Well, that was interesting — a prediction for up to two inches of snow, and the overnight total was 10. And while everyone is bitching at the moment and I’ll probably be among them when the shoveling starts, there’s not a thing wrong with 10 inches of wet February snow falling on Michigan. Our ecology depends on a certain amount of moisture transfer from south to north, and last summer was dry. I’ll take it.

In the meantime, it’s a good morning to spend about 30 minutes here on the couch, catching up. Sorry I’m a little late today; this is a school vacation week, winter break, i.e., Keep Michigan Ski Destinations Solvent Week and I plan to spend it sleeping late. Because I don’t have much time, how about a little mixed grill?

I failed in my internet sabbath, but I managed to cut back enough — and pick up enough sleep — that my mood improved immeasurably. I was heartened to see the Wisconsin demonstrations continued, and picked up steam. Krugman:

Why bust the unions? As I said, it has nothing to do with helping Wisconsin deal with its current fiscal crisis. Nor is it likely to help the state’s budget prospects even in the long run: contrary to what you may have heard, public-sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are paid somewhat less than private-sector workers with comparable qualifications, so there’s not much room for further pay squeezes.

So it’s not about the budget; it’s about the power.

In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.

Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.

And if you missed this in the comments over the weekend, Coozledad has a contribution for your next open-mic night (with apologies to Paul Simon):

They rounded us teabaggers up and we’re off to Wisconsin
I stashed some oxy right here in my bag.
So we bought a case of Miller Lite
Skoal Bandits and Moon Pies
And rode off to teabag Wisconsin
Cathy I said as we boarded the charter in Branson
Dollywood seems like a dream to me now
It took me four hours to clean up
from eating those hot dogs we got at the Stuckey’s
Snacking on the bus
Little Debbies and Fritos
She said the man in the corduroy looked like a Jew.
I said be careful he probably works for George Soros!
Toss me a Xanax there’s probably one stuck in your waistband
right by that cheeseburger and your cellphone
So I knocked back another beer
She passed out in the seat
And a green fart rolled out the window.
Cathy we’re going to be lost when we get to Wisconsin
What they call barbecue ain’t the same thing
I hope they’ve got us some motorized shopping carts
I’ve come to teabag Wisconsin!
Done come to teabag Wisconsin!

I was singing the line about the man in the corduroy suit during my grocery shopping. I hope anyone who overheard had a sense of humor.

Well, I was ahead of the wave, and now I’m behind it: Blogs, they are so over:

The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.

Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family.

Haven’t they figured out the secret yet? Let Paul Krugman do the work!

Finally, today’s question for the baseball nerds in the group: Why do pitchers and catchers arrive before everyone else in spring training? Is there a reason?

Shovel time.

My first serious boyfriend in college was long-legged and lanky, and when he was trying to get someplace fast, I practically had to scamper to keep up with him. Scampering is a decidedly humiliating way to travel, so as a defense, I changed my walking stride. You think you know how to walk until you have to walk with a long-legged person, and then you learn.

The secret is to get your hips into the game. Most casual walkers walk from the knees down, but if you engage your iliac region, you can easily get a few extra inches out of a stride. When I started to ride, I would later learn to recognize this in horses; horsemen use the term “good mover” to describe an animal that covers ground easily without appearing to work too hard at it. A “daisy cutter” is a classic hunter, one whose gaits are easy and long, without much knee action; put him in a field of daisies and his hooves will lop the blossoms off as they brush over the tops. Knee action is wasted motion, and should be saved for fancy carriage horses, where that sort of high stepping is prized.

I would never call myself a daisy cutter — my legs are too short. But I like to get where I’m going without too much shilly-shallying, and why are you walking so slow in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk? Don’t you know anything?

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating story today about researchers studying the roots of anger. You’ll never guess what their laboratory is:

Researchers say the concept of “sidewalk rage” is real. One scientist has even developed a Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale to map out how people express their fury. At its most extreme, sidewalk rage can signal a psychiatric condition known as “intermittent explosive disorder,” researchers say. On Facebook, there’s a group called “I Secretly Want to Punch Slow Walking People in the Back of the Head” that boasts nearly 15,000 members.

I don’t want to punch slow walkers, but I will never understand people who don’t follow simple rules of the pedestrian road. I thought everyone knew them; they’re essentially the same as the one for cars: Slow traffic to the right. Don’t stand in the middle of the sidewalk. And — very big on college campuses — there is a time and place to hold hands with another adult, but it’s not on a university walkway between classes. You idiot.

I think I should volunteer for this study.

I live in a car-mad city now, but I still like to walk when I can, and most of the time I have sidewalks entirely to myself. I don’t think it’s making me any more patient, and I wonder how I’d do in someplace like New York, which I haven’t visited since the beginning of the smart-phone era. I don’t know how I’d handle the amblers, the slow-walkers, the distracted millions who will not look up from their little screens, not even when someone is coming up behind them, fast. The police at Wayne State have a boilerplate memo they offer to anyone interested in staying safe on an urban campus in a dangerous city, and high on the list? Ignore your phone. Your call will wait. It is the gimpy leg that the urban predator looks for, because it means you’re not paying attention to anything other than some stupid text message.

As I read on in the story, I realized I’m not a classic sidewalk rager. I don’t bump into people if it can be avoided, and for the most part I will go around slower ones without glares or (much) muttering. Having been a stroller- and wheelchair-pusher myself, I understand the special problems posed by small children and elderly parents. Needless to say, I don’t hip-check anyone. But I fully admit to being driven nuts by people who will fan out in a group, usually women, frequently four abreast so they can be just like the “Sex and the City” girls, and not be aware that they have chosen to become a blood clot in the artery of a busy city. I try to go around, but sometimes they’ll stop — so the camera can zoom in on them while they make some witty remark — and I have no recourse but to go through the middle. They act surprised, like I’m invading their space. Who let this interloper into my movie set? Hey, girlie. Learn to walk.

OK, some bloggage:

Speaking of idiots, the Republicans aren’t serious about zeroing out the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, are they? This has to be a bargaining-chip sort of deal. They aren’t really that stupid? No one’s that stupid. Oh, wait. So off I go to my elected representatives’ websites, there to register my objection. They’re all Democrats, so I believe it’s probably unnecessary, but you never know.

A milestone we all missed: Yesterday was Coozledad’s 50th birthday. Happy birthday, you delightful one.

This is red-carpet season, and Tom & Lorenzo are on the case, as usual. No red carpet is as tacky as the ones trod by the music industry, and their Grammy wrapup is hilarious. Just go to the main page, find part one and go from there. Never have I seen such awful formalwear, and I went to high school in the ’70s. Ignore the fact you won’t know three-quarters of the “stars,” and concentrate on the prose:

HELLO, GRAMMA FUNK! We don’t know who you are, but we feel like we know every inch of your body like an old lover. The curtain is rising on your vagina and your tits are screaming like two colicky babies.

Me, I’m off to work. Have a swell Tuesday, all.

There was another estate sale last weekend in Grosse Pointe, a big one in a big house, with the magic words in the ads that always brings the stampede: “Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo.”

There are two kinds of estate sales around here: The kind where someone died, and you’re asked to take your pick of the old-lady furniture after the heirs have stripped off all the Chippendale and Stickley. Sad, tired, dusty and pee-smelling, these sales are hardly ever worth my time, although if you like small appliances from the ’50s, you can pick up a trinket or three. And then there are the ones sometimes called “moving sales,” where the sellers are much younger, the stuff newer. I always assume it’s a bankruptcy sale. Not much of a stretch.

But old or young, I can’t help but construct elaborate narratives in my head about the family whose stuff I’m considering. The woman’s clothes are a size six, but her shoes at 10s? Model type, obviously, tall and lanky. Walk through the library, inspect the books on the shelves: lots of chick lit and biographies of sports figures? She sat home reading many nights while he entertained clients at Wings games. The kitchen has a six-burner stove fit for a restaurant, but looks brand-new? She heated Lean Cuisine after he came home and said he’d already eaten in the grill room at the club. (Was that someone else’s perfume on him? Why did he pull away from a kiss?) They keep witless, inspirational knickknacks scattered around, river stones engraved breathe or believe, little needlepoint pieces propped against a desk lamp: Follow your heart. Their artwork is so bland it blends with the wallpaper, although it’s priced very high (probably because of the frame).

I do all this to make myself feel better, of course, although lately I look at these 6,000-square-foot showplaces and think what the heating bill must be in January.

By the time I got there, all the shoes had been snapped up. The furniture was meh and there wasn’t even much in the kitchen. There was some corporate-branded swag in an upstairs bedroom, and a little Googling revealed the owner was a high-ranking executive for the swag-brander, and that the brander was struggling. Bankruptcy? Still possible, but given the way of the world it’s also entirely possible they’re just selling it all and relocating somewhere warmer and sunnier, where they’ll restock with all new river stones and Jimmy Choos and semi-literate sports bios. My guess is, they’ll land on their feet. The rich so often do.

Today’s interlude in lack of character and schadenfreude concluded, let’s take a look at the bloggage, shall we?

Jim at Sweet Juniper has an excellent post on dealing with his inner food snob. At least he acknowledges he has one. The worst ones just judge, judge, judge.

In the Department of Animal Justice, one of my former colleagues Facebooked this oddity, about a man who bled out after being sliced by a fighting cock. I’d heard of the practice of attaching sharp blades to a rooster’s spurs to make the game bloodier and deadlier, and while it’s possible to enjoy this particular outcome, I was more interested in how, exactly, one arms a rooster. Google led me to this photo-heavy blog about cockfighting in the Philippines; gory and distasteful pictures, but fascinating just the same.

I’d like it on the record: I couldn’t care less where Keith Olbermann will be working next.

Something I don’t want to read as my daughter enrolls to take biology next year.

Off to work.

As longtime readers of this zillion-word narrative of my boring life know, at one point I worked as a copy editor, one whose shift started at 5 a.m. I read the sports copy for an afternoon newspaper, which meant I often had to trek back to the sports department to ask stupid questions and make ignorant suggestions. (“Can we get rid of one of these basketball pictures? We have three wads of armpit hair on the sports front.” Answer: Of course not. It’s Indiana, silly.) Anyway, the sports-department TV was tuned to one of the ESPN channels, and at that point of the very early morning, they showed reruns of Jack LaLanne.

LaLanne died yesterday, and like many people, I was astounded. I thought he’d live forever. He’s been old for decades now — 96 at the time of his exit — and it seemed every year, you could find a three-paragraph story about his latest birthday-celebration stunt, some act of defiant fitness. I recall one year he swam a considerable distance in the Houston Ship Channel, towing a large vessel behind, although a quick Google doesn’t turn anything up, other than the amusing detail that the Houston Ship Channel has a clogged artery (a beef-tallow spill), and LaLanne died of something else entirely (pneumonia). It should have been a lightning strike, or maybe shot by a jealous husband he had cuckolded.

It would appear it’s my memory that’s faulty; according to his obits, the swims took place in California:

At 60 he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat. At 70, handcuffed and shackled again, he towed 70 boats, carrying a total of 70 people, a mile and a half through Long Beach Harbor.

Impressive. Anyway, on those early-morning rambles down to argue with the sports editors, I was struck by two things about LaLanne’s fitness show — his old-fashioned wardrobe (that stretchy one-piece thing and the shoes that looked like ballet slippers) and his modern technique. Exercise has trends and fashions like everything else, and I’ve been around long enough to see them come and go and sometimes come again. (The medicine ball is back, but deep knee bends are probably gone forever, replaced by the squat.) Sometimes what LaLanne did on those shows look suspiciously like Pilates (new), which is sort of like isometrics (old). He was also a big believer in push-ups, currently enjoying a renaissance as perhaps the most important single exercise anyone can do, at any age. I don’t know if he ever used the words “core” or “abs,” but he seemed to understand that staying fit doesn’t require much more than a little bit of time, every day, that the most important thing you need is persistence and that a firm midsection will serve you no matter what your sport, from running to swimming to sitting behind a desk.

Jack LaLanne — now juicing carrots and towing ships in the next world, reunited with Happy, the white German shepherd.

So, how was your weekend? We went to the Detroit News Christmas party. Srsly. The way the story went, somehow December got away from everyone, and the next thing you knew, the company had run out of dates for a pre-holiday party, so they opted for a post-holiday one. I thought maybe they’d dispense with the theme, but no — there was a tree, and Christmas gifts, and snowflake sweaters and a holiday singalong. Plus karaoke. Every department had to come up and do a number. We left after an assistant managing editor and mild-mannered designer (or editor or something) teamed up for “Rapper’s Delight,” the whole thing, and crushed it, they were so good. Always leave a party on a high note. That was a high note. Reminded me of the time a similarly mild-mannered guy from my last newsroom stood up at a karaoke party and performed “Baby Got Back” better than Sir Mix-a-Lot. And the time before that, when one of those guys who works the overnight shift and nobody knows very well, the guy who gets called Boo Radley behind his back, did the same thing, only with “Friends in Low Places.” Karaoke makes a lot of people miserable, but for some? It’s like a telephone to their soul.

We also went to the movies. A.O. Scott is absolutely right about “Somewhere,” which I enjoyed very much, although I’d love to see the script. All 22 pages of it.

Roger Ebert quotes a film editor on why 3D sucks. I’m in full agreement, but my argument is simpler: Because so many of the films made in 3D suck.

Manic Monday awaits. Outta here.

Of all the things we can worry about today, I’m choosing this: What is Baby Doc doing back in Port au Prince?

I admit to a small interest in the former Haitian dictator. I was a Vanity Fair subscriber in the mid-80s, when Jean-Claude Duvalier and his wife, the scarily beautiful Michéle, ruled over the island with a sort of heedless hauteur and corruption, and the magazine published several long articles about their last days, which I always thought sort of clever of the editors — you had a story that was legitimately important in terms of world affairs, but with all sorts of gossipy details about the people involved. This is from Michéle’s Wikipedia entry and the usual cautions apply, but it’s of a piece with much of the reporting of the time:

Mrs. Duvalier’s family amassed wealth at an unprecedented rate during the later part of Jean Claude’s dictatorship. By the end of his fifteen-year rule, Duvalier and his wife had become famous for their corruption. The National Palace became the scene of opulent costume parties, where the young President once appeared dressed as a Turkish sultan to dole out ten-thousand-dollar jewels as door prizes, while the homeless were encouraged to watch the festivities on televisions that had been set up in the parks where they slept.

Alas, the Duvaliers have since divorced, and any entertainment in Baby Doc, the Sequel will have to be provided by someone else.

I recall, during the expulsion of the Duvaliers in 1986, an audio clip on NPR of the howling crowds outside the presidential residence. One shrieked that Michéle was a layz-byan and a voodoo priestess. Wouldn’t surprise me. It would certainly beat sex with Baby Doc, one of those unfortunate disappointing sons inevitably described as “pudgy.”

And that has been your Inane Ruminations on Deposed Dictators for Tuesday, brought to you by Masterpiece Classic, now showing “Downton Abbey” on a PBS station near you. Check local listings.

I hate the beginning of the week. Monday is insane, Tuesday is mostly insane. It’s not until Wednesday that I can finally relax, get a workout in and maybe do a little writing for myself. So let’s skip to a brief bit of bloggage today. Drumroll for the..

Born this way blog. Just outstanding.

Other heart-transplant candidates join a long waiting list. Dick Cheney merely decides whether he wants one. Then he sends out for a young man to be freshly slaughtered. Civilized by popular demand: Then he consults his doctors to see if he might be a candidate for such a procedure, and joins a list to wait weeks, months or longer for a donor heart, all the while promoting awareness of the organ shortage and encouraging others to discuss the option with their loved ones, and sign the back of their driver’s licenses to indicate their willingness to donate, should the occasion arise. And all of his friends get together and hold a spaghetti dinner and silent auction at the VFW*, raising $800 toward the roughly $787,700 procedure.

* Venue suggested by Sue.

Now, commence chattering about the goings-on at Downton Abbey. I have some copy to move.

I got some new knives for Christmas, and boy, are they sharp. Last night I shaved off about a third of my left index fingernail below the quick while chopping vegetables for a roasted-vegetable pasta. Not as much blood as you’d think, but my finger, even wrapped in two Band-Aids, is as sensitive as…something very very sensitive. And the Band-Aid slows my typing speed by about 30 percent. And I have to be downtown at 10, and we had a significant snowfall overnight. All of which is me making excuses for short shrift today. But you knew that.

The pasta? Why, it was delicious. Oven-roasted squash, onion, garlic, sage and kale, tossed with bowties. I’m enough of a pro in the kitchen that I tracked down the fingernail before I dressed the wound.

The snow? They’re saying we got 3-5 inches, I say 3 tops. But over here on the far eastern side of the state, along the Lake St. Clair banana belt, we rarely get the maximum.

So let’s get to the bloggage, eh?

The right has settled on its terms, and we are calling it “blood libel.” First tossed out by Professor Heh Indeed, amplified by the Wall Street Journal’s headline, now passed down to the proles by Sexy Sadie. Too bad she never talks to the regular press; maybe someone could ask her if she knows what the original blood libel was. As Roy points out, “the Southron is the Jew of liberal fascism.”

Why David Edelstein and I would get along like aces: We agree on the greatest films ever shot in New York City — “Sweet Smell of Success” and “Dog Day Afternoon” among them. I think “The French Connection” belongs in the top tier, too, if only for the chase scene under the elevated train.

An old one from Roger Ebert that one of my FB friends noticed; I hadn’t read it yet, so here you go: Standup rules.

And now I must fly. My finger hurts.

I had to go bra-shopping yesterday. For many of you ladies, this means swinging through Wal-Mart or Target, finding your size along the ABCD continuum, and then choosing between all the options — front or back closure? Black, white, nude or pink? A little pink bow at the middle, or plain? Racerback, convertible back, strapless? And so on.

My problem is more complicated. I recall a soundbite from a designer who did a gown for Aretha Franklin to wear to some awards show: “She wanted strapless. Do you have any idea what sort of engineering work goes into a strapless gown for Aretha Franklin?” Now that I think about it, it’s sort of a cheeky thing for a man to say about his client, who should rightfully get some discretion from her dressmaker. Now that I know more about the Queen of Soul, it’s entirely possible her check bounced.

Anyway, I’m not Aretha, but I can no longer shop at Wal-Mart or Target. If I ever lose 20 pounds or so, the problem may be eased somewhat, but I was in the far outer regions of those stores’ selections years and pounds ago, and likely will be again, barring surgery. Some of us are just made that way. It’s not a glorious problem to have, in case you’re wondering; I’d rather have been born with $20 million, and spend my life worrying if people really like me, or my bank account.

And while the problems at my end of the size spectrum get easier every day — thank you, obesity epidemic! — I still prefer to shop with an expert at least once every couple of years, and that means I have to take myself to Harp’s, in Birmingham.

Harp’s is a legendary lingerie store. It’s the second one I’ve patronized in my life, the other being Town Shop in New York City. Both had, amusingly enough, the same power at their core — an ancient lady who sits behind the counter, a tape measure around her neck that she rarely needs to use because she’s seen every size, shape and color of boob under the sun. She can size you at a glance, under two sweaters and a winter coat. Modesty in fitting rooms is out of the question, because she looks at your chest with the same eye your mechanic turns on your fuel-injection system.

Both ancient ladies are gone now. Mrs. Harp died a while back, Selma Koch of Town Shop a few years before that. I’ve quoted Koch’s New York Times obituary here before, but just in case you missed it, here’s the lead:

Selma Koch, a Manhattan store owner who earned a national reputation by helping women find the right bra size, mostly through a discerning glance and never with a tape measure, died Thursday at Mount Sinai Medical Center. She was 95 and a 34B.

Betty Harp lived to be 93. Obviously something about spending your days surrounded by breasts leads to long lives. She, too, had a great obit, once you got past the part about fitting bras on the angels in heaven:

A master saleswoman, with a sense of style and a knack for making women feel beautiful, attributed to her great success. She owned stores in Hamtramck, Ferndale, Warren and finally, Birmingham. For 63 years she fit generations of mothers, daughters and granddaughters, six days a week – only resting on Sunday.

Any woman who left her store, left with an uplift and a story to tell. Known for her youthful, cosmetically untouched face, wit and spunk. Her secret to life – “Eat very little, use Vaseline or olive oil as a face cream, work like hell and don’t take crap from anyone.”

Mrs. Harp is gone, but she trained her staff well, and the lady who waited on me also didn’t need a tape measure. She also sold me a camisole in the new miracle fabric of I-don’t-know-what, but lordy, does this thing stretch. One size fits 0 to 24, and they’re highly recommended for pregnancy layers. Their website touts them as solutions to the problem of plumber’s butt in the current style of low-rise jeans. That’s women’s style for you — sell you a problem, then sell you a solution.

I bought the camisole after touring the rest of the store and its array of treasures — the high-end European stuff, those panties Scarlett Johansson wore in the first shot of “Lost in Translation” — and decided that whatever else I am, I am not the sort of person who drops $29 on a pair of panties. This camisole is intriguing, however. So smoothing! I’m going to experiment a bit.

Lots of good bloggage today, so let’s get started:

Via Eric Zorn, a hidden treasure from the Chicago Reader — a short-lived, ’70s-era magazine for teen girls called Star, presumably because they couldn’t call it Starfucker and sell it on respectable newsstands. As the Reader writer points out:

The second issue is my favorite so far. The advice column runs a letter allegedly from a girl who’s worried about her 15-year-old sister sneaking out and dating guys old enough to go to jail for having sex with her, and the columnist actually scolds her for being a drag.

Thanks to Mitch Harper, for remembering my interest in clowns that go bad, or, in this case, have bad visited upon them:

Two street clowns were found dead in southeastern Mexico along with messages allegedly from a drug gang accusing them of working as army informers, their families said Tuesday.

Police busted a Nigerian drug mule at the Detroit airport the other day, carrying — in her stomach — an astonishing 2.5 pounds of heroin in those little oval packages we all remember from “Maria Full of Grace.” The story is remarkable mainly for the photograph of the 91 packages all cleaned up and lined up on a hospital tray, and to think what it took to swallow them all.

Finally, regular readers know how much I love the work of Roy Edroso over at Alicublog. I knew he’d hit a rough patch of late, but I didn’t know there was an Edrosothon in progress to help him get through it. Now you know, too.

A great weekend to all.

Huh, wha-? I have a blog? It’s Thursday? I’m supposed to write something?

Sorry. It’s one of those sleep-deficit mornings. Thursday is Kate’s jazz-band rehearsal, which means I have to get up extra-early, and today it was extra-extra-early, because my neighbor, an extra-extra-extra-early riser, was up shoveling snow under our bedroom window. I could tell the depth of the snow (a dusting) from the sound of the shovel: scraaaaape…scraaaaape…scraaaaaaape. Very thin snow can turn to glare ice, so I don’t blame him for keeping things tidy, but it was just, criminy, 6 a.m. So I resolved to skip the morning coffee and go back to bed after dropping her off.

It was the right idea. You know you’re sleep-deprived when your emergency-deficit catchup sleep contains vivid dreams. It was my house dream. I always dream about houses when I dream at all, and it’s always the same one — I’ve recently taken possession of a new house, one that looks ordinary until I find a door within that leads to many more rooms I haven’t seen before, whole wings of neglected fabulousness, with grand dusty furniture and sometimes even an indoor pool. I think I have an idea what this dream is about, but if any of you armchair Freudians would like to weigh in, feel free. Let’s stipulate up front: The house is me. Most things in dreams are reflections of our selves, I’m convinced. We are born, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out why we exist. Apparently I’m missing my calling as a home-rehabber. Or maybe I contain an indoor pool.

Since we’re late today, and scattered, let’s just make it a mixed grill today, shall we?

Because I expressed disappointment with the pilot, and because I think good work should be recognized, I have to take back my earlier comments about “Detroit 1-8-7.” From a rocky start, the show has markedly improved. No, it’s not “The Wire.” It’s not “Southland.” It owes too large a stylistic debt to “NYPD Blue.” but it has shown real improvement over the course of its first season, and the last couple of episodes have been a pleasure to watch; the writers, the crew, even the actors getting a real sense of the city. I’d like to see what they can do with a second season. Of course, having said all that, I have now bestowed Nance’s Kiss of Death upon it, and whaddaya know, prospects for a second season are growing dim. Nevertheless, Michael Hodges’ story about the locations manager’s thoughts on the city’s look are worthwhile if you’ve ever been here. (Although I don’t know how he managed to, in a citation of city-based TV shows, throw “LA Law” in there — one shot almost entirely on stages in the showbiz capital of the world — and leave out the David Simon portfolio. But I’m not his editor.)

“Detroit 1-8-7” has also been a boon to the city’s creative community; it seems a week doesn’t go by that someone I know or sorta-know doesn’t have a speaking part, and that’s cool. Maybe, if the show is on the bubble for renewal, the drastically lower costs of shooting here, thanks to the tax credits, will play the deciding role. Here’s hoping.

This was, of course, one of the big stories on the health-care news farm last night — the vaccine-autism link, long discredited on a scientific basis, is now revealed as something worse than just bad scholarship, but actual fraud. I know some of you are alternative-health care enthusiasts, and I don’t want to cast aspersions on whatever works for you. (Yes, even coffee enemas.) But this movement away from one of the modern age’s great medical triumphs has been especially pernicious, with its victims the people who most need our care and protection — children. The fact that twits like Jenny McCarthy, and her great enabler, Oprah Winfrey, are still walking around raising questions and offering alternative theories just galls me.

A couple years back, “This American Life” did a show with the theme “ruining it for the rest of us,” and featured a story on a measles outbreak in some flannel-and-Birkenstocks outpost in the Pacific northwest. One of the interviews was with a mother whose baby had gotten measles just before he was supposed to get the vaccine, thanks to vaccine protestors in his daycare facility. There were complications, and while the child lived, he ran a sky-high temperature for days, and didn’t really shake it for weeks. It was a terrifying story for anyone who’s nursed a sick child, and the la-de-da attitude of ignoramuses like McCarthy and her confederates is simply appalling. Someone needs to be punished for this. Start with Andrew Wakefield, the original perp, but don’t forget the blonde, too.

And with that, I think I’m finally up and at ’em. Good rest of the day to all.

Here’s an idea to get us through January. Call it Stash the Santa, Leave the Lights. If you decorate the outside of your house for the holidays, come twelfth night/epiphany (i.e., tomorrow) you are strongly encouraged to strike all the Christmasy stuff — the Santas, the creches, the wreaths, the reindeer, whatever. But leave the lights. If your display consists entirely of white lights outlining your spruce tree, leave ’em up. If you put up blue ones, so much the better. (Red and green? On the bubble. But multicolored is fine.)

The idea is to say, Christmas is over and we’re not going to depress anyone by leaving Santa on the lawn until April, but it’s a long few weeks before we start to see anything approaching the softer light of spring, and so we’re going to let the candle of civilization burn in the dark a while longer. Until Valentine’s Day, say.

Who’s with me?

I don’t think Alan will be. Disassemble half the Christmas lights, then bring in the other half six weeks later? Winter sucks. Deal.

Well, that was my idea, anyway.

How are all of you this morning? We’re starting the year off right, with a glugging floor drain in the basement. It’s good that I handle Christmas on a pay-as-you-go basis, as January always seems to hold a few of these nasty surprises. There’s also the appraisal for our house, revealed yesterday, which came in at — calculating here — 52 percent of its 2005 purchase price. Yay, us! We’re po’.

There are times when the only reasonable response to such a pickle is to saute some spinach with garlic and then scramble a couple of eggs in there, too. There is little that can’t be faced on a spinach breakfast. Ask Popeye.

So while I wait for C&G Sewer Service, a question: Where would we be without Jon Stewart? Even in the clips roundups the day after, he’s better and funnier than anyone else on late night. The battle of the would-be Republican National Committee chairmen alone is worth your time. It’s hilarious to watch these tools caper for Grover Norquist. (If it weren’t so terrifying, of course.)

Charles Pugh — once the dumbest reporter on WKJG-TV in Fort Wayne, now the dumbest city council president Detroit has had since the last one:

City Council President Charles Pugh is dissolving his controversial nonprofit after taking criticism for secrecy surrounding it. The Pugh & You: Move Detroit Forward Fund was set up in March to raise money for staff travel and community outreach. But it caused heat for hosting a $5,000 a table fundraiser in August for Pugh’s 39th birthday. Criticism increased when Pugh refused to disclose donors that a staffer confirmed included a strip club operator who gave $500.

(A great picture, too. It needs a thought bubble: Once again, Kwame ruins it for everyone.)

I saw a couple of kids in downtown Grosse Pointe in shorts the other day. The temperature was edging toward balminess, so I thought perhaps they were just encouraging warmer weather. No. Turns out this is the thing, these days. Who knew? (I’m with the choose-your-battles parents. As long as hypothermia or frostbite isn’t a real risk, let ’em suffer.)

And with that, I sign off to await the arrival of a plumber-y looking van in the driveway. You?

Slept very badly two nights ago, which meant I had to go to Defcon IV last night — the guest room (for total silence and darkness) and an over-the-counter sleep aid, which doesn’t so much help me fall asleep, but keeps me that way through the little wee-hour disturbances that tend to rouse me. I got the six solid hours I require for function, but the downside is morning grogginess. I’ve been watching Gawker.tv clips in an attempt to regain my sense of humor, and it seems to be working. I laughed, anyway.

The movie in that clip — “The Craigslist Killer” — was advertised at one of the movies I saw over the holidays. That’s the movies nowadays: Arrive early, and you not only get previews (which always start late), but a pre-show, as well, featuring commercial after commercial. One was for “The Craigslist Killer,” another for Axe body wash, a fragrance I would happily work a shift running a honeywagon to avoid. Have you seen these? There’s a whole series of them, all about washing balls, washing back doors, washing ball sacks. You’ll feel like you’ve been locked in a room with a 14-year-old boy. Old Spice did it miles, miles better, and it probably smells better, too.

What is it with young men and their fragrances? When my nephew was a teenager, he and his friends went around in clouds of stinkum, more than I ever recall wearing as a girl. I guess they’re self-conscious about their rapidly changing, suddenly mystifying bodies. I don’t mind a nice-smelling man, but my definition is perhaps a little different: A man should smell like clean skin and soap. Even a little hint of b.o. doesn’t bother me; it just means he’s working hard. Whereas I take one whiff of Axe and think: Jersey Shore.

So, let’s skip to the bloggage, shall we?

Two video bits kick us off today. First, for fans of “Boardwalk Empire” or just digital magic in general, a quick walkthrough of the major visual effects used on the show. Yes, yes, they built that huge boardwalk stage in Brooklyn, but they built a lot more on a hard drive. My favorite was the boat, and the maiming of poor, haunted Richard Harrow:

And our own J.C. Burns was BoingBoing’d yesterday, when someone stumbled across his signoff video from WOUB-TV in Athens, Ohio, c. 1977. Groove on the cool ’70s hair and swingin’ fashions, all:

I knew a few of these people. I see Bill Dickhaut makes an early appearance. You pronounced his name “Dickout,” and you can imagine the jokes. You think you’re so funny when you’re 19. Here’s to all the people with funny names, who suffer for it. I like to think it’s not such a cruel world anymore; far more funny names in the world. One of my professors from that time was Korean. Sung Ho Kim. He said he went through grad school in the U.S. being called Wong Hung Lo by his classmates, and it was months before he realized what was going on, at which point he demanded to be called Wong Hung Up.

This story, about the state budget crisis in would-you-believe?-Texas! is weird — it seems to cut off after the lead. I wanted to know a lot more. But the figures are jaw-dropping, even with the weasel word “potentially:”

This month the state’s part-time legislature goes back into session, and the state is starting at potentially a $25 billion deficit on a two-year budget of around $95 billion. That’s enormous. And there’s not much fat to cut. The whole budget is basically education and healthcare spending. Cutting everything else wouldn’t do the trick. And though raising this kind of money would be easy on an economy of $1.2 trillion, the new GOP mega-majority in Congress is firmly against raising any revenue.

Which sent me googling for comparison; Michigan’s shortfall is $1.9 billion, which is regarded around here as apocalyptic. And look here at this photo of the new governor at his first staff meeting, which included his chief of staff — Dennis Muchmore. (See above.)

One final thing: Please stop sending me the incredibly sad pictures taken by the latest French duo to go through town, set up their tripods, and take pictures of Detroit’s very picturesque ruins. I haven’t been so moved since …the last batch, which were probably also taken by Frenchmen. There are so many French journalists wandering through town the hotels have probably renamed the continental breakfast for them, the way the hotels in Honolulu had miso soup and fish on the breakfast buffet in the ’80s. Yes, they’re lovely photos, but I’ve seen versions of every one for years now, and the accompanying stories are always wrong in some fundamental way, and I’m just tired of reading them. They’re perfect examples of how you can get every fact right and still miss the truth.

Off to get some work done. And catch my rabbit.