I’m pretty good at holding my tongue when public figures I don’t care for die. The Ronald Reagan death orgy went on for days and days and reached a level of hysteria close to that of Princess Diana’s. I finally cracked when his daughter, Patti, took time from her grieving to publish some awful thing in People magazine about how her father emerged from his Alzheimer’s in his final moments to gaze in to Nancy’s eyes and…something. I forget. It seemed to cross a line to the point that I no longer felt the need to hold my tongue, although at that point, what is there to say? Everyone’s going where Scalia is now, and in the end, all will be revealed.

Anyway, I can’t keep up and have no special insight. To my mind, Scalia was a retrograde Catholic, unworried about the rights and lives of anyone who wasn’t. But his kind is going away, the way old ways yield to new ones. The next week will be difficult, and once he’s planted after his Mass of Christian burial, the nomination will happen and the rest of it will be an e-ticket to Crazytown. We live in interesting times.

Couple of pieces here, first Charles Pierce, stating the obvious:

In 2012, the “American people” decided that Barack Obama should appoint justices to the Supreme Court to fill any vacancies that occurred between January of 2013 and January of 2017. Period. Just because Mitch McConnell is a complete chickenshit in the face of his caucus doesn’t obviate that fact. The 36 percent of eligible voters who showed up for the 2014 midterms, the lowest percentage in 72 years, don’t get to cancel out the expressed wishes of the majority of the 57.5 percent of eligible voters who turned out to re-elect the president in 2012. And before this meme really picks up steam, 17 justices have been confirmed during election years, including Roger Taney, which sucks, in 1836, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist, who were appointed in 1972, and Anthony Kennedy, who was appointed in 1988.

(And it should not be necessary to point out that any argument made by this Congress on the basis of political tradition or legislative politesse inevitably will cause Irony to shoot itself in the head.)

That whole piece is good. Read.

One of our locals, Stephen Henderson:

In 2003, when the court ruled that sodomy laws – long used to persecute gay Americans — were unconstitutional, Scalia penned one of the most fiery and petulant dissents in court history. It turned, rather cruelly, on the notion that gay equality could not be lawfully embraced by the court because the founders had not envisioned it, and the people had not voted to make it so.

The court, he said, had signed on to the “homosexual agenda” aimed at overturning the “moral opprobrium attached to homosexual conduct.”

That happened at the end of my first term covering the high court. Like many others, I sat in the courtroom, listening in disbelief and disgust as Scalia angrily read his dissent. In the four subsequent court terms I spent in Washington, I never again looked at him, listened to him thunder in court, or read his decisions without that day in my mind.

Hell, there are probably a million smart Scalia pieces out there. Post your own.

I leave you with this bit of sparkling genius from Ben Carson. It seems an appropriate way to start the week.

I was working on a task that needed to be laid aside for a few minutes for the sake of my sanity, so I checked out the livestream of the surrender in Oregon. The last holdout was, I’d be willing to bet, a client of our own MMJeff at one time. (Jeff’s taking an internet fast for Lent, so I don’t know if he can stop in to illuminate us.) After all, he’s a Buckeye:

“I’m actually feeling suicidal right now,” said Mr. Fry, 27, who lives in Ohio. “It’s liberty or death. I will not go another day as a slave to this system.” He railed against taxpayer money being used for abortions and drone strikes in Pakistan, said bankers were to blame for the world wars, complained of being unable to obtain medical marijuana in his home state, and accused the government of suppressing breakthrough inventions, concealing U.F.O.’s, and “chemically castrating everybody.”

I heard a little of this before I turned it off; he was complaining that a cop once suggested he, Fry, might be a Rand Paul voter, and when Fry said he was, the cop said, “I voted for Obama.” “And this is the kind of crap I have to put up with!” Fry moaned. Imagine.

Of course this isn’t funny, even though Fry surrendered without making good on his threat. Fry is only a nuttier version of the people I’m thinking of whenever I say, What the hell are we going to do with these people? Young Mr. Fry had a place in the world of 40 or 50 years ago, but he doesn’t anymore, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Neither does anyone else. So he heads off to Oregon to join up with this ridiculous bunch of pissed-off grifters.

Well, at least we dispersed this group without a Waco-like level of bloodshed. Tidy up the mess, unfuck the road they cut and see if we can get the birdies and critters their refuge back.

Watching the debate now, and I can’t take my eyes off Hillary’s resplendent golden garment. She wears a lot of yellow, and I’m not sure it’s her color — I like her best in jewel tones like cobalt and emerald. The rest of the event appeared to be measured policy discussion, conducted with mutual respect and sobriety. No wonder this thing is on PBS.

A bit o’ bloggage:

Today is the 25th anniversary of the death of Gary on “thirtysomething.” Hank does a story. If you didn’t watch it, don’t tell me. It meant a lot to me, back then.

And justlikethat, the weekend is here. Enjoy yours.

What to start with today, humor or not? Let’s go with humor. Guess what our old friend Mitch Albom is up to? Musical comedy, that’s what:

In regard to bestselling author/journalist Mitch Albom’s new musical comedy stage farce, Hockey: The Musical, the puck will drop mid-May.

…But what will the show be about – beyond, you know, hockey? “In a nutshell, it’s about what happens when the universe, or God, decides there are too many sports in the world, so one has to go,” Albom said. “Hockey has been chosen to be eliminated from the world, but a fan comes forth and begs and says, ‘No, not hockey! Please, please not hockey!’ The deal is, if he can find 5 pure souls to explain why hockey shouldn’t be eliminated, heaven will relent and choose another sport.”

This is almost too wonderful for words. I’m amused by the fact, after I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday, that many people simply assumed it was a parody. After all, it merely tumbles around the usual Albom tropes — five people, a God who worries about inexplicable things like how many sports there are in the world, a Heaven that’s as accessible and ordinary as the conference room down the hall, the whole bit. (You wonder why anyone would strive to get to a heaven that sounds like it’s decorated with posters of kittens hanging from tree branches, and small talk about which sports to abolish.)

Tickets go on sale in two days, if you’d like me to snag you a pair. My heart goes out to the poor Free Press saps who will be roped into promoting this crap.

So, another Wednesday. The governor gave his budget presentation today. You could hear the protestors clamoring outside the hearing room, and he looked rattled by it. Keep in mind this is a guy who was famous for never using a prompter or even notes when he made speeches; he just knew what he was going to say, and said it, up to and including lengthy addresses like the state of the state. Today was a different kettle of fish.

Flint has changed the balance in a rather big way. Interesting times.

How about a little more levity, then?

Mardi Gras in the Upper Peninsula:

@travelmarquette #fattuesday #bravingthecold #marquettemichigan #lagniappe #shoplocal

A video posted by Spice Merohants Of Marquette (@spicemerchantsofmqtmi) on Feb 9, 2016 at 12:50pm PST

Unzip your parka and show us your tits, honeys! Soon it’ll be the weekend.

Monday night appears to be turning into a semi-regular no-show night for me. I apologize, for whatever it’s worth. (Not much.) This is the point in the winter where I begin to get mad at my coats, sick of flannel sheets, keenly interested in lying under down comforters until maybe April.

And what are we looking at for the end of the week? Single digits, just in time for the weekend. Yech. Ah, but we will make it through, as we always do.

Primary season, then. Bernie wins big, Trump wins big, Kasich finishes big, the Exclamation Point battling it out for fourth place. What a crazy race so far. What else is there to say? Maybe here’s a companion piece, a (wait for it) David Brooks column about the president:

(Over) the course of this campaign it feels as if there’s been a decline in behavioral standards across the board. Many of the traits of character and leadership that Obama possesses, and that maybe we have taken too much for granted, have suddenly gone missing or are in short supply.

The first and most important of these is basic integrity. The Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free. Think of the way Iran-contra or the Lewinsky scandals swallowed years from Reagan and Clinton.

We’ve had very little of that from Obama. He and his staff have generally behaved with basic rectitude. Hillary Clinton is constantly having to hold these defensive press conferences when she’s trying to explain away some vaguely shady shortcut she’s taken, or decision she has made, but Obama has not had to do that.

This is what much of the world is so angry about, mind you. Or rather, it’s what they’re concentrating their anger upon. They’re angry because they’ve been screwed over by a changing economy and an almost unbelievably greedy and uncaring elite that cares absolutely nothing for them. But they’re focusing it, many of them, on an administration that sees mostly convenient.

You know where people are angry? Flint. And who wouldn’t be? Every day the story gets more infuriating:

In sum, a review of the e-mails provided by Genesee County from several public-information requests appear to illustrate the inability, if not unwillingness, of city and state agencies to share information with the county as it investigated multiple Legionnaires’ cases. The clash among bureaucrats went on privately for months despite growing fears inside Flint among residents that something was deeply wrong with the city’s drinking water.

Imagine owning a house in Flint right now. I’d be angry, too.

Not much bloggage today, but if you’re one of those spreading the story that Michigan passed an anti-sodomy law this week, you’re wrong.

On to South Carolina, then.

I see the news of the gubernatorial birthday cake hit the comments. As I’ve said before, there’s a lot here I can’t talk about, but I think it’s safe to observe that the governor is said to have not one but two crisis PR firms working on the handling of this story. I think he should consider stopping payment on the check.

Also, last week Bridge published a rather extraordinary piece, which may be of interest to you completists, i.e., the full, 31,000-word document dump of e-mail and contemporaneous news clips of the Flint disaster, presented in a timeline. Especially as you get into the summer of 2015, you really get a sense of various state agencies crashing into one another, while the truth and scope of the disaster finally, finally begins to sink in. It’s terrifying, in its own way.

Anyway, everybody’s writing about Flint. Here’s a version of the same story — a feature on a Flint hero — done two different ways. The good way, and the other way. I have a hard time with a chirpy story about a “star” doctor, no matter how heroic her actions, that makes it sound as though, in the end, this will turn out to be a super career move for her. She’s undeniably a good guy, but let’s not forget who lies at the bottom of this disaster – kids with lifelong brain damage. I actually agree with the conservative ed-page editor at the Detroit News, who writes:

We are months into the awareness that the city’s water system carried lead into residents, and still there has not been a summit of local, state and federal officials to unite behind a fix-it strategy. What’s been going on is an embarrassment, and has additionally damaged a state whose reputation is built on pure, abundant water. That isn’t helping the people of Flint.

How was your weekend? We’ve got hints of spring in every breeze, although of course it’s way too early. I actually had some down time to just read and chill, and now I’m watching the Super Bowl. This will be my first football game since… the last Super Bowl, I guess. How long has giving oxygen to players on the bench been s.o.p. in the NFL? Also, let’s just give Beyonce a five-year contract on halftime and leave the whey-faced Brits to the World Cup or something, OK? She’s awesome.

Whoever made the crack about her thighs? SIT DOWN.

Monday awaits. That’s all I can say about it now. So have yourself a Monday.

Today I lunched in Dearborn with my colleague, Bill. You know Dearborn — where Sharia law (makes dragon-roar sound, paws the air with terrible claws) prevails! Where Detroit police dare not go! Where the mayor goes by the very no-fly list name of… Jack O’Reilly?

Yep, that one. I was just there for the hummus and falafel. Bill’s a native, so we had a mini-tour, checking out the houses that have been remodeled and rebuilt for the Arab community and their multigenerational families. And then we stopped at his favorite Lebanese sweet shop to celebrate the end of my sugar binge. Let me just say that after a month off? Those date-pistachio cookies and coconut whatever-it-was hit me like a ton of bricks. It might as well have been nerve gas, it put me down so hard.

Tomorrow, nothing racier than an orange. Maybe a banana. I learned my lesson.

Now I’m watching the Iowa results coming in. Cruz up by 3 percentage points, Hillary ditto, but it’s still early. Who gives a crap about Iowa, anyway? Rick Santorum won Iowa, remember. (And yeah, Barry O did too. But also Mike Huckabee.)

Annnnnd… this is the point where I had computer problems last night, and elected to shut things down and go to bed. Let’s discuss Iowa. My icebreaker: Should we worry about Hillary, or not?

What a difference a weekend makes. I went into it a teetotaler and came out free to imbibe again. The Whole 30 is over. January is over. And I discovered I have knack for curling. Sorta-curling, anyway.

I was invited to a fundraiser by a woman in my boxing club, for a new group that’s trying to help women in difficult circumstances. Alan was under the weather, so I went stag. (Doe?) The house was large and beautiful, but the party was in the back yard. Where I found this:

Now that’s a backyard ice rink. The host said he’s been doing this for his kids since they were little, just knocking the frame together and filling it with a hose. They skate a couple hours a day, and then he goes out after they’ve gone to bed and manually Zambonis the surface, with scrapers and a big squeegee. But we weren’t there to play hockey; backyard curling was the night’s entertainment. I found their homemade curling stones charming — two mixing bowls filled with cement, with pipe handles. We played backyard-curling rules, which was basically ice bocci: Throw a puck down the ice, then try to get your stone as close to it as possible.

The temperature was just above freezing, so the brushing was pretty inconsequential. Mostly we just slid the stones down the ice. Our team was trailing in the final, caught up and was down by one on the final point. The other team had two stones in scoring range and our last player sent his down the lane and knocked both to kingdom come, leaving his close enough to the puck to kiss it. A real Michigan-Michigan State 2015 finish. The prize was any bottle from the booze table, and I chose a nice bottle of champagne. A great way to end Dry January.

And that means the Whole 30 is over, too. Truth be told, it was more of a Whole 15 and a PrettyMuch 15, but it accomplished what it was supposed to do. I lost seven pounds, and while I didn’t break my sweet tooth in half, I held it at bay and learned it was not my master. Didn’t miss alcohol even a little bit. Bread was different, but I broke some habits there, too — I no longer consider eggs without toast a pathetic excuse for breakfast. And not only is it possible to add vegetables to every meal, sautéed vegetables make scrambled eggs pretty damn special, as Mark Bittman can attest.

Now to keep the trend going. My opinion of Paleo recipes has changed, but not by much. I still think most of them suck (TOO MUCH SEASONING), but I’ve found a few exceptions. But I’m never buying a bottle of coconut aminos, and I sorta regret this coconut oil, too, because it makes everything taste like coconut. I like coconut, but not that much.

I was regretting the bottle of unfiltered organic apple-cider vinegar I bought a few months back, once I realized I could never find a way to choke that stuff down like the healthy people do, and why would I want to anyway? Until I started using it to treat a small patch of toenail fungus that appeared on one of my tootsies last spring. It never spread or got worse, but never got better, either. OTC remedies were expensive and did nothing, and my doctor said the Rx solution wasn’t much better, had a potentially serious side effect and wasn’t something he liked to recommend for a non-critical case. “It might go away on its own, or you might have it for years,” he said. “They’re stubborn.” So I sadly stripped off my summer nail polish (that would make it worse, the Internet said) and scowled at it, week after week. Toenail fungus. It sounds like something bums get. I’m sure it is.

Until I thought, what the hell, and started dabbing the spot with cider vinegar twice a day, and dripping a little under the nail. One sock smelled like vinegar, but that was the only side effect. After a few weeks of this, damn if it didn’t get smaller, and smaller, and today is on the verge of disappearing altogether. An old-timey remedy that’s actually a remedy! Could this January get any better?

A little bit of bloggage to start the week.

Michael Phelps in a gold Speedo and a chest full of medals would certainly distract me. I guess he’s the ultimate shiny object. Check out the core strength on that young man. Not to mention the quadriceps. #swimminggoals

Welcome back to DellaDash, aka St. Bitch, who showed up in comments over the weekend. She’s an Iowa caucus voter. I have to say I’m very glad I don’t live there, because I would grow weary of shooting my TV over and over:

A super PAC supporting Mike Huckabee produced an ad for both radio and TV in which two women express doubts about Cruz’s commitment to Christian causes, saying that he speaks in one way to Iowans and in another to New Yorkers whose campaign donations he needs.

“I also heard that Cruz gives less than 1 percent to charity and church,” says one of the two women.

“He doesn’t tithe?” asks the other. “A millionaire that brags about his faith all the time?” They conclude that he’s a phony.

Thanks, Mike Huckabee, you loser, you also-forgotten piece of crap. Thanks for all you do for your country.

Grr. I guess I’m ready to start Monday, then. Hope you are, too.

Another …day. Another day, but it started with a pretty good swim, and so there’s that. This is why I work out with the dawn patrol; if the day goes well, it goes well. And if it doesn’t, at least you got a workout.

I’m working on learning the butterfly. I’m terrible at it. Wikipedia explains why:

The breaststroke, backstroke, and front crawl can all be swum easily even if the swimmer’s technique is flawed. The butterfly, however, is unforgiving of mistakes in style; it is very difficult to overcome a poor butterfly technique with brute strength. Many swimmers and coaches consider it the most difficult swimming style.

But like I said a while ago: Just keep swimming.

Water is sort of a theme around these parts. Today this story broke:

The state provided its workers in Flint with bottled water in January 2015, 10 months before officials would tell residents the water was not safe to drink, according to state emails released Thursday by liberal advocacy group Progress Michigan.

The decision was unrelated to elevated lead levels that were later found in Flint’s drinking water, said Caleb Buhs, a spokesman for the state Department of Technology, Management and Budget.

Instead, the management and budget department decided to provide water coolers in a Flint state office building after the city sent out a notice saying it had been found in violation of the state’s Safe Drinking Water Act because of high levels of disinfection byproducts.

It just keeps getting worse. This is going to be such a mud bath.

I had the world’s most boring task today (transcription), and a lot of busy work, so my brain feels steamrolled this evening. But hey! So some pix today.

My colleague Chastity did a story on breed-specific legislation, i.e., banning pit bulls, and it’s attracting the expected slapfest in the comments, but I only want to call your attention to this puppy:

That pup is the offspring of, wait for it, a Chihuahua and a pit bull. They lived under the same roof, and the owners never had them neutered because they figured, what are the odds? So now there’s this litter of chia pets (or chit bulls). For some reason, it reminded me of the puppies we meet in the final scenes of “Babe: Pig in the City,” one of my favorite kid movies, and maybe movies, period:

Supposed to be 40 degrees this weekend. Woo. Have a good one.

I’m missing Rachel Maddow’s Flint town hall, which makes this the…first? Maybe second thing I’ve regretted missing since cutting the cable cord a few months back. I’m interested in seeing what R.M. does with the known information, although I can imagine. This story is going to blot out the sun in Michigan for quite some time, and the long tail of investigations and lawsuits is going to consume us even longer.

Meanwhile, I want to explore a moral question with you smart people: Do we have an obligation to donate to ease a man-made disaster?

I ask because water drives are the big thing here, and everyone is using social media to either collect for them or recruit people to shlep cases of bottled water to Flint. And this is very admirable, but I find myself wondering why anyone feels the need. It’s pretty clear this whole disaster came about through the direct actions of various arms of government; which ones and how blame is distributed is what all those investigations and lawsuits will be about, but still, government. Flint wasn’t hit by a tornado. This wasn’t an act of God. So shouldn’t the state pick up the tab for disaster relief? The whole tab?

I think people are simply good. They want to help. But this feels a little different, and I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Long day, lotsa driving, late lunch, dog walk, short errand run, late dinner. I’m-a ready to snooze. Quick bloggage:

When a person evades taxes, we call them unpatriotic shirkers, criminals. When a corporation does it, it’s just doing what corporations do.

I’ve barely had time to process the surprise grand jury indictments in the Planned Parenthood case. I should probably do that.

And now, Thursday. Huzzah.

(Sorry about this, guys — I had this cued up to publish shortly after midnight, or so I thought. So here ya go. Just imagine it’s 6 a.m., or whenever you usually read it.)

I’m about Flinted out at the moment, so let’s talk about another ongoing fiasco, eh? Let’s talk Bundyville.

I’ve been following it at something of a remove, via the social-media feeds of a friend who works at Oregon Public Broadcasting (but isn’t covering the standoff at the Malheur wildlife refuge). And I must admit, I’m …puzzled.

Let me say right up front I’m not one of those who consider this crowd of freedom lovers terrorists. I don’t want to go all Waco on they asses. Rather, I think the best strategy to handling this situation is to wait them out but in the meantime, not make it too easy for them. The feds could cut the power, but I’d rather they not. Just let them run out of food, starve them of attention strategically, and let nature take its course. But that’s not what appears to be happening.

They’re letting the mail through, for one, and even though this has led to amusing scenes like the boxes o’ dildos video, it’s also keeping them stocked with white cheddar goldfish crackers. They’re letting reporters in (of course I approve) and apparently young children, too (of course I disapprove). And they’re allowing them to fire up the bulldozer on site and cut new roads (and I totally disapprove of that one).

It’s hard to know what the strategy is for ending this thing. Apparently the FBI is giving no briefings whatsoever. It’s all a matter for conjecture:

As the Bundys will seemingly speak with anyone who will listen, law enforcement spokespeople won’t talk about the investigation. Requests for detailed comment on the situation are routinely denied.

However, federal sources familiar with the occupation, investigation and legal case did speak to OPB on the condition of anonymity.

Those sources tell OPB there is still hope among law enforcement leadership the occupation will end without violence. That’s why law enforcement doesn’t patrol the area, block travel to the refuge or take other actions that could lead to a confrontation.

There’s also a legal concern that a shootout, or raid, could make it harder to get jury convictions and prosecute material supporters.

For now, it seems as though the FBI is taking a chance: If the militants can’t get the standoff they want, they’ll get sick of standing around.

Part of me sees a plan in all this; see paragraph three. These guys are self-deluding little drama queens, and the best strategy with a drama queen is to deny them drama. On the other hand, this Missoula Independent piece on Ryan Payne, the occupiers’ security chief (if indeed they truck with titles, and I bet they do) suggests that if the drama won’t come to them, well then they’ll bring it themselves:

Payne came to believe …that the government uses regulations to deliberately undermine the average American, “that they are purposely destroying industry, they are purposely taking this land from people.” The more he looked, the more he saw a deliberate and nefarious plan being orchestrated by a small number of people wielding enormous power. He saw a pervasive conspiracy to control all aspects of the media, the financial system, the entertainment industry, the military and the government.

More specifically, he came to believe that slavery never really existed in the United States and that African Americans in the antebellum South “didn’t view themselves as slaves.” He came to believe in “an effort by some Jews to control the world.” He came to believe the founders of the United States intended for the states to act as sovereign countries. He came to believe taxes are a form of “legal plunder.” He came to believe names are spelled in all-caps on driver’s licenses because U.S. citizens are actually “corporate entities.” He came to believe U.S. courts are actually foreign admiralty courts. He came to believe that “in most states you have the lawful authority to kill a police officer that is unlawfully trying to arrest you.” He came to believe when a newborn child’s footprint is made on a birth certificate, that child is effectively entering a life of servitude to the U.S. government, which borrows money from China based on that child’s estimated lifetime earning potential.

He came to see all aspects of government, culture and society as mechanisms of control. “And they’ve set everything up so they can maintain that control,” Payne says, “because they believe they are God.”

Every person who’s done time in a newsroom meets these people from time to time; they write insane letters to the editor (or did, before the internet, when they all traded a typewriter on a card table under a single hanging bulb for a PC on the same card table), they self-publish books that they press into your hands, they stalk columnists and editors until one finally sits down with them in a conference room with a glass door, which is checked often by worried colleagues.

And we’re letting these people accept deliveries of food and ammo. Wonderful.

The weekend passed in a blur of sobriety and efficiency. Laundry, market, dry cleaner. Watched “Straight Outta Compton,” which mainly served to remind me why I dislike biopics, and why I shouldn’t watch them if there’s any alternative to be had. I watched my feeds and enjoyed the snow news from the east coast; we enjoyed high pressure, low-but-not-too-low temperatures and a rare blue sky. No snow, little ice and a good day to take the dog for a walk on Belle Isle:

But while you’re still thinking snow, thanks to Hank you can read this lovely piece by David Von Drehle, on the peculiar peace of shoveling. I feel exactly the same way — that a well-shoveled walk or cleared driveway speaks well of the person who did the work. (You may not, I understand.)

Monday! Bring it the hell ON.