In the closed and humid little world of newspapering, the sports desk is commonly called the Toy Department, and yes, they resent it terribly. (My feeling has always been: Walk into any newsroom and follow your eyes to the men dressed like overgrown toddlers. Guess where you’ll be.) However, I never thought it was entirely apt, especially when there’s a features department nearby.

What is it with the New York Times, anyway? They aren’t fit to carry the WashPost’s water in features, and every time they try something like this, they only embarrass themselves:

…As this particular summer finally heats up, even citizens who believe that climate control is a God-given right may be questioning whether (air conditioning) has become a luxury they can no longer afford.

Really? This I have to read. First note the weasel words “may be,” a trend-follower’s best friend, along with “seems” and “appears,” a way to spin a trend out of three anecdotes. Then a nod to the obvious — air conditioning is a relatively recent wrinkle in human endeavor, “the great pyramids of Egypt were built al fresco,” blah blah. Then on to the masochists:

Lisa Finkelstein, a freelance editor, stopped using the semi-functional air-conditioning and heating unit in her rented cottage in Tallahassee, Fla., two years ago, mostly for economic reasons.

(Ha ha. As one who shares Finkelstein’s job title, I’d say “mostly for” is entirely b.s. “Entirely for” is more like it. But it gets better.)

“We spent an entire summer getting to know our kids by sitting outside trying to keep our electricity bill down,” said Ms. Holmes, who estimated that the family saved $2,100 last summer; they are repeating the experience this year. “It was very therapeutic and we got closer. We also got thinner — all of our diets changed because we were eating a lot of grilled food. And by the time fall came around, with the change in the economy, we had learned to live off less. So when everyone started talking about how hard things are, we felt like we had already experienced the worst of the worst. It prepared us for the whole year.”

Weight loss! Win-win. I’m sure the kids will look back on their summers of sweaty Monopoly fondly. But there’s more:

“In our social circle, use of the air-conditioner is extremely limited,” said Martin Focazio, who lives in Upper Black Eddy, Pa., and commutes into Manhattan four days a week to his job as a digital media strategist. “It’s not like we’re health-nut crazies or a bunch of dirty hippies dancing naked around the fire. We’re all white-collar geeks living an exurban lifestyle. We just all share the philosophy of rolling with the seasons if you can.”

“In our social circle” = “smug assholes.”

For the record, I get along without a/c as much as possible, too. After all these years in the Midwest, I’ve come to enjoy our warm months. My indoor-temperature comfort zone tops out at 79-80 degrees, however, at which point I flip the switch and don’t feel bad about it for even a minute. I’ve known a few alt-lifestyles types, who try to overthink every economy, and draw squiggly lines around this one (Zen), excluding that one (drudgery), etc. The same woman who gave up her dishwasher because she likes a few minutes of peace and quiet and manual labor after meals wouldn’t dream of washing her lingerie by hand, and vice versa.

It’s all just how you choose to live, that’s all. Finally, we get to my favorite anecdote:

Kim Gorode said her cat became dehydrated from the heat the first summer she went without air-conditioning in her fourth-floor Brooklyn walk-up apartment.

“I had just moved to New York and had no money, and I thought I could get by with fans,” said Ms. Gorode, a 26-year-old who works in public relations.

But about halfway through the summer, Waldo, her orange tabby cat, began vomiting and passing out.

“The vet put him on medication and gave him a saline IV for rehydrating,” she said. The bill for $400 dwarfed the $100 she wound up paying for an air-conditioner.

When in doubt, do it for the kitties.

When my dog was younger, he’d come in from his walks and find the tile hearth, upon which he’d lay belly-down, terrier-style, with his legs sticking straight out behind him. Dog a/c. Smart dog.

Oy, another long day awaits at the end of it, i.e, a seven-hour shift editing health-care news, starting at 6 p.m. I wouldn’t do it without proper a/c on a bet, but what that means is, it’s time to step away from the keys and rest the ol’ wrists. In the meantime, chew on this:

Jon Carroll examines the Tour de France, finds it confusing. Worth reading for one nice simile: Philadelphia Eagles fans are darned Franciscan monks compared with these people. I’ve often wondered how the riders stand the close quarters, m’self.

Gymward bound.

This birther video was going around yesterday; you’ve probably already seen it, but here it is, if not. I can’t decide if it’s hilarious or frightening. The screechy speaker with her sense of wounded entitlement, the masculine YEAHS from the crowd, the hysterical Pledge of Allegiance — scary and funny. “I don’t want this flag to change, I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK.” You want to know who the bitter gun-clingers are? Exhibit A.

Sometimes you wish people could just summon the character to be overtly racist. At least it would be a position with a little risk attached, like Bruce Willis standing in his sandwich board at the beginning of “Die Hard: The One Where They Steal All the Money in the World.” This birth-certificate stuff is just chickenshit. Some of the analysis is so baroque it makes Andrew Sullivan’s obsession with Sarah Palin’s amniotic fluid look practically sane. I urge you to read Timothy Egan’s NYT piece of earlier this week, in which he notes:

When candidate Barack Obama made that comment about bitter people in small towns clinging to guns and religion, he was criticized as a clueless elite from the big city. No one paid attention to the first part of what he said:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration.”

Every president said he would do something about it, Obama continued, but never did.

Well, exactly. I can’t help but think that if everyone was making a living, we wouldn’t all want our country “back.” Back from what? But then, one should never underestimate the power of a good conspiracy theory. From my earliest days in talk radio, I remember Federal Reserve Frank, who called regularly to alert the world to the vast conspiracy of European bankers — gee, who would those folks be? — who were manipulating world currencies and business and I forget all what. Sometimes he would bring up Ezra Pound, which before this I had only known as a fairly impenetrable poet. Pound was “a very smart man,” F.R. Frank would say, so if he thought the Fed was a problem, why couldn’t I? I should have made him explain “The Cantos” to me.

Anyway, Birthers. Some of the comments at this LGM post get into the so-called nuances of the argument, if it can be called that.

Maybe it’s not the conspiracy, but the lost cause that’s the lure. Suppose, through some miracle, it was somehow found that yes, these people are right, and Obama isn’t qualified to be president, setting off a Constitutional crisis and probably widespread civil unrest. They’d be like the dog that caught the truck. They’re much happier chasing and whining.

Which brings us to another video, which I watched on Slate’s V site with a mounting sense of astonishment. It’s about a woman who describes seeking out the hardest-case shelter dog in L.A.’s hard-case shelter, only to discover, after a brief honeymoon period, that her abused pit bull/dalmatian mix (which she couldn’t keep, by the way — this adoption was only about “saving” it until it could be raised by someone else) was so unstable it wasn’t fit to live among humans. I had to watch it twice to absorb both the amazing quotes (“He had been everything to me in the two weeks I had him”) and the thread of her story, which boiled down to: Insane, abused dog saved from shelter death, attacks people, sent at great expense to “dog sanctuary” in Texas, where it continues to absorb her money at the rate of $50 a month until it dies. Happy ending! “It’s the best thing I could have done.”

No. No, it’s not. The best thing would be for the dog to have been humanely destroyed while still at the hard-case shelter, and for you to be sending $50 a month to a children’s charity. When I used to ride, every so often a girl (always a girl) would get attached to a hard-case horse, a bucker or bolter or biter or spooker or whateverer. Most horses are sweet or at least tractable on the ground, and the rider/owner would anthropomorphize that the animal was fixable, kind of like an abusive husband who only punches when he’s drinking. The cycle of misbehavior would continue until the rider became permanently fearful, which fed the misbehavior, and never mind the idea of taking this beast to a show, ostensibly what everyone was working toward. Finally, it would be time for the trainer to make the Speech, which boiled down to: With no shortage of good horses in the world, why waste time on the bad ones? Put out the For Sale sign, get it done and move on. Some people responded to this, others clung to the lost cause.

Some people like being on the losing side. It explains the romance of the Confederacy. In the case of the Birthers, maybe it all comes from the same root of racism. Or maybe it’s unconscious: I’m a loser, and I deserve to be in accord with other losers. If you spend your days paging through websites that reflect your opinions, or poring over documents with a magnifying glass, it reinforces and distracts you from reality.

Meanwhile, why won’t Sarah Palin offer a sample of her amniotic fluid for DNA testing? What is she trying to hide?

Man, I’m late today. Bloggage? Not bloody much:

Wow. Video link.

I want this garage door. The one with the crocodile.

Jim at Sweet Juniper’s got some great summer ivy pictures, here, here and here. Nature is patient that way.

And Detroitblog features a poor man’s bank, i.e., a pawn shop.

Step away from the keyboard, Nance. I have errands to run.

I set out yesterday on my police rounds via bicycle, which would be my favorite workout of the week if not for all the sweating: I cover 15 miles or so with five cop-shop breaks for rest and entertainment. There’s nothing like finding a report on a neighbor complaining that his neighbor’s garden fountain is too loud to brighten a girl’s Monday, or seeing a grimmer one to fuel the grind to the next station.

But alas, it was not to be. The skies opened en route to the Farms, and I had to cut the whole thing short. I knew it was trouble when I stopped at a corner, and just that gentle braking was enough to make me skid. There’s enough skidding to be done around here in winter, no need to pile it on. As I stood under the sheltering eaves, screwing it up for a drenching, one of those Lance Armstrong types blew past — dressed European-style, head down, lean as…well, as Lance. A rolling Nike commercial. Just do it, it said. So I did.

Got pretty wet. But as my dad used to say, “You’re not sugar. You won’t melt.” (Other dads tell their daughters they’re pretty pretty princesses. My father preferred a different model.)

Ladies and gentlemen, a moment of silence: An F.O.M. has died. Which is? Why, a friend of Mitch (Albom), of course. I first discovered the F.O.M. obit when Warren Zevon left us; I thought the top of my skull would fly off, as Mitch told us all how much the deceased had loved… Mitch. Today’s F.O.M. is typical:

We first got to know each other when our books came out a year apart. We shared the joys and pressures of fast success, asking each other, “So what do we do now?” Frank wasn’t much into sports, but he would quiz me about “DEE-troit,” the accent on the wrong syllable, the “tr” rolling through his Irish brogue and making our industrial town sound like something out of “Finian’s Rainbow.”

“You’re a good fellah,” he would tell me, after we did speeches or book fairs together. To sit next to him was to sit at the knee of a better storyteller than your grandfather. And when I played “Danny Boy” on the piano, he would rise as if singing a national anthem.

That’s Frank McCourt, of course. I strived to see anything that would indicate Mitch had even read the man’s books, but other than the obvious Irish clichés — the word “impish” appears, as does “twinkle” — alas there was nothing. But you don’t have to have read a famous author (McCourt) when you’ve appeared onstage with him, do you?

The last song he did with our band was the cowboy tune “Don’t Fence Me In,” an odd choice for an Irishman. But it seems sadly fitting now, because you couldn’t fence him in…

I love things that are “sadly fitting” in retrospect, and especially when they are sadly fitting in a trite, obvious way, don’t you? It’s so satisfying.

Oh, it’s been a great morning for all the bookmarks in my Idiots folder. Lileks:

As I’ve said before, nothing sums up the seventies, and the awful guttering of the national spirit, than a pop song about Skylab falling on people’s heads. “Skylab’s Falling,” a novelty hit in the summer of ’79.

Wha-? Huh? Once again: What the hell is he talking about? A little Googling, and it seems it’s most likely this, and to call it a “hit” seems to be stretching it, but well, when you’re a soldier in the War on Straw, what’s a stretch, anyway. “Skylab” seems to be by none other than Steve Dahl, whose wife reads this blog from time to time; I hope she gets a kick out of this. I remember Skylab fondly, m’self, as I won an office pool on the splashdown site. My guess: Krakatoa, east of Java.

Lileks is dusting off this week’s meme, popular among conservative libertarians: Damn the torpedoes, on to Mars! Depending on where they fall on the spectrum, libertarians will advocate removing the government from everything from zoning to infrastructure maintenance to education, but if you talk to them long enough, you inevitably find the place where they advocate Uncle Sam just write a blank check, and why? Because they like this thing, that’s why, and so you find yourself talking to a person who doesn’t think the government should build an interstate highway, but should sink billions or trillions into a mission to Mars. Perhaps they all imagine that in another time, they would be the men standing on the prows of ships sailing off to the unknown, in profile to a setting sun. Because they are Libertarians, and they are Free.

I need to stop reading these people, although they certainly don’t disappoint in the blogfodder department, do they?

Bloggage elsewhere: I also need to start following Sarah Palin on Twitter, but maybe that’s what Gawker is for.

Speaking of Sarah: Funny.

Back to Gawker: Rachel Maddow, national treasure.

Off to the gym for death squats. Why do I bother? I’m still fat.

A lovely Friday in Ann Arbor, it was. Who said liberals don’t know how to run anything? The tax rate there is approximately the same as it is in this Republican stronghold, and every time I go over there the place is running like a Swiss watch. I rolled in off the freeway, parked in a high school field, climbed aboard a city bus (which, its signage helpfully informs, runs on combination biodiesel/hybrid technology), and was carried to the downtown art fairs in minutes. I’d like to tell you I spent the day absorbing the hundreds and hundreds of booths in the fine, sunny weather, featuring artists in every imaginable medium, but the truth is, I pretty much went straight to a bar and spent a couple hours there, drinking Bell’s Oberon.

I didn’t drive an hour just to drink alone. My buddy Rob Daumeyer, drove all the way from Cincinnati. Rob is one of those people who’s always telling you how stupid he is, how slow-witted, how thick and dull and sludgy between the ears. I guess that way, when he says something really funny, which he does about once every 80 seconds or so, you think, “He’s pretty funny for a moron,” and then he can steal your wallet. Or something. Needless to say, he is no dummy. Rob was my companion during our wonderful year in Ann Arbor, ’03-’04. He summed up the post-Fellowship experience thusly: “Everyone is so smart here. They’re always talking about literature and art and world affairs. Where I live, people say, ‘You ought to buy a boat,’ and that counts as sparkling conversation.” Maybe it was the Bell’s Oberon, or maybe the delivery, but that cracked me up. And so true — whenever I go to Ann Arbor by myself, I eavesdrop. One day in an Indian restaurant, I tuned my ears to three different tables, where the lunch conversations were: Hugo Chavez, monetary policy at the Fed, and the plight of Iraqi Kurds. No wonder no one there worries about their crabgrass.

Walking back to the bus stop, waiting for the third Bell’s to burn off, I bought a pair of earrings for Kate. I’m wearing them now. What the hell, she already has three times as many as I do.

Note that I have changed the book on the nightstand. Besides Hank’s “Tinsel,” I’ve added T.C. Boyle’s “The Women.” You’d think one of the country’s most respected novelists, writing for a respected publisher, could afford a decent copy editor, and yet, there it is, page 32:

And then someone said, “Here, here,” and they were all lifting glasses…

Groan. I see this mistake so often it makes my head hurt. And no, Danny, we haven’t had a DNA ruling yet — it’s “hear, hear,” not “here, here,” and if anyone wants to mix it up over this one, well bring it on. I’m right.

I bet they don’t make this mistake in Ann Arbor. Where everyone is so smart.

(Elsewhere in the same chapter, Boyle has a female character’s hair sweating under her “caftan.” I guess that’s possible — lots of caftans have hoods — but given that the same character appears later with her head wrapped in a towel, is it possible he meant “turban?” That mistake is almost beyond belief, but you never know.)

Well, just look where all our prowess with the language has gotten us: Every so often, when we’re watching HBO, a promo for “Hung” will come on. The announcer says, “Critics agree: ‘”Hung” is big, wicked fun…'” and Alan yells, THAT’S MY HEADLINE. It is. This is what we cling to, we language wizards.

Meanwhile not all is perfect over there in A2. Street fashion:

She wore a 36C. I could read the size. My mother used to call visible bra straps “slovenly.” I think she got it right.

Maybe she was thinking of Huge Chavez.

Meanwhile, some tastycake bloggage today:

You know those makeshift memorials* left for Michael Jackson. A sizable one grew outside the Motown Museum after M.J. croaked, because if there’s one thing this city embraces like a squishy teddy bear left out in the rain, it’s craziness. You rarely know what becomes of them, but not in this case, because the whole shootin’ match was scooped up, loaded into two open-back limos, taken to the cemetery with a police escort, and buried under a headstone with a nice, tasteful, understated inscription that I think Joe Jackson would be proud of. In the only evidence I’ve seen that maybe someone in Detroit has two brain cells to rub together, the police now call the four-car escort “a mistake.” I’m speechless. Read all about it.

* “Makeshift Memorial” — still a great name for a band. Happy Monday, all.

Danny, ever the stirrer of foul things, wants to throw down. From the previous thread comments:

Hey, Nance, I was at the zoo a few weeks ago and we were checking the Pandas (yes the World Famous San Diego Zoo, of course) and one of the keepers and I were chatting. She said that the Panda was indeed a bear and that if it felt threatened it would attack.

The reason I mention this is I seem to remember a few years ago that you said that a certain editor whom you were fond of sent you a little blurb (cartoon panda with a thought bubble?) on your copy explaining how it really wasn’t a “panda bear.” Was that because your usage of the word “bear” was incorrect with the word “panda” or was it because the editor thought it was a sloth and not a bear?

Because it’s not ursine, is what I was always told. But keep in mind, Danno, that was in the Pleistocene era of journalism, when you could still find a glue pot and a green eyeshade somewhere in the newsroom. Needless to say, it was long before Professor Google, which explains:

After almost a century of debate, scientists were finally able to test the genes from pandas and determine that they are actually a species of bear.

Well, that’s a relief. Or maybe not. It’s always difficult when your long-held beliefs are challenged. Next you’ll be telling me it’s OK to say “first annual.” Then it’ll be time to hang up the ol’ jock.

I also learned in the overnight comments that the one, the only Scott Lemieux was in Detroit Metro earlier in the year. Did he call? Did he arrange a meetup for D-town fans of LGM? Noooo. And to think, this is the man whom Lance Mannion’s wife, the Blonde — who made a ghostly apparition-like appearance in yesterday’s entry, under her pre-internet name, Miss Montgomery — raved so wildly about when she met him in person last year, at some New York blog thing. (Sometimes it sucks to live in the Midwest. Detroit blog things just aren’t the same.I kept pressing for details:

“But what was Roy like? Was Roy everything you dreamed he’d be?”

“Who? Oh, he was OK. But Scott Lemieux was hilarious.”

As should be plain, I am a little discombobulated this morning. I frequently am on Friday, when I hit the week’s finish line like one of those marathoners who cannot go one more step. The week was full of drudgery, but paying drudgery, so it had to be done. I did a 900-word Q-and-A on Tuesday and Wednesday — Tuesday for the interview with Mr. Big Stuff and Wednesday for the writing. I always think Q-and-As, i.e., stories written entirely in the subject’s own voice, will be easier. All you have to do is record your talk, transcribe what they say, edit it down, slap an introductory paragraph on the top, turn it in, send the the invoice. Well. I transcribed close to 3,000 words, which took hours, and then discovered something about Mr. Big Stuff: He doesn’t do tangents, apple-polishing, blather. He spoke in complete sentences, even complete paragraphs. The mild headache of transcription — he spoke slowly enough that I was generally able to keep up with the sound file — was replaced by the big one of trimming. Ugh. I felt wrung out and run over, but I made deadline. Yay me.

On the plus side, I had an errand that took me out to Belle Isle, Detroit’s wonderful park-in-the-river. Like everything here, it’s tragic, too — much of it is neglected and closed and on its last legs. But a pretty lady doesn’t get unpretty just because her dress is torn. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, winds out of the south at a flag-snapping clip; it was a pleasure just to make the circle drive and take it all in. Guess what was in Blue Heron Lagoon? A blue heron.

A little bloggage before I go? Sure:

Crocs are on their last…legs, I guess. Why do people hate Crocs so? I don’t own them, but I don’t care if you do. It helps if you’re around young girls, upon whom they look perfectly fine and make cute pool shoes. My own young girl, at 12, now scorns them, preferring a Ferragamo-knockoff sandal I found for her this-summer “good shoes.” She wore them to the Green Day concert earlier in the week, one of those moments when you can see what she’s going to be when she grows up. Shudder. A little more childhood, please.

I won’t be shaving my eyebrows off. Bad hipster doofus, apparently.

Or you guys can discuss Sonia Sotomayor, if you like. The few moments of the confirmation hearings I was able to endure threatened to explode my brain. Jon Stewart sums it up nicely.

Folks, I’m going to Ann Arbor. Enjoy your weekend.

It looks as though we’ve galloped up on another anniversary of the first moon landing, Apollo Whatever. Which means it’s time for a fresh look at something I wrote about after the last anniversary, a column I called “Lie, Memory.”

At the time, I relied on a story in one of the newspapers from “the region” — the rural areas around Fort Wayne that made a person like me…well, very glad that he lived in the relative cosmopolitan oasis because man, did they get some strange crime in those parts.

The story gathered the recollections of local residents about the historic event. I don’t have it with me, but it was filled with anecdotes that ran like this:

“Yes, I remember it well. I was in kindergarten at the time, and the teacher brought a TV to class. We all gathered around and watched as Neil Armstrong made his way down the ladder of the landing module and said his historic words. Of course, at the time, I was more upset by the fact we had to miss our recess!”

You see the problem with this. The moon landing was in July, when most kindergarteners are far from classrooms and teachers. And the moon walk was late at night — for a kid, anyway. It was certainly after my bedtime, and I was 11. There’s simply no way that person was remembering correctly. But that’s what memory does. Thankfully.

(When I wrote that, I got a very angry letter from a reader, calling me a big ol’ poopyhead, spoiling people’s memories that way. Doesn’t anyone in the world care about facts?)

I bring this up because Jon Carroll repeated the old story about Gaylord Perry:

Chronicle sportswriter Harry Jupiter was standing next to Alvin Dark, who was then managing the Giants, as Perry took batting practice. Like a lot of pitchers, Perry was a less than impressive hitter. “This Perry kid is going to hit some home runs for you,” said Jupiter sarcastically.

“There’ll be a man on the moon before Gaylord Perry hits a home run,” replied Dark.

Seven years later, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon and uttered his somewhat confused memorable words. An hour later, Gaylord Perry hit his first home run, at Candlestick Park against the Dodgers.

On the west coast? Possible. The first steps on the moon were at 8 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, so yeah, they could have been playing at Candlestick Park. But it’s always worth a stop at Snopes, where we see the first red flag — the story they research said man would be on the moon beforehand, and given that the July 20, 1969 game was during the day, it could only be true if…

Oh, who cares? There are more ridiculous stories tied to the moon landing than Barack Obama’s birth certificate. The “Good luck, Mr. Gorsky” story. (Jews in Wapakoneta, Ohio, in the 1940s? Please.) The “heard the call to prayer on the moon, returned to Earth and promptly converted to Islam” story, which is surprisingly sturdy in the Muslim world, but again, preposterous. And, of course, the “they did it all in a studio” myth, my personal favorite.

I’m always amazed at what people are willing to believe. Of course, it helps when a story supports your own prejudices. Someone sent me the “dash don’t be silent” story a few weeks ago. Swore it happened right here in Detroit. Snopes, people, check Snopes first.

I have a killer day today, followed by the usual killer night. So a bit of killer bloggage:

Barack Obama’s Teleprompter self-destructs, and yet he carries on. (May I just note here how happy I am to see copy editors ignoring AP style on spelling the name of the device, which decreed it must be TelePromTer? I always hated that. Maybe the stylebook has changed; God knows I haven’t consulted it in years.)

Whaddaya know? Seymour Hersh was right.

And no, she’s not going away. Who could have seen this coming?

Back later, maybe, but probably not.

Even a peaceful suburb grows interesting after midnight. I went to bed at 1:15 a.m. and laid lay for a while listening to the night sounds. A few blocks away, I could hear an animal in distress, and tried to figure out what it was. Definitely not a cat, not quite a dog. Coyote? Possible, but again — not quite canine. I finally pegged it as a mortally wounded rabbit, which scream like little girls under those circumstances. Maybe an owl or hawk dropped it en route back to the tree. And then…

Two shots fired from a large-caliber handgun, the throaty kind. Pop pop. Instant silence.

Oh. OK. Remind me not to play the stereo too loud. A few minutes passed, and just as I was drifting off, the wounded-bunny sound started again.

I let sleep take me down, and hoped whoever was policing the neighborhood had good aim.

The birds started at 6 a.m., by the way. By 9 a.m., they’ve all vacated the arbor virea under my window and are off doing their bird activities, and you can’t hear a peep. But by then the lawn equipment has started. As I speak, someone has one of those goddamn power washers idling nearby, and all I can say is, I’m glad I don’t have a large-caliber handgun.

I’ll sleep when I’m dead, as Warren used to sing. I didn’t know he meant it literally.

Little Miss Grumpypants on a beautiful summer day. More coffee, stat.

So I’ve been reading about Senator Ensign, and wondering how things can get worse for him. The people who would have forgiven him for the affair surely have to be rocked back on their heels by the payoff to the paramour by…his parents? Mommy and daddy? Cleaning up after a 51-year-old man? And they say young people today are over-reliant on the ‘rents. They learned from the best. My mother bought a rug for me when I was starting out, a 9-by-12 raw-edged remnant, and I felt covered in shame. I told her I’d pay her back, and I never did, but still. The idea of her paying hush money to someone I’d shtupped would be unbearable.

This lesson keeps presenting itself over and over, and no one seems capable of learning it: Those who live by the “values” sword will die by it, and so let’s have mutual disarmament. I don’t know much about Ensign beyond that he’s a Republican with the usual Republican opportunism when it comes to lecturing others about family and marriage and so forth. Clearly these guys do it because they think it works, but when are they going to understand that when you do that, you are putting up big glass windows in your house, and when you act in conflict to your stated “values,” you are passing out a big basket of rocks.

So why not let it drop? Affairs happen. People are imperfect. We are all sinners. We live in a fallen world. Take your pick of platitudes, but mainly, cock your ear toward President Obama and recall his response to questions about Bristol Palin’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy last summer: “My mother had me when she was 18.” Don’t just listen to the words, but also the subtext: Life is a messy business sometimes. Knowing that none of us get out of it alive and far fewer unscathed, why not stop making “family values” a cornerstone of your platform? Democrats get away with this not because of their enabling media stooges, but because they never claimed to be paragons in the first place.

And I don’t care how rich your parents are, any man who would let mom and dad pay off his mistress should just go ahead and put his balls in escrow.

Bloggage for the weekend:

Don’t read this Eric Zorn story if you’re in a place where crying is frowned upon. Yes, it’s a dog story. Meanwhile, Jim at Sweet Juniper found a dog clubhouse. Love the comment about how they all play poker and smoke cigars.

From the I Love Detroit file: 167 people are running for City Council, and in such a crowded field, have to find their own ways to stand out. Like John Cromer:

He’s basing his campaign on appealing to felons by promising to remove questions about criminal records from the city of Detroit’s job applications.

In Detroit, that may well be enough of a constituency to put him over the top.

Elitism watch! Mary Katherine Ham at The Weekly Standard gets a big yuk out of Anderson Cooper not understanding what Cool Whip is, and embeds the YouTube clip to prove it. Only it’s not Cool Whip, it’s Redi-Whip, dumbass, and even if he doesn’t know what it is at first, he catches on quick. Once Kate said, “I wish Spriggy could talk.” And I replied, “But what if he said stuff we didn’t want to hear?”

“Like what?” she said.

“Oh, like…’I don’t like it when you pet me that way, and I’ve never liked it.'”

She caught on fast. “Yeah. Or, ‘Kate was eating the Redi-Whip right out of the can with the refrigerator door open,'” she said, and then stopped, abruptly. Sometimes it’s best not to even let the dog in on your secrets.

Have a good weekend, all.

UPDATE: Google suspended my AdSense account. No, I don’t know why. Yes, I appealed. No, they didn’t accept my appeal. Have you ever tried arguing with Google? It’s like scratching your nails down the side of the Sears Tower, hoping to draw blood. In the meantime, I’m looking for a new ad network, because the loss of that TWO HUNDRED THIRTY SIX WHOLE CRAPPY DOLLARS is really going to put a dent in my income this year. Suggestions? I’m all ears.

It’s an all-pop culture blog today, because that’s what we have at the moment. The news out of China yesterday was about the so-called ethnic Uighurs, which the guy on NPR kept pronouncing “wiggers,” and wandering into the report halfway through, for about two seconds I wondered what Eminem had to do with China. It’s like the stupidity of Michael Jackson’s funeral was flying through the air on invisible wings.

So, then:

You know who also played at the Motown 25th anniversary concert, the one where — we have been reminded approximately eleventy jillion times in the last, GAWD, TWELVE DAYS — Michael Jackson unveiled the moonwalk to the world? Anyone?

Adam Ant.

You could look it up. I just did, and ran across both the YouTube video (which I recommend for its excruciating badness) and this amusing recap from a blogger, c. 2006. He notices things — commercials for the Commodore 64 personal computer, and Anacin. (This was before we learned aspirin is pure poison for everyone other than middle-aged people expecting a heart attack.) And it wasn’t just Adam Ant. Two other acts of the future played. Get ready: DeBarge and High Energy.

I think it’s useful to be reminded of this stuff from time to time. Berry Gordy had his streak, for sure. He caught a big wave, surfed it perfectly, and rode it all the way to a nice beach in Los Angeles, and has spent the rest of his life telling people about it but not once even coming close to duplicating it. His best artists got out from under his grinding bootheel as quickly as they could, Stevie Wonder and M.J. among them. His new discoveries sort of define “forgettable.” While I remember DeBarge, a Jackson family with 78 percent less talent, it’s mainly for a story a hotel manager in Fort Wayne told me after they passed through town on tour, about how they ordered room service consisting of a $500 bottle of cognac and a six-pack of Coke, and yes, they mixed them.

High Energy is lost to the ages, or at least my creeping Alzheimer’s. As for Adam Ant, well, Berry was all about maximizing the audience, and that crazy English kid had that “Goody Two Shoes” song on the charts, and, what? You don’t remember “Goody Two Shoes,” either? Well, maybe Journey was busy or something. The early ’80s was a bit fallow, pop-wise.

Why am I talking about Adam Ant? Oh, right: Because Jon Mayer played at M.J.’s funeral concert — you know, the noted soul artist. In 25 more years, I think we’ll be saying, yes, he was the Adam Ant of his day, and dated Jennifer Aniston.

If you have but one Jackson-memorial story to read today, make it the WashPost’s:

Carey, wearing a long gown with a plunging mesh neckline — demure, for her — performed her version of the Jackson 5 hit “I’ll Be There,” and looked meaningfully toward Jackson’s casket.

The musician Usher also looked toward Jackson’s casket during his song, then walked toward it and placed his hands on it.

Jennifer Hudson did not interact with the casket but sang a from-the-gut version of “Will You Be There,” accompanied by a troop of backup dancers. Somber, funereal backup dancers, yes, but backup dancers nonetheless. No one tried to moonwalk. It would have seemed disrespectful.

…His transformation of his own face took more than 20 years, as did his journey from beloved, giggling child-star to bizarre, fragile child-man.

The public’s transformation of Michael Jackson, from mutant to messiah, took less than two weeks. “Michael . . . made us love each other,” Sharpton called out. “It was Michael that made us . . . feed the hungry.”

God, it’s almost like you were there.

Elsewhere on the beat, the New York Times has been running some odd culture stuff lately. A few weeks ago, they brought us the shocking news that many people who start blogs lose interest in them after a while. Today, get ready to be blown out of your chair:

Dirty movies just don’t have stories anymore.

Wha-? Huh?

The pornographic movie industry has long had only a casual interest in plot and dialogue. But moviemakers are focusing even less on narrative arcs these days. Instead, they are filming more short scenes that can be easily uploaded to Web sites and sold in several-minute chunks.

I had no idea they had even a casual interest, but then, I think the last dirty movie I saw in long form was by the Dark Brothers c. mid-’80s, and while I don’t think I lasted even seven minutes, I did see what we amateur screenwriters like to call the first act. No plot or script was in evidence then, either.

This seems to be the peg:

Plot-centrism was in full bloom in 2005 with the release of “Pirates,” about a ragtag group of sailors who go after a band of evil pirates.

That movie, with a budget of more than $1 million, had special effects (pirates materializing from the mist), and, yes, lots of sex. Two years later, the movie’s studio, Digital Playground, spent $8 million on a sequel — a remarkable sum in an industry where the average movie costs $25,000, according to the director of the two movies, Ali Joone.

I missed the era of “plot-centrism?” Pirates materializing from the mist? I need to get out more.

Finally, a last bit of bloggage, in which Billy Dee Williams comes up in discussion at a Detroit City Council meeting. That august body takes on a serious issue — malt-liquor ads that imply it’s the fastest way to something, perhaps date rape — in their own special way:

Councilwoman Martha Reeves said her beef is the way the cartoon ads portray Williams: “He’s ugly.”

I need to go in search of my brain. If you see it, mail it home.

We were sailing when Sarah Palin announced she was advancing in another direction, so I missed the fun of the announcement. Saw a minute or two here and there on the web, which was about as long as I could stand; whenever I hear her supporters say, “She drives liberals crazy!!!” I can only agree. I think they misunderstand the reason, however. It’s not because she has a child with Down Syndrome or a rifle or an unwed pregnant daughter. And sorry, crazy-man-I-found-via-James-Wolcott-and-I-will-think-twice-before-doing-that-again, it’s not because of this:

Finally, but by no means least, she wears figure-flattering clothes, grooms herself beautifully, and walks gracefully and confidently in high heels.

It’s just annoying, at an elemental level, to think that a person could get so close to the presidency who writes like this:

Alaska’s mission – to contribute to America. We’re strategic IN the world as the air crossroads OF the world, as a gatekeeper of the continent. Bold visionaries knew this – Alaska would be part of America’s great destiny.

Our destiny to be reached by responsibly developing our natural resources. This land, blessed with clean air, water, wildlife, minerals, AND oil and gas. It’s energy! God gave us energy.

So to serve the state is a humbling responsibility, because I know in my soul that Alaska is of such import, for America’s security, in our very volatile world. And you know me by now, I promised even four years ago to show MY independence… no more conventional “politics as usual”.

And we are doing well! My administration’s accomplishments speak for themselves. We work tirelessly for Alaskans.

I’m aware, with every passing year, that no one really cares about written or even spoken expression in any meaningful way. A catch phrase, a snappy delivery, a one-liner or two — that’s all anyone expects from people in the public eye. But even I, who thought I’d seen all of Sarah Palin anyone needed to see, was…what’s the word? Le mot juste? Oh, hell, let’s go with the obvious and trite: I was offended. Yes. Offended by this rambling, nonsensical exercise in narcissism. What the hell is she talking about? Alaska, sure. Commitment, not so sure. Sarah, certainly. And all those capital letters. MY independence. AND oil and gas. And exclamation points! We are doing well!

Sarah is, anyway.

I’m a writer, and I have all the writer’s irrational prejudices about people who don’t understand subject-verb agreement and the importance of proper spelling. I’m aware this makes me something of a snob and elitist, but I don’t care. This shit ain’t rocket science, and people who write competently, never mind stylishly, are indicating by their example that they respect writing. People who respect writing are more likely to read. And readers are smarter, there I said it.

The case has been made that Palin is smart, but a different kind of smart. Not fancypants Obama booklearnin’ smart, but hardscrabble shoeshine-and-a-smile bachelor’s-degree-by-way-of-five-schools smart, the sort of smart that used to be called shrewd. Hmm. OK. I acknowledge there are different kinds of intelligence, that a person who is genius at negotiation but dumb at math is no dummy, and that a person who is great at math but cannot learn that it’s wise to pay attention to one’s personal grooming may well have a brain dysfunction, but I’m still a writer, and I still say it’s spinach and I still say the hell with it.

One interesting thing about Palin’s statement you only see in the written version, as painful as it is to read: She capitalizes “outside” when speaking of “Outside special interests.” Outside is, of course, Alaska code for the lower 48. Could any other politician with national aspirations get away with trashing the rest of the country?

I wish you’d hear MORE from the media of your state’s progress and how we tackle Outside interests – daily – SPECIAL interests that would stymie our state.

Oil companies — not a special interest. Mining — not a special interest. Commercial fishing — not a special interest. What color is the sky in Sarah’s world?

A bit of bloggage:

I’ve read uneven reviews of “Methland,” but Walter Kirn’s in the NYT was over-the-top positive. I don’t trust Kirn, but this may be a library reserve-list item. There’s been a lot reported about meth, but not as much about the why, why a drug so toxic and dangerous could take root in what is allegedly the blissful countryside. It seems Nick Reding’s book gets close:

The agricultural conglomerates that have gobbled up Oelwein and similar farm towns may feed the world, but they starve the folks who work for them, breeding a craving for synthetic stimulants that conveniently sap the appetite while enlarging the body’s capacity for toil. These offal-streaked Dickensian mills are also magnets for desperate immigrant laborers who, in some cases, blaze the smuggling trails that run up into the Corn Belt from Mexico, home to the gang lords who own the superlabs that, increasingly, dominate the meth trade.

“Vicious cycle” is not an adequate term. As Reding painstakingly presents it, the production, distribution and consumption of methamphetamine is a self-catalyzing catastrophe of Chernobylish dimensions. The rich, with their far-off, insulated lives, get richer and more detached, while the poor get high and, finally, wasted. In the meanwhile, the traffickers fatten in their dens, expanding their arsenals and their private armies, some of whose troops are recruited from the ranks of the pale zombies their business spawns.

This is one reason I get so impatient when the Rod Drehers of the world paint such rosy pictures of the world outside the cities. I’ve been to Dekalb County, friends — it ain’t all sustainable organic farming and chickens in the yard.

So how was y’all’s weekend? Mine was fine and dandy. Alan installed a screen door on our back door, a feature that had been missing. It’s the best thing we’ve done since we made Kate. Nothing says summer like the back door standing open to the screen.

And a hot week awaits to enjoy it. Enjoy yours, but already my responsibilities are prodding me.

There are times I truly miss being a G.A. — that’s old-fart-journo-speak for “general assignment reporter.” You never know what’s going to turn up. I had plans to spend yesterday relaxing with my kid, maybe cleaning the house. The phone rang at 8 a.m. with news the Detroit Police dive team was going to spend the next two days fishing cars out of the river. Plans changed.

A little background: In May, this same team was doing a training dive at the point where Lake St. Clair joins the Detroit River, preparing to recover a car, when the team leader discovered what seemed to be a hand, reaching up from the bottom. It turned out to be a bronze sculpture that had been stolen several years earlier from a local institution, part of a rash of outdoor-art thefts in the area. At the time, we told the team leader to call us the next time they went looking for a car, thinking a tick-tock on how they work would be a nice feature for my journalism students.

Of course they had to call only hours ahead, too little time to scramble a team of overscheduled college students. But I was able to go, and I don’t know about you, but to me, the great thing about journalism is the permission you get to watch other people work at interesting jobs. I could have watched these guys all day, and in fact, that’s pretty much what I did. The 60-ton heavy-duty tow truck alone was a marvel; it looked like you needed a master’s in engineering just to run the thing.

The divers were trying to clear at least 14 and as many as 16 (sonar was unclear) drowned cars from what must have been a popular dumping spot, once upon a time. A patch of riverfront land that had been the site of your standard-issue 20th-century poison factory — metal plating with casual environmental standards, shudder — stood empty for years, and if you took the time to drive or push a car through the weeds to the riverbank, you found a nice open area with no seawall and 15-20 feet of water ready to swallow the evidence of your insurance fraud, no questions asked.

The divers went down in teams and strapped up the axles or frames, and the truck operator ran the winch. The wrecks came up groaning and dropping vast cauldrons of mud and crawfish. As soon as they cleared the water, the gearheads started calling out models and years. Several fell to pieces as they came free; a Ford EXP, second cousin to a Mercury Capri I once owned, lost its roof and necessitated a second dive to retrieve the rest.

And once they were on dry land, photo ops galore:

What interested me the most: Even in that stew of heavy-metal waste and pollution, nature is always trying:

Those are salamander eggs — mudpuppies. Ah, well — based on what crawled out of those wrecks, there’s no shortage down there.

Note the zebra mussels, an invasive species that first entered the Great Lakes in the ballast water of oceangoing freighters. They have played havoc on treatment-plant intakes and other underwater structures, but have had an undeniably positive effect on water clarity; I’ve heard many long-time Great Lakes anglers say the water’s never been cleaner.

So that was yesterday. Today I’m giving blood. In consideration, I’ve gone off all my over-the-counter analgesics for the last 72 hours. Man, do I feel old.

Bloggage:

My TV now has to stay off for two reasons: The still-unplanted corpse of Michael Jackson, and the governor of South Carolina, who has now raised humiliation of his wife to a high art. I’m with Josh Marshall — just go be with her, already.

As for Miguel Jacko, the NYT lead says it all:

Nearly a week after he died, Michael Jackson still has not been buried, new complications have arisen over settling his vast estate, and his will has given up tantalizing details, including his choice of Diana Ross as a guardian of his children if his mother were unable to care for them.

I think his family is dragging their feet because they like the publicity. I fully expect him to be stuffed and mounted by the time this is over.

To the gym and to the exsanguination table after that. Back in a bit.