I used to work, at a couple layers of remove, for a man who believed, deeply, in bipartisanship. All of our problems could be solved, he contended, if we could just sit down at the Table of Brotherhood, square in the middle of the Marketplace of Ideas, and reason together over our shared situation. He’s an old man now, and I doubt he’s changed his mind at all, although maybe it’s dawned on him that, as scores of others have pointed out, that we no longer have two parties dealing in good faith, but OMG we’ve been over this so many times I’m already bored.

Anyway, I thought of him when I read this story in Washington Monthly, which is about how the Biden administration is sending money intended for cities directly to the cities themselves, not going through the usual block-grant process, in place since the Nixon administration. Why? Because that’s how red-state governors like to punish blue cities:

When Hurricane Harvey struck Houston in 2017, city lawmakers expected the state to pass along the more than $1 billion Congress had appropriated for emergency aid. Instead, they received nothing: The entire package was doled out to largely white, inland communities less affected by the storm. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner accused Abbott of a “money grab.” The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development later found that the stunt put Texas in violation of the Civil Rights Act. “Let me just tell you, that remains a sore spot,” Turner recently told me.

Of course, until fairly recently, the block-grant system worked passably well. I don’t want to over quote from what is a very readable story (for such a nerdy one), but this stood out to me:

Then, as now, tensions existed between urban and rural interests over spending and other decisions. For instance, politicians representing cities wanted funding for projects like mass transit, whereas those from more rural areas wanted money spent on roads. But back in the 1970s—indeed, for most of U.S. history—disagreements between rural and urban interests weren’t necessarily partisan in nature. Rural lawmakers (depending on the state) were as likely to be Democrats as Republicans, and spending battles typically involved bipartisan dealmaking—for instance, urban Democrats aligning with suburban lawmakers, who were largely Republicans, to get money for metro-wide bus service.

Only in the past 20 years, as the parties sorted more starkly geographically—with metro areas becoming overwhelmingly blue, and rural and exurban areas becoming overwhelmingly Republican—have the battles over the funding of local communities become reliably partisan and ideological. In 2011, for example, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the Ron DeSantis of that era, signed legislation preempting the ability of local governments to mandate that private businesses in their jurisdictions offer paid sick leave, as Milwaukee had done. Soon after that, 15 more states passed similar statutes. In 2012, Barack Obama took 69 percent of the vote in cities with more than 500,000 residents while winning just 22 percent of total counties, the lowest share in history. Meanwhile, the Republican Party was methodically consolidating power over state governments: Between 2010 and 2013, the number of states with a Republican ruling trifecta jumped from nine to 25, their largest state lawmaking majority since the 1920s. Governors and attorneys general launched an endless barrage of lawsuits against Obama’s government.

This, more than anything else, is what drives me nuts about today’s GOP: They still contend that they are the party of the smallest government, the most local government, until they aren’t. When Washtenaw County, home of Ann Arbor, proposed banning or otherwise discouraging the use of plastic grocery bags — the kind that end of blowing in the breeze and getting tangled in tree branches, not the sturdier multi-use ones I tote to Kroger — the Michigan legislature passed a law forbidding such local ordinances, because Meijer and other representatives of Big Grocery kicked about it. Here’s the story on what’s happening in Texas:

Over (Gov. Greg Abbott’s) two-plus terms, he and his GOP-controlled legislature have overridden the ability of local governments in Texas to, among other things, mandate paid sick leave, require COVID-19 vaccines for workers, expand voting options, and regulate oil and gas drilling within their own borders.

You can’t sit down in the marketplace of ideas with people like that. You can only burn them to the ground. Fortunately, they’re doing a pretty good job of lighting their own fires.

But they’re still dangerous. In the cheering over Janet Protasiewicz’ victory, one dark detail was overlooked, and thanks to my cheesehead friend for pointing it out. North shore Milwaukee voters elected a Republican to the state senate, giving them a supermajority there, and guess what?

The Wisconsin Constitution allows lawmakers to remove state officials “for corrupt conduct in office, or for crimes and misdemeanors,” but Knodl has said he would consider launching impeachment proceedings for criminal justice officials “who have failed” at their jobs.

Knodl said he would support invoking the that power against Janet Protasiewicz, the Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge who won a race for a vacant seat on the state Supreme Court. Knodl did not immediately say he would consider voting in favor of impeaching Protasiewicz if she is elected.

State law allows a two-thirds majority in the state Senate to hold impeachment trials for state officials accused of corruption or crimes and misdemeanors if a majority of Assembly members vote to introduce impeachment articles, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau.

Yes, we could see an impeachment of a justice who hasn’t even assumed her office yet.

So that’s where we are. I’m reminded of a line from the Doors: They got the guns but we got the numbers. Let’s just hope we don’t have to call upon Shakespeare by the end of this: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead. I’d rather be a modest-living expat in some European capital than have to fight for my own country.

My plan to cram all my work into one day a week didn’t work, this time, but I got my taxes done, so there’s that.

And thus explains my absence this week. However, I slept terribly last night, so I expect a day of sitting and staring gloomily into space. Which is to say, happy arraignment day!

I won’t be complaining about the inescapableness of it all, because it turns out cutting the cord was the best thing I could have done. Just seeing the screen grabs on Twitter of the O.J.-like coverage of it all disgust me. And after reading the stories about Marjorie Taylor Greene’s snow job of Lesley Stahl Sunday night, I’m pretty down on all legacy media these days.

With some exceptions.

But from what I saw of the Greene/Stahl encounter — clips, mainly — suggest it’s time to retire “60 Minutes,” or at least retire the elderly correspondents stinking up the room. When a lunatic calls Democrats pedophiles, the correct journalistic response isn’t “wow.” But that’s what the “60 Minutes” crew does — looks down its aristocratic nose and thinks a well-placed insult will do the trick. It won’t. She was unprepared. We are unprepared.

Yesterday I read Neil Steinberg’s column about Israel. It’s…not cheering:

Israel, a democracy-loving country, at least when it comes to Jewish people — non-Jews, not so much — has been convulsed with unprecedented protests, and unprecedented shocks like military reservists vowing they won’t serve a dictator.

A stable democracy sliding toward civil war over the return of a judiciary-wrecking would-be autocrat. Hmm, as with Brexit, there seems a subtle warning here to those of us in the United States.

…Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But as with any good horror movie, the monster you thought was buried in the yard is actually moving around the house somewhere. Republicans who hope Ron DeSantis shows up and saves them forget: a) DeSantis is a stiff and b) should it happen, they’ll be stuck with Ron DeSantis. Queen Elizabeth II dying did not mean the end of monarchy. Putin is in every sense a one-man ruler. Netanyahu is trying.

I was feeling pretty good after the elections last fall. Now I’m gloomy again. Part of this is a lack of sleep, as well as the near-certainty that the pool where I swim twice a week is going to close next year, thanks to budget cuts due to falling enrollment.

So let’s move on to the gloomy news, then, eh? Maybe this is more smug news, but you can’t beat Paul Krugman when he’s pointing out the obvious, in this case the drop in life expectancy in the U.S., but particularly in red states:

Now, Covid killed a lot of people around the world, so wasn’t this just an act of God? Not exactly. You see, America experienced a bigger decline in life expectancy when Covid struck than any other wealthy country. Furthermore, while life expectancy recovered in many countries in 2021, here it continued to fall.

And America’s dismal Covid performance was part of a larger story. I don’t know how many Americans are aware that over the past four decades, our life expectancy has been lagging ever further that of other advanced nations — even nations whose economic performance has been poor by conventional measures. Italy, for example, has experienced a generation of economic stagnation, with basically no growth in real G.D.P. per capita since 2000, compared with a 29 percent rise here. Yet Italians can expect to live about five years longer than Americans, a gap that has widened even as the Italian economy flounders.

Yeah, funny how that works.

OK, enough doom and gloom for one day. The good news: The rain may end today — we’ve been getting cats and dogs’ worth — and I’ll get a bike ride in. Hope your day is sunnier.

I’ve been reading “The Artist’s Way,” a gift from a friend. Subtitle: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, and I’m not sure it’s going well, given that I got it three days ago and I haven’t written a novel yet. But I am working on the exercises the author, Julia Cameron, recommends, particularly the morning pages, i.e. three stream-of-consciousness pages written as close to rising as you can do it. So far, it’s…interesting. I’m remembering more of my dreams, if nothing else. I won’t share; they’re very, very, extremely Psych 101, which would suggest I’m a pretty shallow person, but oh well.

How on earth do you spark creativity, anyway? The morning writing helps, but what I mainly remember about times when I was having a burst was this: It comes out of nowhere, and when it does, it’s spectacular. But elusive. Maybe this will help.

The midweek passes, and spring remains in the wings, although I did take a short bike ride yesterday, and it was glorious, even though I stopped every mile or so to do an errand. Just nice to get out and move a little, outdoors, without my knees hurting.

Not much to report, but there’s this: Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has been getting a lot of positive press recently. I’m not her No. 1 fan, but I respect what she’s been able to do, which is a lot. Of course, like so many politicians, she is lucky in her enemies. Like this lunatic:

MLive sat down with new Michigan Republican Party chair Kristina Karamo for nearly two hours March 17 for a sweeping interview that encompassed everything from her conspiratorial beliefs to plans for the party she will lead to the 2024 election.

Karamo was warm, engaging, forthright and unabashed in conversation. Her outspokenness about her convictions is central to how she earned the admiration of her hardline conservative followers. Karamo has a degree in Christian apologetics from Biola University, a private, Christian school in southern California. The theology involves the verbal defense of her faith, and the techniques of that debate style come through in conversation.

…Karamo entered the political spotlight by alleging she saw widespread fraud in Detroit during the 2020 election and remained there by championing the ensuing conspiracy theories. With a promise to root out “systemic election corruption” in Michigan, she lost her bid to become secretary of state last November by more than 615,000 votes, 14 percentage points, to Democratic incumbent Jocelyn Benson.

She has never conceded the election.

She goes on to say that everyone who voted for Proposal 3, the reproductive-freedom constitutional amendment that makes Michigan an oasis for women’s rights in the Midwest, are “participants in murder.” So you can see, it’s easy for people to succeed against opposition like this.

Sooner or later, the state GOP will wise up. Let it be a while, however.

I generally avoid news about the former president these days — had to abandon the Haberman book, at least for a while, because I so disliked the feeling of having him in my head again — but a detail from the coverage of the Waco rally this weekend caught my eye. It was something about how they played a recording of the “J6 prison choir,” a choral group made up of January 6 defendants, singing the National Anthem, with spoken-word breaks by you-know-who, reading the pledge of allegiance.

Folks, they did not lie. It exists. Click and despair.

I was feeling pretty good after the election, but despair is beginning to creep in around the edges again. I saw another piece, on NPR, about the decline in American life expectancy. It’s worth a click if only for that graphic, with the United States in red, parting ways with the rest of the developed world, post-Covid. Freedumb strikes again.

But despair is a sin, as the lord reminds us. And so I will keep my sunny side up, up, even though it’s a Monday.

Bill Zehme died over the weekend. Most people wouldn’t remember the name, but in journalism circles, he was big, one of the tiny fraternity (and it was so often a fraternity) who got to profile big-time celebrities. He was good at it, and his pieces on Jay Leno, Frank Sinatra, Hugh Hefner, etc., were good enough that their subjects are providing mournful quotes in the wake of his death. The ones who survive, anyway.

As for me, the one I’ll always remember was his oddly sympathetic piece on post-downfall Bob Greene. I think someone must have asked him later why he was so nice to the guy, and he replied that when he was a struggling journalism student, or maybe just launched in his career, he’d written to Bob, and Bob had replied with just the encouragement he needed. He may have even met with him in person, and the titanic journo had bucked up the fetal one, and that meant so much, etc etc. All I could think was: Dummy, he did that to everyone, and if the supplicant was a pretty girl, the encouragement often continued at the Marriott down the street?

Ah, well. That was a different time, as we say so often.

Hope your weekend was good. Mine was fine, although I erred in eating an enormous Mexican dinner at 9 p.m. on a Friday night, which kept me up for hours past my bedtime, not with heartburn, but what I think of as Spanish Sleeplessness, because it happened multiple times when we were in Spain, where restaurants don’t even open until 8 p.m. I’m so goddamn old, my body can’t handle digestion and sleep at the same time.

Ah, well. Back to the mangle, as the work week starts.

You can hate on clock-changing all you want, but there’s nothing like a little extra sunshine, and that springlike angle to the light that says: It may still be very cold, but winter has been driven from its fortification, and I am back, baby.

Which is to say: Happy vernal equinox to all who celebrate, i.e. all of us.

I’m reconsidering my relationship with Amazon, if that’s even possible. Last week, I ordered four different things that I can’t find at stores here — a nice facial moisturizer that I discovered in France and is the one I’ve been searching for ever since I entered the Age of Wrinkles; the Klorane conditioner that restores my hair to something resembling hair, not flyaway gray straw, after a swim, also discovered in France; a descaler for our coffeemaker that Alan has decreed is more effective than vinegar; and a separate cleaner for the carafe, ditto. This is arriving in no fewer than three separate shipments, presumably because they’re coming from warehouses all over the region. There is nothing, not even extended idling on a cold day just to keep the car warm, that can make me feel more like a climate traitor than realizing a truck had to drive to my house to deliver a bottle of conditioner. And two separate locations for the coffeepot cleaners?! What the what!

But chances are I will do it again, because this is modern life.

The moisturizer, by the way, is Embryolisse. I think they call it that because it makes your skin as soft as a fetus’, but what do I know.

I started a conversation yesterday on my Facebook page, and it’s generated some interesting responses, so I’m going to continue it here. The question: Do you share your location with your family members, via some sort of smartphone app? More or less permanently, via the Always On feature? This came up in a conversation with friends last summer, and when I expressed wonder that anyone would do that, I was informed that it’s commonplace. You can do it via various apps, the most common being Google Maps; there’s a setting you can click to allow anyone you choose, who also has a Google account, to know where you — or your phone, anyway — are, every minute of the day. Parents share with their teenagers, spouses with one another. It’s most common in family units, obviously.

I’ve used it with a one-hour expiration a few times. When we were in Madrid, we had friends there at the same time, and it was a nice tool when we were meeting at some sidewalk cafe at the corner of two medieval streets with names I couldn’t spell anyway. But the idea of leaving it on forever? Hell no. And yet, I’ve seen it more than once, and some of the people who answered had their reasons for doing so.

Would you be comfortable doing this? It seems like it’d be an easy tool to abuse, particularly for bad spouses and partners.

Finally, is Trump really going to be indicted? Will we get a mugshot? That’s all I care about.

And with that, I’ve come to the bottom of my mixed bag. I had lunch today with Eric Zorn in Ann Arbor, and I want some quiet time to think about everything we talked about. That’s the best kind of conversation.

You guys! I’m so sorry I’ve been such a sluggard here. I don’t know where last week went. But let’s soldier on, anyway:

I generally dislike anniversary journalism, but Monday is March 6, which sticks in my head as the beginning of Covid in Michigan. The first cases wouldn’t be diagnosed and announced until the 10th, the day of the primary election, but on the 6th the chill was definitely in the air. Kate and the girls had a show at Third Man Records, the beginning of what they hoped would be a victory march down to SXSW in Austin, but by then, SXSW had been cancelled. “Just go anyway,” I told them. “People will be getting together and playing anyway, with or without the festival’s backing.” They were afraid no one would come out to Third Man that night, but once the Bernie Sanders rally at the nearby TCF Center concluded, they had no problem filling the place. I noticed one guy standing way off by himself in a mask. Huh, I thought.

Within days, the governor would start issuing shutdown orders, and within weeks, those orders would be the genesis of a new right-wing movement here, which led directly to…well, a lot of things. The utter delamination of the state GOP, although pockets of strength remain. The shenanigans in Ottawa County got their start then. There are others.

I wrote a story for Deadline on the one-year anniversary, presented oral history-style, which means it’s too long, but oh well. I’ve reread it around this time the last couple of years, because I don’t want to forget anything about the early days – the fear, the panic, the way people one block away would cross the street when they saw me coming, walking the dog. (I, on the other hand, would only step off to the curb line. That was my comfort zone.) The way some people wiped down their groceries. The homemade masks, the Karen tantrums in grocery stores, the toilet paper hoarding, all of it.

The New York Times magazine had a Covid oral-history story last week, and one quote in it hit me between the eyes:

In the final set of interviews, most of which were conducted last summer, some people said the pandemic was over while others insisted it absolutely was not. Or that it was “sort of queasily over.” Or that it had been over, but then “it stopped being over.” “I think we all, as a society, became better,” one nursing-home aide concluded. A nonprofit worker confessed, “I used to think that we lived in a society, and I thought that people would come together to take care of one another, and I don’t think that anymore.”

That last quote, especially, echoed some of the way people talked in my story. Here’s a state legislator who lost her sister early on:

After Isaac (Robinson, a member of the Michigan Legislature) passed, (the legislature) didn’t go back immediately. We had some votes, mainly to extend the Governor’s executive order powers, and Democrats wanted a joint resolution allowing virtual voting. (The Republicans) didn’t take the resolution up. I was of the mindset that the Republicans weren’t starting from a place of “how do we deal with this crisis,” but “how do we jam the governor.”

And the funeral director:

It hit my community so hard, and we were screaming and it’s like nobody heard us. I’d hear these people saying, “We have to open up. I can’t go to my restaurant anymore,” and I’m having trouble getting gloves because of the hoarding. Without gloves, I’m out of business.

That’s kind of where I am, three years later. To be sure, the ER doctor and epidemiologist said she came away with optimism about the power of people working together, but she was mainly talking about her medical colleagues. I’m no longer confident, or even optimistic, that faced with an existential public-health threat, people will do the right thing. Here’s something I hear a lot: “I am just so over Covid.” Aren’t we all, but it’s still with us. To be sure, my masking is less common than it was. I went to a densely packed show a while back, mask-free. I eat in restaurants again. But I mask on planes, and I still watch case numbers. If they go up, I mask up. I’m still a No-vid, but I don’t worry that I could die, if I got it. I’ve been vaccinated five times; if I get it, I expect mild symptoms and long Covid to be far less likely. But I don’t want to get it in the first place.

My faith in my fellow citizens, though? That’s in the toilet. Maybe that’s why I’m enjoying “The Last of Us,” the post-zombie apocalypse show on HBO now. It posits a future where the thing you most have to fear is not the zombies, but your fellow healthy American. Everyone is armed to the teeth; busting a cap in someone’s ass is considered totally acceptable to protect one’s food or vehicle or whatever. The government is a dominating fascist force. There’s a thriving black market in the human settlements that remain. That, I regret to say, is what I expect the next time a pandemic hits.

Not that I wish to start the week on a bummer note! After a wet, sloppy snowstorm Friday night, we’ve had two days of snow-melting weather, and spring is most definitely on its way.

I know it isn’t funny, but I can’t stop laughing at that idiot Scott Adams, who fucked around and found out in recent days, and now finds himself dependent on other dumbshit racists like him to pay the bills. And his cash reserves, of course, of which I’m sure there are plenty.

Look for Dilbert T-shirts on the Proud Boys soon.

Gene Weingarten has the best take on it (so far), which spends a bit of time discussing why Adams is so, so goddamn dumb, but thinks of himself as a genius:

You are probably aware of the latest rant by Scott Adams, the creator of the pioneering workplace-related comic strip Dilbert. Adams, who has long been flirting with right-wing positions, sees himself as a rare genius — he once actually wrote that, anonymously, as a comment to a blog, as though it was an observation by someone else, and got caught. He also sees himself as a courageous provocateur and not a septic asshole, apparently on account of his doctor of geniusness degree. As you probably know, he finally went right over the top last week and did a face plant from 50 feet onto asphalt.

Citing a Rasmussen poll reporting that only 53 percent of Black people agreed with the statement “It’s okay to be White,” (roughly half of the rest were unsure, and the rest said “no.”) Adams concluded in a streaming video that Black people are a “hate group,” and that the best solution to this fact is that “White people get the hell away from Black people.” He also said Black people were at fault for “not focusing on education,” and added “I’m also really sick of seeing video after video of Black Americans beating up non-Black citizens.”

How dumb is Scott Adams? This dumb:

Rasmussen is generally regarded to be the most right-biased major pollster in the country. On its homepage right now are the following headlines, based on its recent inquiries: Conservative Viewers Are Better Informed About Important Topics; Not ‘Woke’ Yet? Most Voters Reject Anti-White Beliefs ; Local Impact of Illegal Immigration Mostly Bad, Voters Say; Fentanyl: Most Voters Rate Biden Low on Handling Problem. The only other question in the poll of whether it is okay to be White was: “Agree or disagree: Black people can be racist, too.” One can presume that Rasmussen does not exactly have its finger on the pulse of the Black community.

So why not take a stupid poll and make a stupid rant out of it, if it makes people pay attention to you? I get the feeling the stakes in a game like this, which is to say, one’s own YouTube show, is to start out saying something ridiculous and keep saying it, and escalate and escalate until, like a balloon, it pops. I’ve done radio before; YouTube can’t be that different. People say radio is an intimate medium, but only if you have the imagination to feel people out there, breathing and paying attention. Or not paying attention; maybe you’d be the kind of host who imagines attention wandering, distraction, and so you pump up the volume, hoping that the technology will somehow evolve in the next 30 seconds and they’ll talk back.

They never talk back. And so, if you’re dumb, you just keep blabbing, like Adams.

I shouldn’t talk. One of these days I’ll step in it. But no one pays attention to people like me.

OK, then. The week begins. One more to get this story done, and then we’ll be back to status quo.

Sorry, guys. I accepted a freelance assignment with the dreaded one-two punch of being, first, a fairly dry topic and second, a tight deadline. So I’ve been distracted this week. Every time I do one of these, I think: Isn’t it time to stop doing this? Then I think: Can I use the money? I can always use the money. And so: More phone calls, emails, etc.

I’m indebted to David Simon for once observing that if it were fun, they’d call it show fun. But it’s business, and so it’s show business. Some things aren’t fun.

So. The other part of this is that I’m in the dreaded late-winter doldrums. We had an ice storm midweek that, thankfully, didn’t rob us of our power like hundreds of thousands of others in the metro area, but it’s bleak enough outdoors that I have been staring at the walls and observing my empty skull like Annie Hall watching herself and Alby having sex.

But it’s at least partly sunny today — although fucking cold — and I hope to make some progress on my story today. And it’s Friday, so no matter what happens, my sources won’t be at their desks tomorrow, and I can not think about it for two whole days. A garden center on one of the main drags here always puts up a spring countdown board around this time of year, and I can report it’s below 30 now.

Someone sent me this a little while ago, and it has roused me to my usual state of simmering outrage:

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Republican lawmakers voted Wednesday to prohibit Indiana University from using any state money to support its sexual research institution after a far-right legislator unleashed disputed allegations of child exploitation by its founder and famed mid-20th century researcher Alfred Kinsey.

The Indiana House voted 53-34 to block state funding toward the Kinsey Institute that has long faced criticism from conservatives for its ongoing research and the legacy of Kinsey’s work that they blame for contributing to liberalized sexual morals, including more acceptance of homosexuality and pornography.

Oh, of course they did. Living in the Hoosier state for 20 years, I was often amazed that the Kinsey Institute existed there at all, but I was schooled on the tremendous influence of a single Indiana University president, Herman B Wells (no period on the B, a style oddity you learn the first time you mess it up), who fought the hayseed legislature and prevailed, which was every bit of the miracle you might be thinking it is. The mover behind this is a sourpuss with the ironic name of Larissa Sweet, new to the legislature, hailing from where else but Huntington County:

Republican Rep. Lorissa Sweet claimed that some of Kinsey’s research was child exploitation as she argued for an amendment to the state budget bill against funding for the institute.

“By limiting the funding to Kinsey Institute through Indiana University’s tax dollars, we can be assured that we are not funding ongoing research committed by crimes.” Sweet said.

And I’ll break my usual three-paragraph rule to include the pushback by Bloomington’s voice:

Democratic Rep. Matt Pierce, whose Bloomington district includes the university campus, responded that Sweet’s claims were “based on old unproven allegations of conspiracies that did not exist,” calling them “warmed-over internet memes that keep coming back.”

Yep. Although frankly, it would serve Indiana right if the Kinsey Institute packed up its enormous collection of literature, research and art — more on that in a minute — and decamped for more tolerant pastures. Although I’m sure if they did, the legislature would demand payment for the materials collected through the publicly funded university.

For those who think the Institute is some dank orgy pit, be advised that they guard their gates carefully, admitting only serious scholars or students doing research for classes. A friend of mine was granted entry to find material for a paper on cohabitation before marriage, and said it was extraordinary, not just for the amazing library, where “Doctor’s Naughty Nurse” was shelved next to peer-reviewed studies of male impotence next to “Lady Chatterly’s Lover” and so on, but also the art collection, which hardly anyone talks about. They have paintings and so on from renowned artists, all pretty, shall we say, frank. I don’t know about you, but I’d love to see Thomas Hart Benton’s R-rated sketchbook, wouldn’t you? Sex is a big part of human life; it’s important to study it, and always has been, something Wells knew and Sweet…doesn’t.

Sweet is a first-termer, on the record supporting all the usual right-wing crap — health freedom, gun freedom, all the freedoms (except reproductive, of course). She’s from Wabash, has a degree from Purdue in “animal agribusiness” and works as a pet groomer. And this is who District 50 has representing them in the people’s house.

OK, I’m sufficiently irritated to get back to real work now. You all have a good weekend and let’s hope for a warmer kind of sunshine next week.

There’s a piece from last week’s Atlantic that’s been going around, about the MSU situation. It’s well-written of course, but I thought it was way, way too sentimental; I mean, if the time for thoughts and prayers is over, so too is the shocked I-never-thought-it-could-happen-here-in-this-very-special-place piece. I mean, how many times does this have to happen before we stop being shocked? And I wrote a long-ish blog about it. However, I decided #toosoon, and decided to, what’s the word, extend some grace to people who are truly suffering, and spiked it.

See? I do have a heart. And that’s why no third blog last week.

But I will save this one paragraph toward the end, more or less as I wrote it five days ago:

Every teary tribute to the Specialness and the Majesty of MSU or any other institution struck by violence or sexual assault or another tragedy puts it in a unique category, i.e., one that is so special to so many that it must be protected at all costs. Then, when someone like Larry Nassar comes along, the people charged with defending it promote the interests of the institution over those of the people who suffered in it. How many times have we seen this in the past 20 years? Many. Many-many-many.

And I also want you to see two images that received lots of play last week. Like many campuses, MSU has a boulder that students paint for various occasions. Here was the MSU boulder the day after the shootings:

And here it was a day later:

College Republicans, a raiding party up from Hillsdale or townies? You tell me.

And one final note: It turns out I had a brief encounter with one of the Grosse Pointe MSU kids who died, on New Year’s Eve, 2020. Five of us had gathered for a pod celebration at one couple’s house. Their teenage daughter was having her own celebration in the basement. There’s a bathroom down there, but it must have been occupied, because one of the boys came upstairs and very politely asked to use one on the first floor. We were having a really good time, and the host said, “Only if you can name one of the Beatles.” He waited a beat, and blurted out, “John McCarthy.” We laughed and laughed and directed him to the loo. His name was Brian, but I’ll always think of him as John McCarthy. Gone at 20 years old, our sacrifice on the altar of the Second Amendment.

But life goes on, and a new week begins. Hope yours is swell.

A mass shooter took out eight young people, three of them fatally, at Michigan State University last night. I’m not going to do the things we do when this happens.

Warning: This is going to get ranty, I fear.

I will not change my profile picture on my social media to any of the approved images — the MSU Spartan with a tear dripping from its eye seems to be the preferred one for now, although there may be others. I won’t be using hashtags like #MSUStrong or #heartbroken or anything like that. I won’t be wearing green and white, or attending candlelight vigils. Not gonna buy flowers to lay on a pile somewhere, nor stuffed animals.

I get why people do all those things; it beats doing nothing, I guess. But doing nothing is better than this performative, useless thing where we collectively make a heart with our hands for a few days, then go right back to the same old shit that leads to this type of same old shit.

Here’s another thing I won’t be doing: Telling you “Don’t talk about the bad man who did this! Talk about the wonderful young people who died!” Nope. I’m sure they were fine young people. I’m sure they were bright and driven and had plans for their lives that were only beginning. It’s a tragedy they’ll never be able to carry them out, that their absence will mean decades of pain for their parents, siblings and friends. But to talk about only that, and to ignore the many bad things that led their killer to that moment last night when he fired his gun, is to say those young people are just props in our own performative grief.

In this case, the killer, ID’d as Anthony McRae, had a misdemeanor firearms charge in his record, for which he was initially charged with a felony, then pleaded down. He received probation, did the term, and was released from supervision in 2021. From the history journalists have been able to glean in the last 24 hours, he looks like a very familiar sort in 21st-century America: A guy who loved guns. Neighbors complained he’d take target practice from the back door of the house he shared with his father. It wasn’t a big house. His dad said he tried to get his son to give them up, but he refused.

Like I said: A familiar story. A defense lawyer talks sense here:

The plea to a lesser, misdemeanor charge is not unusual, said Birmingham defense lawyer Wade Fink, who was not involved in the case.

“It is exceedingly common for someone who doesn’t have a criminal history and was carrying a concealed weapon,” Fink said. “If everybody went to prison for that, you would have an overcrowding problem and you would be giving a lot of younger people felonies, which hurts them their whole life.

“What would have stopped this is more difficulty accessing guns,” Fink added. “The felony isn’t going to stop a madman.”

I’m feeling angry because already all this shit is starting, the static and snow that obscures the lesson Mr. Fink is trying to tell us. This never would have happened if he’d been put behind bars! This never would have happened if he couldn’t just walk into those buildings! This never would have happened if we had more two-parent homes! And so on. There are unlocked schools, single parents and jail-happy judges in many other countries, but this only happens here, pretty much.

One final note: Two of the three students who were killed were from Grosse Pointe. The girl, 19, went to Kate’s high school; the boy, 20, went to the other one. Both fine young people. Brian Fraser and Arielle Anderson. There, I said their names.

But until we do something serious about this madness, they’ll only be the most recent in a lengthening list.