First things first: As most of you have figured out by now, our connectivity problems continue. It is out of our hands, in large part, but J.C. is sitting in the NN.C control room, which is encased in lead and concrete and located deep beneath the earth in an undisclosed location, working on it. To the extent that he can. Long story short, we hope it will improve soon. If not, we’ll find a new hosting company.

In the meantime, don’t try to resubmit comments! J.C., yesterday: We’re doing a cache thing to help our poor hobbled server and the downside of that is that you may not see your comment show up immediately.

Thanks for hanging in there with us. This site is nothing without you guys.

Because I don’t have much to offer, many days, do I? But here’s this: A movie recommendation, now that it’s out on streaming/DVD — “The Bling Ring,” which we watched over the weekend. (Alan’s a big Sofia Coppola fan.) A light fictionalization of a real story, about how a gang of Los Angeles teens robbed a series of Hollywood stars’ homes, aided and abetted by the internet and the stars’ own carelessness (for the most part, they entered through unlocked doors and windows). They took clothes, jewelry and cash, but mainly seemed interested in stealing as much stardust as possible.

“Is this Herve Leger? I LOVE it!” one says, pawing through Paris Hilton’s closet. “This. Is a Birkin,” says another, helping herself. In a world where luxury brands are shoved in the faces of these vapid teenagers — or all of us — it’s almost a case of can-you-blame-them? Paris Hilton kept the key to her front door under the mat, and had to be informed of the thefts; she had so much stuff, she didn’t notice anything missing. And so this aimless and empty little band drifted from one house to the next — getting tips on their owners’ absences from TMZ and other gossip sites — collecting luxury items and cash and crap. An emptier existence could hardly be imagined, but uncommon? No way. Didn’t we spend some time yesterday batting around those Emmy runway photos? “Who are you wearing?” is a common question. We all know who Herve Leger is.

It’s not a great movie. It’s sort of depressing, especially when you consider how many stories I’ve read about what a clotheshorse Sofia Coppola is, how much she swims in this world she holds in such contempt. But I liked it anyway.

We have some good bloggage today.

Newspapers have stripped away so much of their content in recent years I almost forget how much I enjoy reading a smart critic from time to time. Especially Hank Stuever, writing about a forgettable sitcom that wants to be a nostalgia trip:

You could set your atomic clock by the predictable rhythms of retromania: When I was a boy in the ’70s, we briefly wanted nothing more than to be Fonzie in the ’50s (inasmuch as “Happy Days” struggled to depict the ’50s; in reruns it just looks like the ’70s). Out came the Dippity-Do and switchblade combs.

If only our forebears had possessed the wisdom to outlaw public displays of nostalgia! When I got to college in the mid-’80s, every other dorm room had a Jim Morrison or John Lennon poster on the wall, yet our preoccupation with the ’60s while living in the ’80s is something you never see in today’s films and TV shows that are set in the ’80s. The anachronisms — then and now — require too much nuance and an understanding that the passage of time and accumulation of popular culture is a fluid experience: It’s less like a free-flowing river and more like a dammed-up lake.

Meanwhile, someone explain to me how this bizarre story about a horse biting a man’s penis works: It’s written in English, but the quotes are in (presumably) Tagalog.

Criticizing AIG bonuses is just like being a Nazi. The AIG executives say so. Talk about confirmation bias.

Hump day. Thank ya lord.

I do apologize for the performance issues we’ve had of late. It appears to be a server problem, and for once, it’s a problem out of J.C.’s capable hands. And we’re not entirely sure what’s going on. But someone is working on it. Eventually, it will be fixed. This seems fairly easy to say.

If we haven’t been giving it top priority, it’s because J.C. has been working on another project for me. I’m not supposed to make a big deal of it, but it’s in the world, so we’ll just make a lower-case deal out of it. No boldface, nothing like that:

J.C. redesigned Bridge. And that’s all we’ll say about that.

Given that our connectivity goes in and out, I’m hesitant to put much into this until the kinks are worked out. But let’s get it going and see what happens.

So. Around the beginning of 2012, we had a homicide in Grosse Pointe — a well-known and well-liked local woman was found strangled in her Mercedes, parked in an alley in Detroit. I remember well, working at home and getting the tip about the body. I called a student who was contributing to GrossePointeToday.com and asked if he could roll out on it. This is a student who has been contributing to his local paper since he was 14, and not exactly wet behind the ears. As he was heading out the door, he said, “Hmm, sounds like her husband killed her.”

And yeah, when you think about it, it’s a little strange to think that anyone bent on a carjacking would leave the car behind, after strangling the occupant.

Long story short, after a few ridiculous days of OMG DETROIT CRIME hereabouts, it turned out the woman’s husband was indeed a “person of interest,” and then a guy was arrested, who said the husband had hired him to do the deed, and even longer story even shorter, this week the husband is behind bars and a preliminary hearing is going on.

The story unfolding is of a lousy marriage, affairs, sexual kinks, financial shenanigans and all the rest of it, and in the middle of it all, I tripped over this paragraph:

Bob and Jane Bashara’s marriage was rocky and ending it had been brought up once their children were out of school, according to Monday’s testimony.

Because by all means, when your husband is into S&M (and you’re not), can’t get it up, is taking money from your 401K without your knowledge, has a mistress and a failing business, the time to get divorced is after the kids have graduated from high school.

Ultimately, tragically, the husband figured out who had the most to lose from a divorce, and opted to be a widower instead.

That might sound cruel, and I don’t want to blame this poor woman for her fate in any way. Over the years, I’ve blown hot and cold on divorce, and I know a lot of people blow very, very cold on it. Despite its easy availability, despite all the justifications we make, it’s still a tough step to take. I hear stories like this and think, sometimes you gotta take it. She was a great friend to many people, with a big life. She should still be living it, and not her stupid-ass husband in his prison clothes in court every day.

So, do I have bloggage? Let’s try:

Kerry Bentivolio, the accidental congressman, has something new to look into — “chemtrails.”

Out of all the 9/11 coverage, it seems worthwhile to dig up this Hank Stuever essay on something that had nothing to do with Islam, terror or Why They Hate Us.

And my connection is faltering again. Best publish this while I can. Is Mercury retrograde?

I’m rolling out of town as you read this, off on what we used to call “assignment.” (Actually, we still call it that.)

But if you’re sensing this is yet another lame-ass phone-it-in, why…you’re right!

I do have one piece of bloggage, this Detroit Jalopnik roundup of what breaking news is like these days, at least as it pertains to the Detroit fireworks. Long story short: Someone set off a string of ‘crackers at the larger civic explosion-fest. Some spectators thought it was gunfire and set off a brief panic, which TV — always, TV — jumped into with both feet. What, we verify? is the new code of journalism, along with hey, nice tie.

I will post when I can for the remainder of the week, but I don’t know when or what that will be. If I’m not here, enjoy the rest of it. I’ll be back for sure on Monday.

Sorry for the late update today. I stepped in a bad website last night and Safari is now wearing cement overshoes. I have to do some work under the hood. Back later, but until then, open thread.

LATER:

OK, well, that was quick. I dunno what happened, but now I’m behind, so I’m afraid I won’t have much more.

They’re digging for Jimmy Hoffa again. “Again,” as in, “the third time since I’ve lived here, and I’ve lived here only eight years, and he’s been missing since 1975.” So many of these circuses seem to feature an aging mobster purportedly making a clean breast of it, you’d think the FBI would have figured it out by now. The latest one, sort of an Uncle Junior type in tinted glasses (the kind my daughter and her friends consider “pedo shades”), is selling autographed photos of himself and a self-published book. And still, on they dig.

OK, 8 a.m., I have to get out. Have a good day, all.

I’m sorry for yesterday’s absence. I had one of those very long days on little sleep, and still managed to drag my flabby ass to the gym, and re-watch “Mad Men” just for the hell of it, and by the time I realized it was 10:30 and I hadn’t written a word, my head was nodding. But I did squeeze out a few! They were these

Brian Stouder, this is for you.

Also, this. Dorothy Rabinowitz, ack ack ack. I’ll be in later, because for now I’m simply too pooped.

And then, evidently, I forgot to hit Publish. Well, that’s how it goes.

But now it’s Tuesday evening, I’m better-rested, and besides the links above, a few notes:

We leave Friday to take Kate to camp, where she’ll rehearse for a week and then jet off to the Continent. We are celebrating by taking our first just-us vacation in a decade, and we’ll be far from wi-fi and the rest of the internet. I COULDN’T BE HAPPIER, she said, right before her eye started to twitch.

How will the week go? Not sure. I still have a bunch of old newspaper columns (thanks, Mark P.!) I might dust off and rerun. As I recall, it took me forever to find five that I could stand to re-read the last time I did this two years ago. But I just scanned a couple, and find they don’t suck as much as I remember. We’ll see. But you’ll be on your own otherwise. If your comment gets stuck in the spam filter — Prospero, I am looking at YOU — it’ll stay there for days.

It sorta hurts — in a non-painful way — to write this. Just returned from my one-month post-op check at the eye doctor’s, and was reminded anew how much I’m not looking forward to this stage of my life. The appointment was screwed up, and they tried to hit me for a $50 co-pay I contend I didn’t owe. I won easily, which should give you an idea of medical-office economics. That colonoscopy piece in the NYT should have been horrifying to anyone still trying to defend the American health-care system in its current form.

Anyway, my eye is healing, but the cataract — which I was told was a possible complication, years down the road — is already starting to form. Fuckety-fuck.

So since we’ve already started with a jab at American health care, let’s start the bloggage with a charming BBC story about the fascinating miracle known as the Finnish baby box. Every expectant mother in Finland gets one:

The maternity package – a gift from the government – is available to all expectant mothers.

It contains bodysuits, a sleeping bag, outdoor gear, bathing products for the baby, as well as nappies, bedding and a small mattress.

With the mattress in the bottom, the box becomes a baby’s first bed. Many children, from all social backgrounds, have their first naps within the safety of the box’s four cardboard walls.

The box, with a shower’s worth of useful products to take care of the new critter, is only part of the miracle. To get it, women have to see a doctor before their fourth month of pregnancy. So it’s win-win — mothers get prenatal care, and the government sees fewer babies in NICU units, leading to Finland having a tiny infant-mortality rate. A good investment, I’d say. A great read, especially if you’re a mother.

Two stories about rich people:

A few days ago, Detroit’s Masonic Temple — a wonderful Gothic pile sadly fallen on hard times — was at the risk of foreclosure due to unpaid taxes. In the nick of time, an anonymous check for $142,000 arrived to save it from becoming yet another empty building in a city full of them. Today, the anonymous donor was revealed: Jack White. Who really wanted to remain anonymous, but the Masonic owners insisted on naming the central theater after him.

Meanwhile, in California, the damage to the Big Sur redwood forest done by Sean Parker’s (Napster/Facebook Silicon Valley shithead) wedding was tallied, and this Atlantic explication of it is such a delicious read, I don’t want to spoil it for you. But this is some shameful shit here, the sort of willful, stupid behavior for which the term “rich douchebag” was invented.

Finally, I see the Chicago Sun-Times, in its nonstop effort to strip the paper of every possible reason to buy it, has cut off Neil Steinberg to spite its face. I am a late-coming fan of his column, but I find this amazing — he’s a consistently good read, and this is an invitation to find the exit. I hope someone reconsiders, or snaps him up elsewhere.

And with that, I leave you to a good Wednesday, I hope.

I’m glad to say I never worked for Gannett, the giant newspaper publisher, but Alan did, until the News was sold a few years ago. He would come home with stories, most of which must remain marital secrets. I know there are many Gannetoids out there who have their own, and now that the man who made Gannett what it was for so long has shuffled off this mortal coil, please feel free to share a few. RIP, Al Neuharth.

Neuharth is best-known as the founder of USA Today, but it’s safe to say he also presided over a period in which many of the nation’s newspapers, which at their best should be unique reflections of the community they serve, became so many heat-and-serves from the chain kitchen. He wasn’t all bad, certainly; his stupid three-dot columns provided hours of entertainment, and while he was absolutely correct in demanding Gannett’s newsrooms be racially and ethnically diverse places, some of the heavy-handed ways such directives were imposed didn’t make him, or the rest of his management team, any friends.

Take “mainstreaming,” a policy that — please correct the details, Gannetoids, if I get any wrong — dictated that stories contain a diversity of sources. On paper, a wonderful thing. In practice? I recall a journalism-review story about a Japanese-American woman in some Kansas tank town who was always being rung up by her local paper to get her reaction to this and that. She was quoted over and over, on everything from her opinion of a new park to changes in education policy. From there, the policy spread to encompass communities where the chain felt they might have circulation gains to make.

This led to some desperate moments in newsrooms, as reporters scrambled to find people with the correct address and ethnicity to quote and photograph. I remember hearing of one newsroom-wide message: I NEED A JEWISH PERSON TO REACT TO THE DEATH OF THE POPE. MACOMB COUNTY ONLY!!!! CAN ANYONE HELP??? There were stories of bushes being beaten for African-American deer hunters and ice fishermen. But my favorite story may be from a friend who once covered a July 4 parade in a working-class suburb so white they might as well have been at a Klan rally for all the diversity it had to offer. Suddenly, the photographer spotted a unicorn — a black family! On the other side of the street!

He cut through a marching band, getting to them. Good times.

From my time news-farming, I recall USA Today didn’t really deserve its reputation for shallowness. They had decent Washington coverage and even an above-average health desk, covering everything from exercise motivation to the FDA. But the jokes about deserving a Pulitzer for Best Investigative Paragraph will likely dog them until the paper goes the way of its founder.

So.

Alan and I were out to dinner when the cops in Boston — all the cops in Boston, plus a few more municipalities, it looked like — finally got their man. I woke up early and read the most reputable news accounts of the day, and didn’t come away any more enlightened. I was wrong about the common criminals stuff, but I think David Remnick nailed it with this elegant phrase:

… the toxic combination of high-minded zealotry and the curdled disappointments of young men.

That’s pretty close to perfect, and could describe any number of other victims of testosterone poisoning, including Tim McVeigh.

Finally, I’m sorry to report some more bad news among our commenting community: Brian Igo, who commented here under the handle “baldheadeddork,” died over the weekend. I knew he had been sick for a few months; he last posted something around the time of the Newtown massacre. We were connected via Facebook, and he posted very little there, other than very occasional updates. As I recall, his announcement of it came around the time Facebook started putting those stupid prompts in the text window:

Facebook asks, “How are you feeling, Brian?”

Well Facebook, since you asked, I recently found out I have Stage IV abdominal cancer, and today I learned I may have two years to live with chemo and 8-10 months without.

Anything else you want to know, asshole?

I gather, from subsequent updates, that he kept his sense of humor and grace to the end. Maybe, when J.C. gets back from his vacation, he can do one of his comment carve-outs, as he did for Ashley, Moe and Whitebeard. Then no more! Please!

Sorry to start your week off with a bummer, but it is Monday. Let’s hope the week improves.

Weird. It’s snowing around Indianapolis and well into southern Indiana, and in Detroit, it’s 46 degrees with a steady rain. Weather, you are an endless bafflement.

And with that inane small talk, let’s segue into the long slide into the holiday week, which I have off for the first time in maybe forever. And while it’s possible I might be moved to blog and blog some more over the next 10 days or so, I’m far more likely to throw some links and pix up from time to time. Keep coming back if you like; we won’t be entirely dark, but the lights will be dim.

I will spend today madly shopping. Will you be the lucky recipient of a tchotchke, a sweater or a bottle of decent likker from the Nall-Derringer co-prosperity sphere? Check under the tree to find out!

For the rest of you, some links:

If Robert Bork wasn’t dead, Jeffrey Toobin would have killed him with these few well-chosen words:

Bork was born in 1927 and came of age during the civil-rights movement, which he opposed. He was, in the nineteen-sixties, a libertarian of sorts; this worldview led him to conclude that poll taxes were constitutional and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not. (Specifically, he said that law was based on a “principle of unsurpassed ugliness.”) As a professor at Yale Law School, his specialty was antitrust law, which he also (by and large) opposed.

The 50 worst columns of 2012. Can’t argue with too many of them, although the two chosen from M—- A—- aren’t even close to his worst for the year.

Some people’s worst nightmare: She’s marrying her sorority sister. It’s like a porn movie, but not.

Olympian/mom/real-estate agent in Wisconsin, but in Vegas? Look out.

I almost emailed this photo to Cooz today while I was shopping, but I couldn’t find his address in my phone. This’ll have to do. It’s a shop for plus-size sexywear. It is not. I have been corrected by the fabulous Nancy Friedman in comments. It’s just a trendy shop for plus-size teens. Let’s all get our freaks on — it’s almost Christmas.

And have the best one ever, OK?

For those of you who’ve expressed concern about the comments, rest assured I hear you. There’s an expression about bad apples and barrels, but I don’t think it’s entirely true. I’ve seen with my own eyes how often one contrary voice, one bad attitude, one Mr. Grumpypants, can clear a room, an office, a blog comment section, the way a bad egg fart clears an elevator. So I feel your pain.

That said, I’m not banning anyone from the comments. At least not yet. I know that balancing voices in a comment section can sometimes be a tricky matter, because most of them aren’t balanced at all. Birds of a feather, etc., to add a second cliché to this entry.

To be honest, while I love having my opinions affirmed and echoed and repeated back to me in different words as much as the next person, I can’t take too much of it. I lived for 20 years in a state where I frequently felt like a stranger, where you couldn’t put a bumper sticker making fun of Dan Quayle on your car without risking it being keyed. I liked and respected my neighbors (most of them, anyway) who disagreed with me on issues ranging from presidential politics to the cultural impact of “Dark Side of the Moon.” After a few years, I came up with a sentence that I would sometimes repeat as a mantra: Everybody arrives at this moment in time via a different path, and they may have drawn different conclusions along the way.

Also, I was a newspaper columnist, a job where your very own employer regularly runs letters from readers opining that you suck. So I’m sort of used to that.

Ultimately, I think most of our right-leaning commenters here offer a lot, because ultimately, they help make for a spicy mix. As I’ve said before, I think of our comment sections as sort of an idealized tavern, or maybe a cocktail party, with tables here and there, different conversations going on at each, people flitting between them, agreeing, taking offense, whatever. (Prospero, however, will always be the guy at the end of the bar, bellowing opinions and sometimes falling off his stool.) If someone here bugs you, I’d ask you to just slip past his or her name and really — don’t let it get to you. Because, ultimately, it all boils down to this.

Let’s keep having fun.

Speaking of our most prized commenters, I’m indebted, once again, to Jeff, for digging up this old story by Gene Weingarten, which I read and then forgot. Shouldn’t have forgotten this profile of a man who doesn’t vote, because he doesn’t give a rat’s ass:

We took a list of 90-odd names, eliminated those people who were not from battleground states (we wanted people with resonant nonvotes) and then started telephoning. To eliminate any bias in our choice, we decided to profile the very first person who agreed. The first name on the list, as it happens, was Ted Prus. Here is how the call went:

“Hi. This is The Washington Post. Are you registered to vote?”

“No.”

“Are you planning on voting?”

“No.”

“We’d like to write a long story about you. Would you be interested? It would make you famous.”

“You mean a famous idiot?”

“Actually, we’re not sure. There’s no guarantee one way or the other.”

“Sounds good.”

I guess I have to see “Zero Dark Thirty.”

What it’s like to be in a mass shooting. HT: Laura Lippman.

And tomorrow we start anew. On the downside of the week.

These parental obligations sneak up on me. I’d forgotten, until late afternoon, that I’d agreed to take Kate to yet another nightclub show, and so off to St. Andrew’s Hall we went in the dinner hour, for the Summer of Ska tour — the Maxies, Suburban Legends, Big D and the Kids Table, Reel Big Fish. I took my iPad and made real progress in the nightstand book, mainly because there was no wi-fi network to hop onto. I gotta tell you: I’m tiring of e-books. The constant availability of other distractions — email, Twitter, Facebook — as close as a touch is giving me, has given me, the attention span of a toddler. There are times in reading all but the least challenging books when you need to buckle down, reread, flip back a few pages, and sometimes put it aside and think for a minute or two. Everything about the iPad/Kindle Fire discourages such things.

On the other hand? I just pre-ordered the new Laura Lippman, which will be on my device the day it’s released. Curse you, modernity! Curse your conveniences!

Also, it’s a lot harder to read a book in a dark nightclub. Well, I’ll have both.

A brief announcement: I’ll be taking the rest of the week off, for a mini-break with my husband following the deposit of our offspring at summer camp. Fortunately, I have some linkage for you.

First, two from yours truly: A piece on creating local food systems in Michigan, and an interview with the director of the Eastern Market. Something interesting I’d never considered before, from the latter piece, a Q-and-A:

Is it possible to imagine a world in which this 20 percent of small-scale producers can compete with large-scale producers? Yes, it’s already happening, with beer. In 1980, we had 101 breweries, and microbreweries were less than 1 percent of American consumption. In 2012, we went past 2,000 breweries for the first time since the 1880s, and microbreweries are just under 10 percent of market share by value. The only growing part of the American beer economy is microbreweries, and what’s especially impressive is, it’s consumer-driven demand, not government regulation. And despite massive advertising budgets, (big corporate brewers) haven’t been able to stop losing market share. That’s inspirational.

Nice analogy there.

OID: Dance with a cop, get shot to death. Without anyone even pulling a weapon:

Adaisha Miller, who would have turned 25 Monday, was dancing with Officer Isaac Parrish, 38, when she hugged him from behind during the fish fry, said police. A .40-caliber handgun, held in Parrish’s waist holster, fired and struck Miller in the lung and heart.

This has been going around for a few days, but maybe you haven’t seen it yet: A tick-tock on the reporting of the ACA decision, by the editor of Scotusblog. Very long, but very interesting. Explains how the sausage-making of live-TV breaking news is done, along with a lot more, including the fact the site was targeted by hackers in a DDoS attack that very morning. Some people. I mean.

Off to work, laundry and packing. Have a great week, all. Back Monday.

Yep, up late dancing around the maypole catching up on work. Open thread!