it works as a weight-loss strategy with those with the will to endure it. And yet, concerns over minor amounts of fat in turkey skin and the traditional sides is the basis for much of the alleged journalism perpetrated around this time of year.

Fie on it all. And if anyone discreetly asks me how I make my mashed potatoes, they’re getting a face full of ’em.

Because this is the holiday for gratitude, however, let’s show a little. A short list of the year’s blessings:

** Family, friends, related human beings, without whom life would be grim indeed;
** Animals to remind me how strange all of the above really are;
** Having the basics covered — food, shelter, indoor climate control;
** All my NN.c peeps. I continue to be amazed and amused by how our community here grows, changes, supports and enhances what I do in this space every day. Someday, this all will pass. But for now, it makes my life so much richer and more interesting.

So with that, a jump to bloggage:

From Eric Zorn, the state of Illinois awaits its Fort Sumter moment.

One of the things I love about this holiday is how deliciously it demonstrates the diversity of the United States while still honoring its commonalities; I love to read stories about how different ethnic groups do Thanksgiving, with antipasti starters, pierogi and kimchi side dishes. Of course, some people will never, ever be happy about that. New York magazine catches up with crazy Pamela Geller and her Butterball j’accuse: Halal turkeys! Is nothing sacred?

Tom & Lorenzo give J-Lo a WERQ, and I have to say, she does look spectacular here. How does she still look so great at a time when her peers are starting to overdue it with facial fillers and Botox? I’m going with “because she hasn’t dieted herself down to a skeleton.” What do you think?

OK, I’m off to make my brine. Happy holiday, safe travels and remember: Only discreetly ask how the sides were prepared. It’ll save you a black eye, unless it doesn’t. Back here on Monday.

So I’ve started reading the HuffPo Detroit, or rather, I’m reading the things my Facebook and Twitter contacts believe worthy of posting. One was this restaurant review, which I clicked as part of my never-ending quest to find a decent meal outside my own kitchen.

Nora Ephron once said all restaurant criticism can be boiled down to, “The (noun) was (complimentary adjective) but the (noun) was (uncomplimentary adjective),” e.g., “The beef was succulent but the sauce was bland,” or “The appetizers wowed but the desserts were disappointing,” etc. But that was many years ago, before citizen journalism.

This particular piece is about a Mexican/Italian place in southwest Detroit. Fusion? Never gets around to saying, although a glance at the website reveals it’s simply two menus. There’s also no address offered. As for the review itself, it’s a symphony of solely complimentary adjectives and adverbs, with notes of unintentional humor — a “hand selected” wine list, etc. I enjoyed this sentence, too:

All smelling deliciously fragrant and looking excellent upon presentation, the four of us decided to share our dishes with one another.

You know, I’ve never been one of those people who describes my job as a profession. It’s a craft at best, and anyone can do it. But we have standards, generally agreed-upon rules, which aren’t hard to learn. You could print who-what-where-when-why on a matchbook or cocktail napkin, for cryin’ out loud. And yet, every day the new wave in journalism demonstrates the public doesn’t give a fat rat’s ass about rules, standards or subject-verb agreement. If you want Free, well, this is what free is.

Li’l Miss Grumpy Pants, getting off on the right foot today.

A couple of minor housekeeping notes: I think after tomorrow, that’ll be it for the week. I’ll try to get some photo posts up for the weekend, just to give y’all something to hang your discussions about the holiday and whatever on. And Friday is my (mumble) birthday, and I think I’ll renew an old tradition of full, gainful employment and take a personal day, maybe take a walk downtown or see a movie or somethin’. Has anyone seen “Take Shelter”? I’m thinking Michael Shannon is my new movie boyfriend.

Actually, I’m already feeling a little tapped, idea-wise. We could always go with the On This Date in History space-filler:

I gotta tell you, I don’t have a story associated with this one. It was days before my sixth birthday. I don’t recall a teacher telling us anything, and even my in-home memories are murky. At some point I must have watched it — my parents weren’t the sort of people to ignore news like that — but the standard where-were-you-when-it-happened discussion always leaves me cold. I was in Columbus, Ohio, in first grade. Done.

Now, I look at that clip and think: Now there was a broadcaster. And a journalist. Back when you could be both.

Ten-thirty, and it’s not going to get any easier from here on out. Why don’t you guys take the helm, while I send nine million emails and write a story?

We sure do spend a lot of time worrying about things like this:

Especially when a far more effective odor neutralizer is available as close as your nearest matchbook. But it probably doesn’t smell like rainbows and unicorns, either.

And that’s why I’m glad my cell phone has a camera in it. Because you never know what you’ll find at the hardware store.

I hope it’s not too abrupt — or distasteful — to change the subject to food now. I have to apologize for not including a Saturday Morning Market photo last weekend, because I was certainly there, but conditions in the scrum in front of the poultry sellers weren’t conducive to photography. I got my turkey — a breast, anyway. And I got most of the other elements of the traditional meal. After years of trying to make Thanksgiving mine, I’m giving up and letting it be everyone else’s. Menu: Turkey, dressing, mashed you-know-whats, green beans with roasted onions, Waldorf salad, pie. No more sweet potatoes (I’m the only one who eats them). No more trying to nudge the feast to a later hour; Alan’s sister can never spend the night, so a late lunch is the best I can do. I will not give up the wine, and anyone who tries to make me, I will cut. It makes the afternoon snooze that much easier.

New this year: Brining. Never done that one. I’m using the Pioneer Woman’s recipe. Any advice would be appreciated.

Detroit is a great Thanksgiving town, maybe the best. Natives do the parade (usually as the guest of someone with an office or condo overlooking the route), maybe the Turkey Trot run, followed by the Lions game, followed by dinner. One of these days.

Monday, Monday, how I hate thou thee. Let’s blog it up and get on the road.

From David Frum, the cri de coeur of the moderate Republican:

We don’t usually delude others until after we have first deluded ourselves. Some of the smartest and most sophisticated people I know—canny investors, erudite authors—sincerely and passionately believe that President Barack Obama has gone far beyond conventional American liberalism and is willfully and relentlessly driving the United States down the road to socialism. No counterevidence will dissuade them from this belief: not record-high corporate profits, not almost 500,000 job losses in the public sector, not the lowest tax rates since the Truman administration. It is not easy to fit this belief alongside the equally strongly held belief that the president is a pitiful, bumbling amateur, dazed and overwhelmed by a job too big for him—and yet that is done too.

Come the revolution, I look forward to escorting these people to the gallows personally:

Carriers on international flights are offering private suites for first-class passengers, three-star meals and personal service once found only on corporate jets. They provide massages before takeoff, whisk passengers through special customs lanes and drive them in a private limousine right to the plane. Some have bars. One airline has installed showers onboard.

For those who haven’t heard, Jim Romenesko is back. First post: His side of the Poynter story.

And with that, I’m off. A short week, and after today, it will improve markedly. Hope yours does, too.

I think it’s safe to describe my mental state this morning as “knackered,” and can I get a huzzah for British English? We need more words like knackered. I think Gawker did a thing a few days ago, about what British terms we need to import, and my answer is: All of them. Take the lift to the fifth floor and tell your mates how your flat is being sprayed for insects. My brother’s favorite is “artic” for the tractor-trailer most Americans call a semi. (It’s an articulated lorry.)

And while Gawker mentions the bathroom/loo thing, I think we could do worse than adopt the even blunter toilet.

Second cup of coffee and I could still go back to sleep. So let’s make this a link-a-licious day, if I can find any.

From the Department of Elections Have Consequences, a couple of dispatches from the field. We’ve already seen that when one party is swept into office, crowing, “Jobs are our only priority,” it’s only a matter of time before we get a bunch of bills about abortion. It’s what you do when you have a safe majority — ram those suckers through before the tide turns. And so, in Wisconsin, we have a bill that would change what teachers are required to tell students about birth control (yay, abstinence! Contraception? What’s that?). Here in Michigan, a Republican from over there in Dutchistan is trying to strip domestic-partner benefits from staffs at state-funded colleges and universities. It would save the state “millions,” although I’m not sure how, because presumably the people who lose their bennies would be more likely to leave the employ of, say, the University of Michigan, and be replaced by heterosexuals, who would then take advantage of the benefit, but go figure.

Note this representative’s bio — he’s a retired airline pilot, and looks exactly like Leslie Nielsen in the “Airplane!” movies. I guess he really took those “ever seen a grown man naked” jokes personally.

P.S. He doesn’t use the term “domestic partner.” His website prefers the douchier “taxpayer-funded healthcare for roommates.”

Keep it classy, College Republicans.

Someone please tell me this is a joke.

Just because I want to be an equal-opportunity critic of bad ideas, someone tell me how the subway disruptions are going today.

If I understood high finance better I wouldn’t be blogging at 9 a.m. on a weekday, so I need some help here, too: Is it really possible MF Global actually lost $600 million in customer funds? Or was it all taken by Jeremy Irons, avenging the death of his brother, Hans Gruber?

Finally, a moment of silence, please, for the composer of “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini,” dead at 87.

Off to the showers.

Grantland, the sports/culture website with all the big names, has been a must-read since this Penn State business began, and I’ve been stopping by daily. Yesterday they posted yet another Michael Weinreb essay on State College, his third since the scandal broke and, for the record, the one that finally broke my patience.

Weinreb is a good writer, and I appreciated his pieces on what it’s like to grow up there, and another on the riot, but with this one, on going home for the Nebraska game, is one mournful sax solo too far:

In State College, we liked to think we looked after each other, and then we found out that some of the most prominent members of our community had failed to look after helpless children, and because of our lifelong emotional attachments we now feel like we are being branded as complicit in these crimes.

“It’s like people are on the outside, saying, ‘You don’t get it,'” I heard a man say. “And we’re on the inside, saying, ‘You don’t get it.'”

May I just say this? I get it. We get it. Everyone gets it. And by getting it, I’m sorry, but maybe it’s time you faced the truth, Weinreb and Eavesdropped-Upon Man and everyone else there who might be monitoring their shock and dismay and sense of loss. Ready?

YOU’RE NOT SPECIAL.

Sorry, but it’s true. No one thinks you’re complicit in evil, but maybe, by promulgating this myth of Happy Valley and Success With Honor and all the rest of this Big 10 bullshit, you’re a tiny part of the problem.

That’s what I think is happening here: It’s not that we are condoning child rape, and it’s not that we don’t recognize our obligation to the victims above all else. It’s that we are condemning all that Jerry Sandusky is accused of and trying to make it right while also dealing with this involuntary response to the death throes of a way of life.

“You have to live in the middle of this contradiction,” a Penn State sociology professor, Sam Richards, told a class that Lori Shontz of the Penn Stater magazine sat in on. “You have to live in this zone where both [situations] can be true, and it’s very, very, very difficult. But part of becoming a thinker is to sit with two contradictory thoughts in your head and see them both as being true. And not go crazy. And not immediately try to resolve them. And so we’re offering that to you. Sit with that. Because this is big. That’s big.”

Oh, please. Did that statement really require three verys? It’s not big. It’s not big at all. It’s not so hard to understand, either. Ask any Catholic who’s been paying attention in the last decade or so, and what’s more? It’s a lesson they should be learning in college anyway: The arrival of Columbus in North America was the beginning of a genocidal disaster for native populations, as well as a march toward freedom and wealth not only for the Europeans who followed, but for the rest of the world as well. Discuss.

What exists in State College exists in many, many other places. Columbus and Ann Arbor, to name but two of my immediate experience. Let’s think of some more, starting with the easy ones — virtually any city with a Big 10 school in it, with the obvious exception of Bloomington, although if you’re talking basketball, that’s another story. Tuscaloosa, Gainesville, Tallahassee. Wherever Texas A&M is. Oklahoma. Et-freakin’-cetera. All have vigorous football programs and devout fan bases, and aren’t so different from central Pennsylvania. Maybe they don’t have coaches they refer to as Pop-Pop or Baba or Gramps or whatever, but the depth of feeling for the team and the experience of going to the games? The same. Your stadium’s smaller than Michigan’s and less grand than Ohio State’s. They party hard elsewhere, they have beloved rituals and favorite chants and jeez, have you even been to a football game elsewhere? Ever met a Notre Dame fan, a Domer? They’re as bad as you guys. I’m sure you’d get along like aces.

All this you-don’t-understand-stuff is part of the collective defense mechanism. Every 19-year-old kid who had a mic stuck in his face in the last week and said, “It’s different here,” needs to learn it’s not true. Because while it’s benign coming out of his mouth, it’s only the flip side of the justification that allowed everyone who participated in this coverup to do so in the name of the special-special Penn State football program and special-special-special State College, which must be preserved at any cost.

It’s hard for younger people to get over themselves. Most of them haven’t been beaten down by life yet (except for the unlucky ones in Jerry Sandusky’s Second Mile program), and they’ve grown up watching themselves on TV, of seeing their fifth-grade soccer team preserved between the pages of a book (custom-made by the clever mom with the Shutterfly account), maybe in a video (made by the same Mom, the one with the iMac) with slo-mo effects and the “Chariots of Fire” theme music.

And they’re enabled by pieces like this. Why don’t we stop? It’s a special place, State College and Penn State, but it’s no more special than any other, and if it’s a rude awakening for everyone who loves it to learn it has rot at its core, then it’s time to learn, and stop writing this self-indulgent nonsense.

I think that’s why that Charles Pierce column the day before was so bracing. It’s nice to hear from someone who doesn’t speak with the alma mater playing softly in the background.

So, then. Bloggage? Hmmm…

I see Florida finally executed Oba Chandler. I couldn’t remember why the case rang a bell, until I read the details — Chandler killed a mother and her two teenage daughters, who’d lived in Willshire, a tiny Ohio town I used to drive through between Fort Wayne and Columbus. It was a ghastly story that got a little more play in our part of the world than yours, most likely. The Ohio women were vacationing in the Tampa area, and apparently met a nice guy who offered to take them all on a boat ride. All three were raped and strangled before he dumped them in the bay. I recommend this story about Hal Rogers, the husband and father who survived them. There’s a note of bleak November in it:

The first snow of the season fell over Van Wert County late last Thursday afternoon, not long before dark.

Hal was busy inside a drying bin, shoveling corn toward an auger that ferried the grain into wagons waiting outside. When the snow came blowing in, it swirled with red chaff from the corn and engulfed the wagons in a cloud of white and maroon.

A strange and beautiful sight, but Hal had no time to notice. Already a month behind schedule, he was lost in concentration.

“I haven’t shoveled corn this wet in thirty years,” he said.

Shudder.

Lighten up with a brief roundup of three Mrs. O looks, detailed by T&L. I liked the first and last, meh on the second, but she certainly looks presentable in all three. I especially like the pink-and-gray dress, probably because it’s a look I couldn’t work in a thousand years. Or a thousand shoulder presses.

Online slide shows are cheap eyeball bait and this one — New Gingrich looking at people condescendingly — isn’t even funny, but there are some closeups of his horrible mug that sort of made me barf a little.

Office hours today, gotta run. Happy birthday to Adrianne, my husband and daughter. Not to mention Elvis Whitehead, r.i.p.