If it’s Tuesday morning, it must be time for trash-picking. Starting in the wee hours, a person who — to use a hypothetical — absorbs her morning coffee and warms up for her day by writing on her stupid new-media weblog while looking out the front window, could expect to see a series of trash-pickers examining the neighborhood’s garbage for items of value. They arrive in beat-up vans and Sanford & Son pickups, occasionally on a bicycle, and they seem to be in the market for just about anything. Old baby toys, furniture that hasn’t been rained on too much, metal — this is the currency of the new economy.

Every few days someone discovers that Onion video on how the death of print journalism will affect old loons who hoard newspapers, but I think I have the answer: Old loons will hoard broken Little Tikes plastic toys. They will gather them from my street.

In general, I’m not one of those people who frets over the steadily filling landfills and the sustainability of our plastics obsession, but two things make me nuts — bottled water and Little Tikes toddler-size picnic tables at the curb. Get a Brita pitcher and put the kiddie goods in your garage sale. They have the half-life of plutonium, and trash-pickers can’t get them all, people.

And if you’re looking for a fresh Onion video to send around, I suggest this one: Stouffer’s to include suicide prevention tips on single-serve microwavable meals.

Last night’s big story on the drug-news beat was this AP piece about Michael Jackson’s doctor, and his curious behavior during and after the singer’s death last year. He allegedly stopped CPR on the cooling corpse so he could start collecting all the drug vials lying around the room, a spectacular, cinematic image, in my opinion. If I were staging it, I’d set up one of those arm-sweeps-across-the-table-into-a-trash-bag shots. He is also said to have done this under the eyes of two of Jackson’s children, who cried until a nanny was summoned to hustle them away. (That’s the fate of wealthy children everywhere, isn’t it? Someone is always shooing them out of the room, another stock shot from the movie playbook.) I wonder what they thought all those times when they wandered in to see their father laid out like a corpse, catching up on his beauty sleep with the help of IV anesthetic. Poor little Paris at the funeral, sobbing, “Ever since I was born, my daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine and I just want to say I love him so much.” Here’s the thing, though: All daddies are the best daddy you could ever imagine to their 11-year-olds. It’s when the kids grow up a little more and realize there are daddies who don’t need medicine to get a little shuteye that the problems start. In that sense, MJ had excellent timing.

But that was nothing, the story continues:

The documents also detail an odd encounter with Murray after Jackson was declared dead at a nearby hospital. Murray insisted he needed to return to the mansion to get cream that Jackson had “so the world wouldn’t find out about it,” according to the statements, which provide no elaboration.

The cream? Hmm. The story goes on to describe the death drug, propofol, as “a milky white liquid,” and — did I just write “death drug?” What is it about some stories that just bring out the tabloid reporter in us all, completely unbidden? — but provides no further explanation of what the shameful cream might be. Fortunately, Gawker is on the case with uninformed speculation, i.e., the best kind.

(Another trash-picker just blew through. Sanford & Son pickup this time, miscellaneous metal in the back. Someday the entirety of Detroit will consist of recycled metal elsewhere.)

I took the time this morning to read this local reaction to the health-care bill this morning. First quote of the piece:

“We all have been passive for a very long time and haven’t taken part in government and now it’s time. I don’t like the health care bill. I don’t like government intrusion. And I don’t like my loss of freedom.”

Follow-up question: Do you drive a car? Does the government requirement that you carry auto insurance restrict your freedom? No? Thanks very much. Next!

The Thomas More Law Center — a national public interest law firm in Ann Arbor — also plans to file a federal lawsuit challenging the bill, said Richard Thompson, the firm’s president.

Note the liberal-media bias in describing that outfit, which describes itself as “Christianity’s answer to the ACLU.” As they’re known more for their high-profile losses — the Dover, Pa., intelligent-design case, Terry Schiavo — than their wins, I wish them their customary luck.

OK, then. The clock in the steeple draws close to 10, and soon the trash men — the real ones — will be here. Time to put ours out.

Big night on the health-care beat last night. I started working last night just after Baby Killer Bart had struck his deal, and it became Done. I kept CSPAN on as long as I could stand it, but that wasn’t long. Does listening to the House of Representatives, or Congress in general, ever lead you to a certain stirring pride in being an American? Yeah, me neither. I can’t listen for long without getting depressed, so I turned it off. Once the deal is done, it’s all over but the whining. It was interesting to see that Mary Bono is still in Congress. Excuse me, Mary Bono Mack. Let’s check the wiki-bio, shall we?

Bono married Wyoming businessman Glenn Baxley in 2001 about 18 months after the two met in Mexico. They filed for divorce in 2005. On December 15, 2007, Mary married Congressman Connie Mack IV from Florida in Asheville, North Carolina. …Known for her dedication to physical fitness. …Her district includes the highest percentage of gays and lesbians of any district represented by a Republican. …Bono Mack followed the Republican Party line 89% of the time according to Congressional Quarterly. In 2004 she earned an 84% approval rating from the Christian Coalition, but this fell to 33% in 2008. In 1999, she voted in favor of the Largent amendment, to ban adoption by same-sex couples in Washington, DC. Bono has, however, voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment twice. …Bono Mack was a leading proponent of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, the so-called “Mickey Mouse Law”, which extended the terms of copyright. Giving a speech on the floor of Congress in favor of the bill, Bono said: “Actually, Sonny wanted the term of copyright protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would violate the Constitution.”

In other words, she went to Washington, liked what she saw, settled in — married a local — and now would probably say she “votes her conscience,” or whatever. I hope you’re happy, Palm Springs. She’ll likely be there until they carry her out feet-first.

I’m trying to imagine how we might pay royalties to the heirs of John Philip Sousa every time the band strikes up “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

I can’t decide whether this blog by David Frum is brave or just the reaction of a a hard-working White House butler at the Andrew Jackson inauguration party, i.e., who let all this riffraff in?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or – more exactly – with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?

Whatever it is, it’s fun to read. I’ve frequently said, over the years, that the Republicans of my adulthood bore little resemblance to the ones of my childhood, i.e., the nice country-club members who wanted their taxes cut, but would have fainted from mortification had anyone asked about their relationship with Jesus. I don’t know how many of their ilk are looking around today and asking who invited these thugs into their party. I hope at least a few.

Anyway, it’s over now. The Democrats will lose seats in November; the party in power usually does. But if Frum is right — if the steadily improving economy will take some wind out of the Tea Party’s sails by fall — then there will be a reckoning. Eventually.

Side link on Frum’s site: A video extra on how Rahm Emanuel lost his middle finger, from his “60 Minutes” interview. I had no idea the accident was that serious, having only heard the Obama-at-the-roast version, in which the loss of Emanuel’s all-important second digit “tragically rendered him nearly mute.”

One last point before I move on to the fluffier bloggage: Like most moderate Americans, I was frustrated by the line Stupak et al drew over so-called abortion funding; I keep seeing the figure 80 percent of private plans offer abortion coverage — is this true? If so, are all the pro-lifers in the country who were willing to smash this bill to smithereens over a few percentages of a penny of federal money that might go to someone’s abortion, are they willing to repudiate their employer-paid private insurance coverage and either go bareback or buy from a different company out of pocket? I bet …not. Just a thought.

And from the Department of Revisionist History, Newt Gingrich predicts doom, doom for the Dems:

But former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama and the Democrats will regret their decision to push for comprehensive reform. Calling the bill “the most radical social experiment . . . in modern times,” Gingrich said: “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years” with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

The GOP: Happy to Profit From Others’ Doing of the Right Thing for 50 Years.

OK, then.

I’ve doubted Patti Smith’s status as a working-class hero ever since I learned she sent her son not to the public schools of St. Clair Shores, Michigan, but the Grosse Pointe Academy. This weekend brought more proof, via the NYT:

Necks craned for a glimpse of Patti Smith as she settled at her customary corner table at Da Silvano in Greenwich Village, a favorite afternoon haunt, earlier this month. The wonder was that the patrons, silver haired and sleekly buffed, could pick her out at all. Ms. Smith was understated, even self-effacing in her mannish jacket, boater shirt and beat-up jeans. …So it was surprising to learn that her roomy gray jacket, with cuffs that unfasten at the wrist, was designed by Ann Demeulemeester, a high priestess of Parisian vanguard chic. Her jeans were Ralph Lauren, prized by Ms. Smith for their racy lines. Her boots, a gift from Johnny Depp, who wore them as the Mad Hatter in “Alice in Wonderland,” were the perfect fit, Ms. Smith exulted, “like when the magic cobbler made your shoes.”

I guess Johnny Depp doesn’t give boots from Payless. And Demeulemeester is “a longtime friend and collaborator,” so I doubt she pays retail. And I suppose the lady can afford it. Still.

Manic Monday awaits. And we’re off!

I’m told my alma mater pulled off the first big upset of the NCAA tournament. Ohio University humiliated the Hoyas of Georgetown — and boy, I can still do that headline alliteration, ain’a? — 97-83. For the record, this pleases me. For reals, (shrug). I cannot care about this stuff. I didn’t care about sports when I was a student there, so I can hardly start now. But knowing that huge upsets are part of the DNA of this tournament, I guess I approve.

I have to say, it’s a little unsettling to think anyone cares about sports in Athens these days. A while after I graduated, the school added a program in sports management, and even that seemed strange. After growing up in Columbus, enrolling at a school where college football didn’t have the specific gravity of the Normandy invasion was like a dip in a cool lake on a hot day. I went to my share of football games, but I went Bobcat-style — after a few bloody Marys, leaving right after halftime. We came to see the band, the Marching 110, then went uptown for more drinking. I went to one basketball game. One of our party smuggled in a large bullhorn. We sat high in the Convocation Center and made prank announcements on the bullhorn, carried throughout the crowd by the dome’s freakish acoustics. “Number 32, your pits smell,” went one. Number 32, lined up for the foul shot, dropped his arms abruptly. Number 32, I apologize.

The Mid-American Conference in general is sort of a mess, I gather. I read a story awhile back calling it “the little conference that can’t,” pointing out that no MAC team has, well, let’s let the lede sum it up:

The last time any team from the Mid-American Conference won an NCAA championship, the year was 1965. The president was Lyndon B. Johnson. The team was Western Michigan. The sport: men’s cross country.

So you see the sort of culture that prevails in Athens. Which makes OU’s win over Georgetown even more surprising. Now they have the Big Mo, however, so: Go Bobcats. I’ll drink a bloody Mary in your honor this weekend. Supportin’ the team, Athens-style.

If nothing else, OU hosed the brackets.

I want this week OVER. So, bloggage? Here’s a little:

She-who sported a new hairstyle this week on Fox. She looks like she’s edging into Mormon-wife territory, a cross between submit-unto-your-husbands and ’60s-era Loretta Lynn. I mention this because it’s the most interesting thing she’s done in a while. Not that i wish to be trivial.

I always avoid celebrity editions of “Jeopardy!” It’s like asking to have your dreams dashed.

“Breaking Bad” starts its third season this weekend. What fresh hell awaits Walter White? I can hardly wait to find out.

More fleshed-out posting resumes next week. I hope.

One last all-bloggage day as things wrap up on my horse-eating project:

My friend Ron French has a pretty good story in today’s DetNews, a tick-tock on Flight 253:

Passengers throughout the midsection of the airplane stood up to investigate a noise some described as a popped balloon, others as a firecracker. A flight attendant, unable to locate the source, asked passengers to sit down and buckle up because the airplane was traveling through turbulence.

Jay Howard could tell the noise was close. He asked his seatmate if he smelled smoke, but Abdulmutallab said nothing. The Nigerian still had the blanket pulled up to his chin, but something was different. Small wisps of smoke wafted from below the blanket.
Howard lifted the blanket, and a billow of smoke rose toward the ceiling and spread across nearby rows.

One thing I don’t understand: What did they feed the guy — or what the guy fed himself, before or during the flight — that would overcome the natural pain response even a brainwashed terror-zombie would feel with his pants on fire. I mean, when you read this…

Abdulmutallab’s hands were inside the front of his pants. Abdulmutallab pulled them out. Both hands were on fire.

…you gotta wonder. The other passengers said he looked “like a zombie.” I don’t doubt it. However, the line between “stoned enough to feel no pain while setting one’s pants on fire” and “still alert enough to carry out the plan” has to be pretty fine.

Bart Stupak is getting hate mail, and it’s not even from his constituents. Has this ever happened before in the history of the House of Representatives? I don’t think so.

Fun fact to know and tell: Rough population of Stupak’s district, i.e., the Upper Peninsula of Michigan: 300,000 and a smidge. Area: 16,452 square miles. And you thought all the wide open spaces in this country were west of the Missouri River.

Why I never donate to telethons or benefit concerts: It’s like wetting your pants in a navy-blue suit, only less effective for alleviating suffering.

Finally, a link to the newest trailer for “Treme,” the new David Simon series on HBO. This one features John Goodman as Ashley Morris a foul-mouthed college professor who bears a passing resemblance to one who used to hang out in our very group, plus, as Laura Lippman points out, the obligatory HBO-show pole dancer. It is, however, safe for work, i.e., the Ashley-swears are snipped and the pole dancer keeps her bra on. Enjoy.

Our census form arrived yesterday. Looking at the bar code made me feel all tingly. I said, “Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.” And then I filled it out. The government estimate was that it would take me 10 minutes. Took me about two, but then, I’m the designated filler-out-of-forms in the family, with everyone’s SSN memorized and all the birthdays, so I’m good at this. It’ll go back today.

Just for grins, though, I went out looking for the right-wing crazy census crowd. I stumbled, instead, on an eHow article, which the smart set says is my future as a freelance writer. eHow is fed by Demand Media, the freelance sweatshop that pays in the neighborhood of 3 cents a word for “articles.” Here’s one:

Every ten years, the United States Census Bureau conducts the U.S. Census. This census is important to the government because they are attempting to get an accurate count of the entire population. This includes every man, woman, and child residing in the United States — citizens, illegal immigrants, those here on visas, and non-citizen legal residents.

The census is considered by some citizens and illegal immigrants alike to be intrusive. Therefore, you may be asking if it is required that you participate.

“Therefore” — a word beloved by seventh-graders and word count-padders everywhere. In fact, it wasn’t until I stumbled across it that I could say, precisely, why eHow drives me insane. It’s not that the “articles” are useless, or that the pay would shame a sweatshop operator. It’s that it reminds me of how I wrote in junior-high school:

Some citizens and others residing in the United States find the Census to be intrusive. For example, in an interview done by National Public Radio in 2009, one U.S. citizen complained that the census required him to answer questions such as how many guns he kept in his home, and where they were kept. Obviously, to him, this information did not seem to be necessary for the government to know.

The only thing missing are little blue dots over each word, from my Bic laboriously counting each one. She missed an opportunity to add two: “United States” inserted before “government” in the last sentence would fit nicely.

But moronic as it is, it isn’t the dumbest thing I found. That would be this spicy right-wing paranoia roundup in Wired, focusing on the news that some census collection would include GPS coordinates:

A post on the widely read Infowars.com in June warned: “I will tell you plainly, the NWO [New World Order] controlled American military wants these GPS markers so they can launch Predator Drone missile attacks, the aptly named HELLFIRE missile I might add, against a long list of undesirables here in CONUS, continental United States.”

So when I drop that form in the mail, I’ve as much as called in a missile strike on my own house. MAY GOD FORGIVE ME FOR WHAT I’VE DONE.

He won’t forgive me if I don’t get to work, however. Off to the library — I have microfilm to examine.

A while back I believe I mentioned that scrapping is so virulent here that businesses have taken to securing their rooflines — the frontier that must be crossed to get at the valuable rooftop air conditioners, with their coils of tasty, yummy copper — with razor wire. That was so 2006. Note the adaptation of this gas station/mini mart on the Grosse Pointe border:

A tasteful cage. Adaptation! There’s hope for us yet.

In honor of Hell Week, more three-dot linkaliciousness:

First came the earthquakes, great heavings of the earth the made a mockery of all man’s works. Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for wearing a blonde wig and sporting the worst southern accent since community theater. But mankind didn’t know it was doomed, that this truly was the first rumblings of that rough beast, its hour come round at last, until sunspots drove all the Toyotas crazy.

Roy Edroso is leaving New York for love. Best of luck, Roy. That must be some love to trade Brooklyn for Bryan (Texas). He’ll still be blogging, at least until he gets shot in a bar for being a filthy hippie.

The New York Times business section takes a look at the sticky topic of feminine hygiene advertising. Hmm. Well. OK:

Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT, said that after being informed that it could not use the word vagina in advertising by three broadcast networks, it shot the ad cited above with the actress instead saying “down there,” which was rejected by two of the three networks. (Both Ms. Harris and representatives from the brand declined to specify the networks.)

“It’s very funny because the whole spot is about censorship,” Ms. Harris said. “The whole category has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we’re saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina.”

I’d like to see the script that uses that word before I pass judgment. Vagina may not be a dirty word, but it’s certainly an overused one. I’ve carried one around every day of my life, but it only took about 18 months from the day you started hearing it on broadcast television to get thoroughly sick of it, especially at an all-star event like a Joan Rivers roast. I’m with the screenwriter of “The Opposite of Sex” on that one:

Lucia: Vagina, vagina, vagina. Does that word do anything for you?
Bill Truitt: I don’t think it does much for anyone, gay or straight.

The ad executive complains you can’t say “vagina” in a tampon ad, but I’m not sure I want to see it there. “Buy Tampax tampons! Your vagina will thank you!” (That could work, actually.)

J.C. was cleaning out his video archive and sent this. Always nice to remember the good times.

This is the final week of deadline madness, so expect even more spottiness and fly-by updates, but hell, while I’ve got you…

I’m still amazed at how little coverage the Mexican drug wars are getting north of the border, but maybe this latest story will goose something along. An American consulate worker — pregnant, no less — and her husband, gunned down in their car while their infant wailed from the back seat. From what I’ve read of the killers, I’m amazed they left the baby alone. The numbers are astonishing: Ciudad Juarez had 2,000 murders last year, the highest in the world. The weekend’s death toll alone was 20.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this isn’t our next stupid military excursion — south of the border. How fun that will be.

Elsewhere in the Bad News for the Forseeable Future front is a story we’ve been seeing in fits and starts for a while — call it Our Crumbling Infrastructure, Water Division. A few months before New Year’s Day, 2000, a 23-inch water main broke in Fort Wayne, and drained a big chunk of the city for a few hours before they could get it fixed. This was during the great Y2K scare. Remember, apocalyptic fantasies are never a hard sell in Indiana, and rather than doing what they might have done — cope with a little hardship for half a day, or use it as an excuse to go out to dinner in another part of the city — instead residents fell out for their local groceries to strip the shelves of bottled water. Shoving matches broke out in store aisles; it was all a little unsettling.

That story points out what our paper did back then — these pipes are old. The main in Fort Wayne was made of cast iron, for cryin’ out loud. The one in the opening anecdote of the story dates from the invention of the light bulb. And while cast iron is sturdy and our water infrastructure has certainly done its service, well, nothing lasts forever:

Today, a significant water line bursts on average every two minutes somewhere in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

Falling freeway bridges, crumbling infrastructure (much of it effectively ignored for a century), crazed murderous drug lords — have I brought you down enough on this dreary Monday? Yes? Well, maybe we need a kitten picture:

See you folks — with my red, glowing eyes — later.

If you read newspapers, you might notice the ombudsman/reader representative is occasionally called upon to respond to the hand-wringers among the subscriber base who complain there is never any “good news” in the paper. This isn’t difficult, because it’s simply untrue. Every single edition of virtually every metro daily printed contains a heapin’ helpin’ of so-called good news, and except in extreme cases — 9/11, say — there is usually at least one such story on the front page.

They never answer the obvious follow-up question: Why would anyone want to read nice stories about brave Boy Scouts when you can watch the video of the bridal shop brawl — a story that comes with a great, made-for-tabloid name — on YouTube? I don’t know much, but I do know this: Right now, a producer from “Bridezillas” is speed-dialing that family and praying someone else didn’t get to her first.

Why would you want to read about upright public servants, when you can read about disgraced former Detroit city council president Monica Conyers, who went to court to be sentenced yesterday and unleashed the furies. To be sure, you could wonder if this even counts as news, as Monica’s furies are rarely leashed at all; she can’t even check into a hotel without the police being called. After trying to withdraw the guilty plea she negotiated and signed eight months ago, she threw this into the mix: “My husband is an older man,” and presumably incapable of caring for two teenagers (although he retains chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee). John Conyers didn’t show, by the way, although he was said to be in his office in the same building when the hearing was taking place. Yet another strange marriage in a world full of them.

Speaking of which, I wonder what Mrs. Massa is thinking these days. I met a gay veteran in a bar in Key West once. Which branch? I asked. “The Navy, of course,” he replied. “Of course?” Weeks at sea on a floating tub full of men. Draw your own conclusions.

Well, pals o’ mine, I wish I could tell you the Buckley’s did the trick, but it didn’t. I feel as awful today as I did yesterday, but now I have twice as much work to do, so I must away. A little bloggage:

I’m wondering if Kate is going to want to see “The Runaways.” My guess is, not if it means sitting next to her mother while Dakota Fanning sings “Cherry Bomb.” The whole movie looks a little, uh, mature.

This is very obscure, but I had no idea: Lynda Barry went out with him? Really? Really.

God, I feel like crap. Please to forgive. We’ll try again tomorrow.

I saw this story yesterday on the Free Press’ most-popular list and — teachable moment! — asked Kate if she could tell my why it happened, how a man who had just hit a utility pole with no injury to himself could be found dead just moments later, with evidence suggesting he’d decided to pass the time by urinating into the ditch near where his car had crashed. She needed more information than that, so I told her there was a live electrical wire in the ditch. That closed the circuit, to to speak:

“Because of the water?” Ding ding ding ding ding. It’s not exactly an SAT essay-question answer, but she’s only in seventh grade. We’ll leave the appreciation of life’s cruel ironies and the question of the universe’s perverse sense of humor for senior year.

I needed that story yesterday, which was not a very good one. Nothing catastrophic happened, just one of those comedy-of-errors 24-hour periods you’re issued every so often. I’m working on a book project, a custom-publishing job, i.e., writer-for-hire work. It requires historical research downtown, at the Detroit Public Library. I found a parking place on Woodward Avenue, right in front of the place, which I chalked up to my prompt arrival in the first hour after opening. Win! Got out, paid in advance for two hours, went to the door — locked. Wouldn’t open for 90 more minutes. No catastrophe; I’d find a quiet place nearby to spread out my materials and get organized. That turned out to be an Einstein’s bagels on the Wayne State campus, which was not quiet, but did have a big overstuffed armchair free. Win! The armchair was free because it was right next to a malfunctioning door, which stayed wide open to the 35-degree elements if not pulled shut, something only every 10th customer realized.

After a few minutes of this, I moved to another overstuffed armchair, far enough from the draft that it wouldn’t bother me. Win! The one next to me was soon taken by a guy who was enjoying a hot sandwich and a conversation with his friend on the other side of me, which I normally don’t mind; I love to eavesdrop. Unfortunately, all they could talk about was how good their sandwiches were.

But I got a little done, and headed back to the library at 10 ’til noon. My paid-for parking place was full; at least someone was having a lucky day. I got another, paid for two hours. I had an OMG moment when I found a letter from 1938, the writer announcing he was coming to Detroit with “a moving-picture newsreel from the German Foreign Office…showing the ceremonies, indoors and outside, in connection with the National Socialist rally at Nuremberg last September. I do not believe anything of this kind has ever been shown in America.”

My heart soared, thinking I had found a contemporaneous description of what were perhaps “Triumph of the Will” outtakes when I thought to check the dates. Um, no. Leni Riefenstahl shot the 1934 Nazi party conference, not 1937.

Trudged out to the car and found a $20 parking ticket. It was that kind of day.

I wonder if I can deduct it.

Came home, and heard about the guy who died with his weenie out, which was a useful reminder that one’s own bad day is almost never the worst bad day anyone ever had.

I wish I could have seen that newsreel. I wish more I could have heard what people said about it.

This project has been a useful reminder that there are two kinds of history — the kind you live through day-by-day, and the kind you didn’t. Go through old newspapers on microfilm for a while, and before long I guarantee you’ll find someone is being accused of leading the youth of America down the path to ruin and socialism. Yesterday I saw a column from the last week of October 1963, by Max Freedman. Dateline Houston:

One of the most surprising discoveries of this visit to Texas is the depth of feeling against the so-called Kennedy dynasty.

In Washington this complaint has dwindled to a pleasant little joke. Out here men swear angrily and women edge their speech with hardness as they denounce “the Kennedys.”

Don’t worry, Mr. President. I hear Dallas loves you.

OK, back to work. Lord knows what will turn up today. And I’ll remember to feed the meter.

Oh! Another great Detroitblog.

An all-bloggage Tuesday for an overstressed blogmistress:

You want to know why the Great Lakes are fighting the Asian carp incursion so strongly? Because we already have enough invasive species in the world’s largest reservoir of fresh water. Exhibit A being this ugly bastard.

The phrase “wait, what?” has caught on in Kate’s circle. It has a certain Cheech-and-Chong air of amused bafflement. I haven’t felt even vaguely tempted to use it myself. Until now. Wait, what?

Blame Chile: Their stupid earthquake has shortened all our days, perhaps knocked the very planet off its axis (a little). No kidding.

Will Leitch is a brave man. He tells his Roger Ebert story, a great read about just how stupid and feckless youth can be (especially youth with a pen and a great idea for a headline — “I Am Sick Of Roger Ebert’s Fat F—-ing Face”), here. [Link fixed. Thanks, J.]

Off to the historical library. With a peanut-butter sandwich for lunch.