“God takes care of babies and drunks.” So goes the old saw.

Click through and take a look at the most loathed man in three states today, Michael Gagnon, whose drunken driving (.25) killed five members of a family traveling through Ohio three nights ago — a mom and four kids including, yes, a baby. Their minivan looked like it had gone through a wood chipper.

And he gets a cut on his chin. If he doesn’t wish he was dead already, I suspect he will soon enough.

As you all know, I’m a Midwesterner, and nothing in the world warms a Midwesterner’s heart like using up leftovers. Last night, I opened the fridge and noticed we had a) lots of eggs; b) a box of Pillsbury ready-made pie crusts, a.k.a. mommy’s dirty little secret; c) some broccoli that was about to go around the bend; and d) an odd lot of cheddar. Fifteen minutes later, I had quiche in the oven. That’s the sort of meal that feeds you twice — in your stomach, and in your frugal little spirit, too.

Then I hit the New York magazine website and said, revolucion!:

…even though year-end bonuses are expected to be (relatively) small across Wall Street, Goldman employees are expected to rake in an average of $600,000 each.

We’re living in a new Gilded Age, which is not news. I’m just wondering how to make a little fairy dust trickle down on me. The reason Goldman Sachs is riding so high, we’re told, is they “bet against the subprime market and won.” Well, hey, I could have give them that advice. “Those people who are getting enormous mortgages based on oral declarations that they make $6,000 a week with no verification? Those are a bad bet. Get out now.” Maybe I could have sold them that information for, say, $50 million. But what is my tiny, non-entrepreneurial mind concerned with? Using up 75 cents worth of broccoli. I just don’t dream big enough.

Elsewhere in the news, I see that Britney Spears’ heretofore-believed-to-be-somewhat-smarter younger sister, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn, is expecting a little bundle of out-of-wedlock joy. Terrific. This is what happens when you let your child watch supposedly wholesome tween-targeted TV shows like “Zoey 101.” You duck the Vanessa what’s-her-name nude-picture missile and get smacked between the eyes by a teen pregnancy. I wonder how long before Kate hears about it, and whether she’ll ask me about it, and what I should say. Might as well start rehearsing a speech now. Would it be wrong to introduce an 11-year-old to the concept of trailer trash, or should I go with Lance Mannion’s oft-stated opinion that all actresses are promiscuous? One seems overly judgmental, the other too much adult-stained reality for a pre-teen. And yet, the naked truth — “Mrs. Spears lived out her dream of showbiz success through her daughters, who now stand before the world, 26 and 16, old before their years and destined for a long, slow slide into a sort of purgatory that will end in drug addiction, early death and where-are-they-now features on VH1” — seems even worse.

Note that “Zoey 101” is a Nickelodeon show. I’d like to think Disney keeps their young moneymakers on a tighter leash, or at least locked in chastity belts, but naked Vanessa proved otherwise. I guess the stupid show is history. Mom Lynne’s “parenting” book has been back-burnered, too. Do we still run people out of town on a rail? Can it be done to this nest of skanks? Bring back the studio system, with its morals clauses, and its pleasing tissue of lies!

(As it relates to our discussion of names below, here are a few character names on “Zoey 101:” Dustin, Quinn, Logan, Chase. Boy, girl, boy, boy.)

OK, bloggage:

Micki Maynard and Nick Bunkley at the NYT examine a local paradox — the flowering of downtown Detroit at the same time the auto industry continues to decline, statewide unemployment stands just short of 8 percent and finding a deeply discounted house to buy is as easy as walking out your front door.

I don’t know why, either. My instinct is to say: What the hell, let’s party. Most amusing passage:

And in the eyes of some, the new casinos, which include the 17-story Motor City Hotel and Casino that opened on Nov. 28, may be doing as much harm as good.

Some of the casino’s patrons include Detroit’s homeless. They used to buy food with the nickels and dimes they received for collecting returnable beverage containers, said Chad Audi, director of the rescue mission, which sits on a side street a few blocks from the Motor City.

Instead, these gamblers are spending their change in slot machines. “It’s turning into a very bad, negative impact on us,” he said.

I wonder if they have this problem in Vegas.

Off to work. Great days for all.

First snow of the season = first pot of split-pea soup. I’ve been planning this for a couple of weeks, so the timing is strictly a coincidence. I bought the ham but kept forgetting the split peas, then remembered when I was getting hummus from the gourmet-y market down the street. I found not the plain, unadorned bag of split peas that Kroger sells, but an everything-you-need soup-assembly kit, which translated to two cups of split peas plus a seasoning bundle.

Price: $5.99. No, I am not kidding.

I think I did one of those cough-explosions you do when someone tells you the thing you thought would cost a dime is actually $20,000. That’s roughly the disproportion here, as split peas are among the humblest and cheapest foods on the planet. For a long time I’d pay 69 cents a pound, but lately it’s around 84 cents, which I figure is skyrocketing energy prices asserting themselves. Or perhaps that six-buck soup kit reflected the true cost of what I’ve long believed is the truth about split peas — that they’re painstakingly split on a long, Tim Burton-style assembly line:

An army of workers arrives and take their seats on the line, hammer and chisel in hand. As the factory whistle blows, a single pea is released down a chute to land in front of each worker. A small vise is tightened, the worker places the chisel, taps it once, and the pea separates into equal hemispheres, each rolling down to a collection bin. A tap of a foot lever releases the next pea, and the process starts all over again.

Well, that’s how it should go.

More likely, the peas were “organic,” a designation that requires a lot of faith in the purchaser. I buy organic food when the price differential isn’t insulting, but figure the designation is a crapshoot and, perhaps, a fairy tale. (Also, at the midcentury mark, I figure all my filtering organs have already been poisoned by the chemicals of half a lifetime, so why lose sleep over it now?) Organic is hot, “green” is hot, and the marketplace is cashing in. The $5.15 difference in what I pay for split peas at Kroger and what I’d pay for the soup kit at Fancypants Market isn’t for the extra tablespoon of dried herbs; it’s for a complicated mix of overhead, packaging, advertising, distribution and a harder-to-quantify factor I guess you could call specialness. (This is the sort of thing I think about on bike rides. If only I could make it pay somehow.)

I realize discussion of what things cost is about as interesting to some of you as shoveling snow, but it seems to be a theme of late. My health-care news farming last night harvested a lengthy NYT report on how global “free trade zones” abet prescription-drug counterfeiters. (There’s money in heroin, but there’s also money — and fewer automatic weapons — in fake and otherwise squirrelly erectile-dysfunction drugs. Even Tony Soprano was getting in on it in the last season. Remember his meeting with Bobby and the Canadian gangsters? They were discussing bulk pricing on expired Fosamax.) It’s an interesting story, because it illustrates what happens when one country — that would be us — makes health care so complicated for people living at the margins of affordability. If it were just a bunch of boner drugs being faked and sold on the black and grey markets, it would be a problem for the patent holders and the people who gamble on swallowing them. But alas, it’s more complicated than that:

…An examination of the case reveals its link to a complex supply chain of fake drugs that ran from China through Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and the Bahamas, ultimately leading to an Internet pharmacy whose American customers believed they were buying medicine from Canada, according to interviews with regulators and drug company investigators in six countries. …These were not just lifestyle drugs; this medicine was supposed to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoporosis and acid reflux, among other ailments.

…In the Bahamas, investigators had also made an important discovery. The computers at Personal Touch Pharmacy were connected to a server hosting a Canadian Internet pharmacy Web site.

The site belonged to RxNorth, described by one trade association as the world’s first major online pharmacy.

A founder, Andrew Strempler, had been the subject of numerous profiles, including one in The New York Times in 2005 that described how at the age of 30 he had two Dodge Vipers, a Jaguar and a yellow Lamborghini with a license plate that reads “RX Boss.”

The article reported that Mr. Strempler’s innovation “created a whole new Canadian industry that has plugged a niche in America’s troubled health care system almost overnight, providing about $800 million worth of low-cost drugs a year to two million uninsured and underinsured Americans, many elderly.” Drugs have traditionally been cheaper in Canada because of its health care system.

One of the counterfeits of a name-brand blood thinner was found to contain cement powder. And that’s what some geezer was taking to head off a stroke. Ah, free enterprise.

But I don’t want to bring you down on what promises to be a lovely day. We got another dusting of fresh snow overnight, and the world is white and beautiful. We’re promised enough sunshine to make glacier glasses a necessity today, so I’m bucking up. Besides, we have a special sub-category of bloggage today: NN.C Readers in the News!

First, John Ritter — who I think comments here as just plain John — writes an op-ed in his hometown paper, The Day. The headline is typical of op-ed pages everywhere, in that it states an obvious, inoffensive truth with a lot of capital letters:

An Understanding Of American History makes Us Better Appreciate Who We Are

That’s too bad, because John was reacting to a previous letter to the editor, in which the writer stated Daniel Boone died at the Alamo, a rather major fact-boner that either skated under the editors’ noses, or was thought harmless enough to pass unchallenged. I think John gets at, but does not explicitly state, the reason for the confusion here:

Yes, Daniel Boone was a big man and yes, he did fight for America to make it free. He did quite a few things in his life but one thing he didn’t do was die at the Alamo. He had died a peaceful death on Sept. 20, 1820, only 15 1/2 years before Davy Crockett perished at the Alamo. Davy Crockett is another larger than life American legend. But he was not Daniel Boone, although the actor Fess Parker did portray both of them very well.

Fess Parker played them both! You can see why we get these things mixed up.

On the other side of the world, communist bomb-throwing college professor Ashley Morris does his best to bolster jihad on his way home from a two-week teaching stint in the Persian Gulf:

I have been in Bahrain for two weeks and I am quite happy to report that as a New Orleanian, I feel vindicated. I travel around the world, and people ask where I am from. I do not say, “America”, I say “New Orleans”. After the complete and utter abandonment of the city and people of New Orleans by the American government, I do not feel like an “American” anymore. Being in the Arabian Gulf has made me realise that most people here understand the feeling.

As I commented on Ashley’s own blog: Enjoy your next strip search, professor.

Less personal bloggage:

You’ve heard of a turducken? Or a tofucken? Meet the…turdugoosquapartsquab…en. Or something. Make up your own name. It sounds vile, but then, I’ve always considered goose to be the white-people version of chitlins. Sure, it has a long history — very Dickens and all — but you don’t have to live in the past, and anyone who would eat one of those greasy beasts when a nice tender chicken or turkey was available is simply nuts. Of course, the percentage of goose in this thing is pretty low. Still.

Off to find my glacier glasses (although the sun is still behind a cloud bank somewhere). Have a swell day, all.

My sister shared a Christmas-shopping moment the other day: Standing in a crowded store in a crowded mall, trying to find a decent outfit for her teenage granddaughter. The girl and her brother generally get one nice outfit every year, the sorts of splurge-y name brands they wouldn’t normally get. Every kid needs to feel cool at least sometimes.

So she found something, then looked at the price tag: A pair of Baby Phat jeans, juniors size 5. Price: $80.

“Kimora Lee Simmons should be ashamed of herself!” she exploded. I heartily agree (although it has nothing to do with her jeans).

I had my own moment today, in Bath & Body Works. I was buying a few stocking stuffers for a Girl Scout Christmas project — personal-care products for the girls at a local children’s home. I figure one of the thousand petty humiliations of being poor and institutionalized at Christmas is having to settle for everyone’s hand-me-downs, so I was determined to buy something that didn’t say “dollar store.” I went into the ubiquitous mall soap store for some cute crap-in-a-bottle. Picked up a tiny tin of American Girl-branded lip balm. Four-fifty.

“Leslie Wexner should be ashamed of himself!” I said. It didn’t quite have the same ring to it. Not here, anyway — it would play in Columbus. But the day I spend nearly five bucks for two cents’ worth of flavored wax hasn’t yet arrived. I went next door to Rite Aid and loaded up with a bunch of perfectly acceptable stuff and spent around $30.

I shouldn’t even set foot in that store, anyway. It always smells like a chemistry set. Everything under The Limited’s umbrella made its rep selling goods of barely acceptable quality to the greatest number of people. I haven’t trusted the place since I tucked a Victoria’s Secret bra away for six months, and took it out again to find half the elastic had rotted.

Ah, well. We have greater things to discuss today than lip balm. The death of Ike Turner, say.

The way of all flesh, etc. I saw Ike and Tina once, at the Ohio State Fair. Mid-’70s, sometime in there. Tina and the Ikettes wore their trademark minidresses with fringe, and shook that shit into knots. A highly memorable performance. Ike did what Ike always did: He hung back and led the band. From what we know now, Tina already hated his guts by then and was plotting her escape. Their marriage seemed a tragic case of “A Star is Born,” if James Mason had bounced Judy Garland off the walls when he had a snoot full of coke. Rock ‘n’ roll historians are making the case that it’s unfair for the man who gave the world “Rocket 88” to be remembered solely as a wife-beater. Miles Davis was not very nice to his women, either, but it didn’t lead his obituaries. (Note: Davis was also lucky none of them became stars like Tina, or the story might be different.) Two things need to be said about Ike. One, that he was very lucky in the casting of the man who would play him in Tina’s version of her life story. Laurence Fishburne brought something extra to that role and made it memorable. And second, that he found Tina. There wouldn’t have been a Tina without Ike. So there’s that.

I once heard Tina interviewed on “60 Minutes,” and Ed Bradley asked if she’d had any plastic surgery done. She freely admitted to a breast lift and a nose job, the latter because Ike had connected with it so many times it needed the repair, and the former to “put them back where they belong.” Gotta chuckle.

Best line in “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”: “Get back in there and do it again, and this time put some stink on it.” They were recording “Nutbush City Limits.” I’d say she did so.

So, bloggage:

I read the New York Times Styles section these days for a look into a world I don’t and (I hope) never will occupy — one where, when a person is invited to dinner, they feel free to present the hostess with a long list of objectionable foods; where people fret over the carbon footprint of their holiday gifts; where there are no more entrees in restaurants, because 17 bites is 14 too many for boredom not to set in.

Today, another nose-against-the-glass moment: People who don’t know when to leave the dog at home.

It was a dark and stormy night — actually four stormy nights — when Jayme Otto, 31, and her husband, Ryan Otto, 33, drove 1,200 miles from their home in Boulder, Colo., to her parents’ house in Cleveland for Christmas.

“We traveled all this way to bring our yellow Labrador, Cody Bear, home to spend time with his grandparents,” Ms. Otto said, “grandparents” being dog-person-speak for her parents.

Besides wanting Cody Bear “to participate in his favorite yearly activity of unwrapping gifts and destroying all the boxes,” as Ms. Otto put it, they wanted the dog to meet her brother’s fiancée.

But on Christmas morning, a commotion ensued: the fiancée was allergic to dogs and broke out in hives.

“The dog was banished to the guest bedroom and we were unable to share our Christmas morning with Cody Bear,” Ms. Otto said bitterly. “The family blowup between my brother and I over the dog resulted in my mother not speaking to me for two months and my brother for four.” This Christmas will mark the first time that the Ottos will not be returning home.

I’m trying to think of the people I know who remained virginal until marriage. (think, think, think.) OK, I know a few. Now I’m trying to think of the people who did the opposite — who pretty much fell into bed on date one, and got married at some later date. (think, think, think.) I know a lot of those. Now I’m thinking of the states of all those marriages. (think, think, think.) And I see pretty much identical success/failure rates in both camps. Which is hardly a scientific poll, I realize, but seems to underline what every adult with a lick of common sense knows about marital sex — that it’s a very important part of the relationship, but only one part. So why does the Weekly Standard, which would never stand for facile analyses of Middle Eastern affairs (to take them at their word, anyway), run nonsense like this?

Instant sex and romantic love can’t coexist any more than hurricanes and forest fires. One drives out the other.

It’s a standard cheap shot of lefties to say that right-wing social policy comes from its proponents not being able to get laid, but if only they didn’t make it so easy to say so.

Finally, the Christians said, “Merry Christmas” and the Jew replied, “Happy Hanukkah,” so of course a fistfight was the only reasonable response. Fortunately, a Muslim stepped in to break things up.

Well, it is the season of miracles.

It shouldn’t bother anyone when people put words in God’s mouth; as Anne Lamott quips, you know you’ve created God in your image when he hates all the same people you do. I’m not much of a God-botherer myself, but the recent events in Colorado make me…well, they make me wonder.

The woman who shot the killer in Colorado says God guided her hand and steadied her aim. “Shoot that guy,” God said, in effect. “That one, over there.”

We can find images of an angry, bloodthirsty God in culture for as long as we’ve known Him, but I was raised with the Christian version, and for the longest time believed that He loved me, no matter what I did. Lesson No. 2 was that he also loved my enemy, a harder concept to grasp. I suspect a lot of people stop there. Once, just to needle someone who was very, very pleased with the prison beating death of Jeffrey Dahmer, I mentioned that I’d heard the Wisconsin cannibal had recently become a Christian, and so he’d be up in Heaven by now, “and the two of you can get acquainted after you arrive.” He didn’t like to hear this, but isn’t this the point of Christianity? Of having a savior? That no one is so damaged that he can’t be redeemed, even in the final days of a cursed life? It’s supposed to keep us humble, to know that no matter how much we follow the rules and polish our own halos, God loves the more wretched sinner down the hall just as much, no more and no less.

Mental illness complicates things. Everything complicates things, really, but voices in your head — there’s a complication. As for Matthew Murray, the church murderer, it’s the same old sad story:

ARVADA — Matthew Murray was asked to leave Youth With A Mission five years ago, although the reasons are murky.

The group’s Colorado leader said Monday that unspecified health problems prevented Murray from advancing beyond a training program into field work overseas.

But Murray’s roommate from that time told CNN Monday night that Murray was booted for bizarre behavior. He also said that Murray told him he heard voices.

…Werner, who now lives in Balneario Camborius, Brazil, said he occupied a bunk near Murray’s and that Murray would roll around in bed and make noises.

He asked his roommate about it, Werner said.

“He would say, ‘Don’t worry, I’m just talking to the voices.’ He’d say, ‘Don’t worry, Richard. You’re a nice guy. The voices like you.'”

Werner told CNN he instantly suspected Murray when he heard the news of Sunday’s shootings.

“I turned to my wife and I said, ‘I know who did it. It’s Matthew.’ It was so obvious.”

Here’s another thing we have to consider: That God put Matthew Murray in the world, and then put voices in his head and made him crazy and homicidal. And then he put a gun in a security guard’s hand and said, “It’s time for Matthew to die. That’s your job.” It makes you see why people believe in the devil. It’s also why people say the lord works in mysterious ways.

Well, so does the mental health support system, or lack of same. Isn’t it interesting, how often you hear that quote? “As soon as I heard, I knew exactly who did it.” Or, “Police say the suspect had told numerous acquaintances of his plan, but few believed him.”

Stories like this frequently lead to a rethinking of policy at places where it can be easily rethought and quickly changed — school systems, for example. So let it be written, so let it be done: From this day forward, all threats or implied threats of violence will be met with zero tolerance, and law enforcement will be notified. Cue the stories about little boys who held their lunchtime chicken finger as though it were a pistol and yelled bang-bang across the cafeteria table, subsequently expelled and bound over for psychiatric testing. Cut to outraged pundits rolling their eyes, pounding desks and wondering, Where is sanity? Where is common sense? Do we want to turn all our little boys into pussies? Let them play their war games — it’s genetic!

And then another one comes to school or church or work with a gun.

Am I feeling a bit cynical today? I am. I am Gregor Samsa: I have turned into a bug. The apples flung by this rotten world have embedded themselves in my exoskeleton, and are rotting there. More evidence:

Every well-informed person knows, or should know, about the toll boxing takes on the body. Images of Muhammed Ali, once one of the most graceful athletes on the world’s stage, reduced to a quaking, shuffling Parkinsonian, tend to sear themselves into the brain. Fewer know about what happens to old football players.

In my health-care news clipping, I ran across a story a few months ago, about a couple of former pro linemen now reduced, in their 50s and 60s, to sitting around in a fog, thanks to head injuries that were either ignored, misdiagnosed or improperly treated. Coaches hate head injuries, because a bruised brain doesn’t always have an outward manifestation. And so the player sitting out a concussion may look and feel just fine — may even be chomping at the bit to play. Coach figures, what’s the harm? Player may soon find out. Or find out in 20 more years.

Ashley Morris tips us off to another of these little tragedies, more high-profile than most: Earl Campbell. Remember him? Heisman trophy, 34-inch thighs (11 inches bigger than Posh Spice’s waistline, for those seeking a comparison), one of the greatest runners ever to play the game. Now 52, can’t get around without a walker, has to sleep in a recliner because of constant pain, and perhaps the cruelest blow of all: (He) has yet to see his son Tyler play a college football game at San Diego State because it’s too difficult for him to negotiate the stairs at stadiums.

Woe! Oh, woe! Let us all weep for the sake of this sad, sad world.

Someday I’m going to track a year’s worth of blog entries against the length of daylight and my menstrual cycle. I’ll bet there’s a correlation.

Which you shouldn’t draw conclusions from, incidentally. I’m just saying, we gals — we’re connected.

OK, let’s see if we can’t cheer up a bit as the day’s work commences. Let’s take a bloggage tour guaranteed to lift the spirits:

One of my favorite people in the world is of Armenian heritage. His father is a man of towering intellect and accomplishment. Other Armenians have made similar contributions to my new hometown of Detroit. Knowing all this, I’ve come to expect great things from people whose last names end in -ian.

And then there are the Kardashians. As they say in Armenia: One rotten pomegranate doesn’t spoil the whole barrel.

Taxi drivers have some cool stories to tell. This one might be the coolest ever.

And finally, a story to bring joy to every newspaperman’s black heart: Conrad Black, OFF TO JAIL, and even better, his wife, the hideous Barbara Amiel, may be next.

Readers, I’m skipping. Enjoy your day.

Sometimes people ask, “Is Grosse Pointe really as preppy as all that? Is it really the land of Muffy and Skip, madras and seersucker, headbands and understated jewelry?”

You bet your ass it is. Not so much in my neighborhood, alas, but we have that stuff — mostly in the dug-in WASP enclaves in the City and the Farms. And every so often you’ll stand in line at the store behind a reed-slim dowager, hair in the same velvet-headband pageboy she’s worn since she was 17, in the sort of clean, classic clothes you don’t see so often anymore. From behind, you might think she still is 17, and then she turns and displays a face that is not surgically altered or maintained, and shows every line all those hours in the sun earned her, but it all works, because she is an American thoroughbred, and she’s got great bone structure. She is G.P.O.G.

Also, Grosse Pointe has a Brooks Brothers. So do a lot of places, but it’s different here. It’s, like, the uniform. People who wear Brooks Brothers wear it all their lives, and if you doubt it, you should have seen the woman who waited on me there the other day — 60 if she was a day, in an argyle sweater more suitable for a teenager, but it looked just fine on her. That’s Brooks Brothers.

Jezebel is having a little fun with the current catalog, and to be sure, it’s pretty fun-worthy. Check out George H.W. Bush’s cousin’s pants, here:

I like the cut of his jib! When I saw this feature, I thought perhaps they’d dug up an old BB catalog, but no, that’s the current one. Funniest comment to the post: Who wants to bet that in 30 yrs this is going to be going around the e-mail circles much like that now-infamous 1977 JC Penney Catalog is doing now? There’s someone who doesn’t get it. In 30 years the Brooks Brothers catalog will look pretty much the same as it does today, and that’s why people shop there. Good clothes of good quality that are neither in nor out of style. You’ll never be the sharpest dresser in the room, but you’ll be suitable, the man, or woman, in the gray flannel suit.

Or maybe the woman in the plaid shoes:

You know what I like about that outfit? The red tartan. Let those rappers and Hollywood types wear Burberry. The right sort of people favor the Stewart tartan.

And who says WASPs don’t have a sense of humor? If they made an “Animal House” reunion movie, Bluto would wear these pants:

He’s not sure which pattern he has an ancestral claim to, so he just wears them all. I say we call him Braveheart.

OK, then. How’s your week going? All I can think about these days is how much I have yet to do before the holiday, but not so much that I can’t enjoy its pleasures. The tree went up over the weekend, and lo, it is lovely. Where would you think a household in a state covered with piney forests and Christmas-tree farms would get their own? At a local lot, of course, but state of origin? Starts with an M?

“Where’s this tree from?” I asked as the guy wrote out a slip for our bushy Fraser fir.

“North Carolina,” he said.

“You’re kidding me.”

He wasn’t. He said the Frasers need a longer growing season to get nice and tall, and fewer deer gnawing on them to get nice and bushy. I guess Michigan deer are like Michigan squirrels — they’ll eat anything.

I feel like a fool, but thanks, Carolinas.

I suppose this is the answer to a lot of prayers: Armed good guy stops armed bad guy. It’s all a lot of people will need to settle the argument whether we should all be packin’ a piece as we go about our day. Few people ask the questions I ask, starting with the one raised by this startling passage: New Life Pastor Brady Boyd called Assam, who is normally his personal security guard… I was raised a Catholic. I don’t recall Father Gamba traveling with muscle. What a world.

Big day, too much to do. Make merry in the comments.

As should be obvious from my remarks here and there, my video-camera problem has been solved. My dear friend J.C. Burns sent me his Canon GL1 on extended loan-with-option-to-buy, and my new Flip, aka “the second unit,” can go places the Canon can’t. So I’m hoping to have some video up here within a few weeks, as soon as I can suss out the complexities of getting everyone talking to everyone else, as well as the new version of iMovie, which is a pain in the ass.

However, it appears the real genius piece of gear in all of this is my new Gorillapod, which I strongly recommend to anyone who likes to fool around with cameras. Yesterday I used a long drive to Northville (a distant suburb that was, frankly, not worth the tire rubber) to do some video note-taking for an upcoming feature, working title “Let’s Go Drivin’ in the D with Nance.” I splayed the Gorillapod on the dashboard, affixed the Flip, and prepared for the usual freeway mayhem. The disappointment was that motorists were unusually well-behaved; I was only passed on the right at 85 mph by one or two cell-phone yakkers. But the G’pod was a revelation. It shifted not a millimeter, stayed steady on corners and exit ramps, and together with the Flip took up no more space than a dash-mounted GPS system, which is what it looked like.

Trust me: It’s the best $20 you’ll spend for good pictures. There’s even a Flickr group dedicated to its wonders.

After the Virginia Tech shooting, in which a few bold conservatives took a new step down the yea-guns road by blaming the victims for their own death (because they failed to “rush the guy” while he was reloading), I could hardly wait to see what would be said in the bullshitosphere after the next mass shooting — the brush had been cleared, after all. It didn’t take long: now Instapundit, who declares himself a libertarian, is suggesting that properties that declare themselves gun-free should be held personally liable for violence that occurs there: Perhaps we need legislation. If it saves just one life, it’s worth it.

Roy Edroso points out what you might suspect: That the rootin’, tootin’ western state of Nebraska has no effective restraints on long-barreled firearms, although it does restrict carrying concealed weapons. You need a permit to purchase a handgun, but not to own one. The “gun-free zone” that the right-wingers are all up in arms about is likely the legal opt-out that private-property owners employ these days. When I was in Minnesota a few years back, you saw signs everywhere declaring this or that building gun-free. It wasn’t enforced with metal detectors or anything; I suspect it was a liability dodge, or maybe a corporate bumper sticker, or something. So the mall in Omaha had these signs, and now a leading libertarian is suggesting some legislation to, what? Outlaw gun-free zones? Allow victims to sue?

I have a libertarian proposition for you: Let some savvy, pistol-packin’ real-estate developer open the OK Corral Mall down the street from this one. Go ahead and scratch up some tenants, and proudly display a sign: Everyone’s packin’ a peacemaker. Enter at your own risk. Let’s let the market sort it out!

Just speaking for myself, having a heavily armed populace just next door in Detroit makes me feel extra-safe there.

It occurs to me from my recent linkage there, some might think Roy’s is the only blog I read. If only. But I am trying to cut down, at least on the political stuff. Roy’s niche is arts, culture and calling out wingnuts. Works for me. But if you’re wondering, I also read TBogg; Lawyers, Guns and Money and a few others. Lately I’ve been reading more non-politics sites, like Bossy and, of course, the Fug Girls, even though they were way too tough on Beyoncé this week, if you ask me. That green dress does make her look a little like one of the guppies in my fish tank, but a very sexy one.

I’m adding a new tag here: Metro mayhem, for stories like this. Why do men beat their wives? (Answer, at least in this case: Because he was drunk.) Bonus: Two 911 recordings that demonstrate just how horrible 911 operators are around here.

OK, paying work awaits. Have a great day.

A few years ago, I had to do a phone interview with two Israelis, living in Jerusalem. Because of the time difference, and the ridiculous hoop-jumping one had to do in our office to make an international call, I opted to call them from home, first thing in the morning, and expense the bill later. Two calls to Israel, 70 minutes total = $240 on my phone bill.

I should have just passed the pain along to my ungrateful employer, but the sum was so insulting I called to see if it could be negotiated. It could. For signing up retroactively for an international calling plan, and understanding that it could be cancelled in five more days, they gave me the international-plan price: $17.

I took Econ 101 AND 102, but when prices can vary that much, it makes me realize I wasn’t cut out for life in the business world (or running a hospital). Today I got another lesson: The 4-pin to 6-pin Firewire cord.

At the Apple store: $30.
At Best Buy: $40 (I should note this specimen was 17 feet long).
Via the internet, a 3-foot version: $4.

Ah, well. If you want to talk about ridiculous prices, yesterday I paid more than $4 for a sugar-free triple-shot vanilla latte at Starbucks Fourbucks. I had a caffeine-deprivation headache at the time, however, which made it more like buying aspirin. The headache went away while my stylist painted blondeness into my hair.

“If only I were a man, I could enjoy having your boobs two inches from my cheek,” I said, all at once realizing that said boobs were significantly larger than they were the last time I got my hair cut. “Why, you’re pregnant.” Six months, in fact, which means I didn’t notice last time, when she was 4.5 months along. Well, no one ever said I was a good trained observer. Besides, haircuts are the only time I can bury my nose, guilt-free, in In Style magazine; I’m not really looking around to see who’s packing a fetus under their apron.

The highlights came out well. Decrepitude is held at bay for another few weeks. I asked the stylist if she’d consider a few platinum streaks in front a good idea, and she said that not only was her answer no, “if you asked, I wouldn’t do them.” Well, excuse me. See how you feel in 20 more years when your gutters guy, the one with the freshly healed bullet wound and the Chris Farley physique, says you remind him of someone famous. Vintage Brigitte Bardot? Mid-period Susan Sarandon? Bette Midler, for cryin’ out loud?

“Carol Burnett,” he said. I wanted to dye my whole head green.

Ah, well. Enough of my mid-century angst. On to the bloggage!

“My chicken is in political exile” — only in Ann Arbor.

My birthday appears 647,751 digits into pi. How about you?

Via David Mills, three short web “prequels” for “The Wire,” a few scraps as we count the days until the best show EVAR starts its final season. He likes When Bunk Met McNulty, and it’s OK, but my heart belongs to Young Omar. Also: Young Proposition Joe.

Assholes With Guns, chapter 7 million: Seven-year-old girl shot six times trying to protect her mother.and it’s still going on. Via Roy.

To the gym. Have a swell day, all.

Headlines that pretty much guarantee you’re going to read what’s underneath:

Missing college student led a double life as online porn star

There’s not a clause in that sentence that doesn’t say “hello, sailor.” “Missing college student” establishes the mystery and implies a deeper tragedy; she wasn’t just a young woman, she was a young woman with a bright future, because she went to college. “Led a double life” is wish fulfillment, as every one of us leads a double, triple, quadruple or perhaps quintuple life, if only in our heads. (At the moment, I’m Nancy Nall, Competent Mother, because I managed to get my kid off to school on time AND with a brown-bag lunch for the field trip.) And then there’s the payoff — “online porn star.” I love how stardom is guaranteed in pornography; it just wouldn’t have the same punch if it read “porn bit player,” would it? As far as I can tell from this story and the Google, this girl had a website where she displayed nude photos of herself (“I’m a spunky little teen with a super sexy side!”). This constitutes stardom in porn. Linda Lovelace wept.

Anyway, it sounds as though this woman’s college and acting career are both over:

Sander was last seen leaving a bar in El Dorado, about 30 miles from Wichita, with a man identified as Israel Mireles, 24, authorities said. Sander and Mireles had met that night at the bar, according to Watson.

After Mireles did not show up Saturday at his job at an Italian restaurant, his employer went to the motel room where he was staying.

“His motel room was found to appear in great disarray, and a large quantity of blood was found in the room,” Boren said. “Bed clothing was found to be missing. The police were called.”

I expect Geraldo Rivera is on the case. Not to make light of what is shaping up to be a tragedy, but young ladies, this is what you call a cautionary tale.

Oy, the week limps toward its end. I remain a Word Machine, makin’ words for dolla bills, y’all, although my invoice appears to have cooled on the client’s desk, this time. I’m assuming I got caught between billing cycles, because these are stand-up people, but still — I’m starting to see why “cash flow” is something of an oxymoron in freelancing. It’s like standing in front of a faucet that sometimes gushes, and sometimes just coughs a little. “Flow” is an aspiration, not a reality. For me, anyway.

I finally caught “Michigan vs. Ohio State: The Rivalry” on HBO. Not terrible, not even half-bad, but it failed to get at what I maintain — [brandishing index finger to make a windy point] — is the essential truth of this matchup, i.e., its one-sidedness. At least one Michigan sportswriter saw it as “more tailored to a Columbus setting,” and he’s right — there’s more of this story in Ohio than in Michigan, because there’s more to film in Ohio than in Michigan. Buckeyes simply care more, a lot more, about this rivalry than Wolverines do. Saying so would have diminished the premise of the film, however, and the nuts and bolts of why that is true doesn’t lend itself to a slow-tempo violin-solo versions of the fight song, all that sports-film crapola about tradition and trophies and bragging rights.

If I were making a list, I’d start with the differences between Columbus and Ann Arbor — one a large city that lives and breathes Buckeye football because for decades it was the quite literally the only game in town, the other just a college town. The whole state of Ohio is invested in the Buckeyes to some extent; it’s the only Big Ten school in the state, the flagship school of the public-university system, the giant diploma factory in the middle of everything. The University of Michigan competes for gridiron loyalty with Michigan State, just for starters. Ann Arbor’s closest large city, Detroit, supports four major-league sports, with media attention divided between them. And here’s something no one in Columbus wants to hear (they will cut you off if you even bring it up, trust me, I know): Michigan maintains at least two other major football rivalries, with Notre Dame and Michigan State. Admittedly neither is as big as Ohio State, but they have their partisans, and that divides attention somewhat. On UM/OSU game days, you can always find a few extra Spartans flags flying around my neighborhood, as the third constituency roots against the Arrogant Assholes, as Ann Arbor is known hereabouts.

In Columbus, they have Hate Michigan rallies on campus that would make Joseph Goebbels spin in his grave. If they have them in Ann Arbor, I missed them the year I was there. Maybe among the Greek constituencies. But not at the Michigan Theater, where they were probably showing some art film that week.

That was 2003 by the way. Michigan won.

(Oh, and by the way: Several of the talking-head interviews in the film were shot at Wallace House, the clubhouse for my beloved J-fellow program. All the Michigan interviews with the gleaming woodwork and a tasteful flower arrangement out of focus in the background? I suspect this is the Mark of Birgit, the program administrator.)

OK, back to work. And bloggage:

If you live outside the area and haven’t been reading the foreclosure series in the News this week, I can’t blame you, even though the story is a national one, albeit extra-bad here at Ground Zero. Parts two and three concentrated on what you don’t hear about so much — the outright fraud and criminal activity involved in this disaster. It’s easy to say, “Well, people should have known what they were getting into,” but when what they were getting into involved a quitclaim deed slipped into a pile of documents and signed by an old poor lady, touching off the outright theft of her house, well, that’s a different thing, isn’t it?

Today’s installment starts with the Full French, a one-two punch:

As Michigan’s foreclosure crisis was growing in the fall of 2006, state legislators jumped into action.

They took money away from the state office that investigates mortgage fraud.

Take that, libertarians.

Finally, I don’t want to forget this before the week slips away: On Monday, the NYT did a story on the foundry in India where Con Ed, the electrical utility, gets its manhole covers. There were many photos, which weren’t pretty: Workers stood barefoot and shirtless, waiting to receive molten metal in buckets, which were then hand-carried to molds. The temperatures were punishing. The conditions, 19th-century. DetNews columnist Laura Berman used the story as a peg to write a column about East Jordan Iron Works, which makes manhole covers in northern Michigan under, as you might expect, drastically different conditions.

Globalization isn’t something you can argue with; it’s simply a fact of the world’s economy. But I’m grateful for stories like both of these, which remind us all that we do things differently here, and for good reasons, and that it’s not a bad thing. Solidarity forever, for the union makes us strong. safe. safer.

Many many many many years ago, I wrote a column for my ex-employer about makeshift memorials. If it wasn’t the hot new trend that was sweepin’ the nation, it was the first I noticed it. There was a little cross that stood along the bike path I used, periodically refreshed by its tender; it marked the place where a jogger had been killed by a teenage motorist. The dead man’s wife said she felt closer to her late husband there, where he died, than in the cemetery where his body lies, the conventional place for mourning.

At the time, “makeshift memorial” hadn’t entered the lexicon. With the exception of crosses like this, and the elaborate ghetto murals/shrines to fallen gangbangers (which earnest grad students told us were rooted in various ethnic heritage rituals), they were only starting to pop up in the wider culture. But when they did, it didn’t take long. Two kids die when their car fails to beat a train at the crossing? Their friends flock to the spot and leave beer bottles, cigarettes and teddy bears.

Some memorials had a little higher profile. Some, higher still.

As a square ol’ suburban American who religious training was traditional and conventional, I fall in The Onion camp:

To cope with this incalculable loss of life, within hours of the accident, the citizens of Mound City responded with a spontaneous outpouring of crappy mementos. Despite the presence of such disturbing reminders of the crash as tire marks, headlight shards, and blood-stained pavement, Mound City residents have come here day after day, adding more tacky shit to the steadily growing pile.

But I’m open-minded about it. There is no correct way to grieve. Young people in particular are always astonished by their first brush with unexpected death, and as traditional religious rituals fall by the wayside, so too do the long-established ways of mourning. They want to stand in front of a pile of crap with a candle in a paper cup, hold hands and cry. As I recall, Ashley wrote me a nice note after Dale Earnhardt died, explaining rather succinctly why people do these things, and why there’s nothing to sneer at there. My position stands on two legs: a) I think it’s wise that there be a statute of limitations on how long a memorial can be maintained, especially if it’s on public land; and b) you won’t catch me dead at one, especially for a professional athlete. But if it helps you get over it, fine.

Remember the gas-station owner shot to death last week? He has one. But note, also, this detail:

It’s been six months since a pregnant woman and her three young children died in an accidental fire at their home in the 3400 block of Lane in southwest Detroit. But the cards, Mylar balloons and stuffed animals remain.

Most of the toys are now a ghastly gray, from months of exposure. The 3-foot-high Spider-Man is still visible, as is the Winnie the Pooh. The single-family home has never been boarded up, and its front door is missing. “I want this gone. I really do,” said Robert Santos, who lives down the street and knew the family who died in the blaze sparked by a back porch grill.

It’s not the vacant, derelict house he wants gone — Santos said he’s used to those in the city — but rather the toys left in tribute.

“Every time I go by, I’m reminded of how those children died. There should be some limit on how long this can go on,” Santos said. “I want my wound to close.”

Cemeteries exist for a reason other than protection of public health. Compartmentalization isn’t always a bad thing.

A personal note: Let’s all hold hands and think positive thoughts about Alan’s car, which of late has expectorated — with great, rifle-shot sound effects — two spark plugs (from the same cylinder). We’re hoping the repair on this 12-year-old Subaru will be of the cheap variety and not the $1,800 new cylinder head, because even though we’ve pretty much planned on a new car purchase sometime in 2008, it’s still 2007 and would be a major pain in the ass to swing at the moment. These old Japanese pluggers just keep rolling along; let’s hope this one will roll a few more months.

Speaking of ridiculous expense, my husband has also informed me he wishes to take up sport shooting in the new year, and wants to buy a shotgun. A cool pump-action model like the one on the cop shows, that I can conceal in the folds of my overcoat and use to rob liquor stores? I asked eagerly. No. Some boring over-under Browning from the used market that, properly maintained, will hold its value for many years. Damn. I’ve wanted one of those Remingtons ever since our next-door neighbor in Fort Wayne used his to scare off someone trying to jimmy his front door at 2 a.m. one summer night. “That sound the slide makes when you rack it, it’s like no other,” he said, smiling at the memory of footsteps fading away at high speed.

Well, if nothing else, I want The Back-Up. Ah, not with children in the house. Probably a gun safe and multiple trigger locks.

Bloggage:

Roy rounds up the Hillary’s-a-dyke innuendo — this week’s, anyway.

Why are you so awesome, Rudy? Giuliani has a superfan, too.

Sometimes I write the copy for my sister’s eBay auctions, but I can’t touch how people sell shit on Craigslist: For an electric wine-bottle opener (yes, they exist), opens a bottle in seconds, allowing you to spend more time with your guests. Because that’s really a problem at most social gatherings, isn’t it?

Back later, peeps. Still on deadline.