OK, I’ve officially had it with “Downton Abbey,” with its parade of death and soapy excuses for plot and character development. Sorry, Julian Fellowes. You had one good season, one ridiculous one and one that was just plain bad. I don’t know how many strikes you’re allowed in cricket, but here in ‘merica, you’re out.

I could have handled Matthew Crawley’s death, the same way I’ve been handling TV character deaths in the past. Someone wants out of their contract, maybe to do a big movie or somethin’, and steps into an elevator shaft or into the path of a speeding train or whatever. Crawley had to die because he had to die, so there you were.

But did you have to telegraph it so awfully? Anyone with half a brain could have seen this coming a dozen scenes out, and once his father-in-law had another personality transplant change of heart and decided he’d been wrong about their season-long conflict, and he was only now seeing what a fine, fine man Matthew was, and how blessed they were to have him, well — it’s as though Meg Ryan had walked onto the set and demanded that someone take her to bed or lose her forever. He was that dead.

I’m so, so with Tom & Lorenzo. When Fellowes can’t even come up with a decent subplot for Mrs. Patmore, it’s time to wipe the slate:

Little Matthew Junior will inherit the title and we find ourselves wishing that, for the next season, Fellowes just skips ahead about 16 years and we settle in to watch the nearly grown Sybil Branson and Matthew Crawley Jr. take over the reins of Downton as World War II bears down on them. The prospect of watching the family shuffle through the rest of the 1920s bores us, especially since the only interesting thing happening to a Crawley right now is Edith’s decision to become a mistress to a married man. Since Fellowes wimped out on showing anyone’s reaction to Matthew’s death, he should just skip through the whole mourning process and the dreary “raising a child on your own” story and just have teenage Matthew Jr. inherit his estate just as war breaks out again. It’s the only potential plotline with any interest to us – and it really says something that we have to jump ahead that far to find anything that might keep our attention.

And for those of you who don’t watch “Downton Abbey,” I’m sorry, but I needed to vent.

By the way, what ever happened to Mrs. Hughes’ cancer scare? Clearly she had a favorable result, but I don’t recall a single scene after the “we’ll have to wait a few weeks” one.

Grr.

A speedy drive to Lansing this morning, and when I got off the freeway and into town, I wondered if there had been a bomb scare or something before remembering it was one of those holidays I’ve never, ever had off in my life, and never expect to. Good for the ski resorts up north, but not much more. Nevertheless, a quiet day is a quiet day, and probably as good a way as ever to ease into the week. So, some bloggage?

RIP, Policy Review. Will Thomas Sowell have to get a job at Wal-Mart?

A few remarkable pieces of journalism from 1968. As an accompaniment, 50 remarkable photos from 1963. We’ve changed. A lot.

Did I mention how very early it was when I left this morning? No? Well, zzzzzzz.

It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m thinking I should be doing our taxes. It’s a perfect do-the-taxes day — not lovely enough that I should be outside, cold enough that inside chores are called for, and taxes are the ultimate inside chore. And yet, I’m not doing the taxes. I did organize the tax-document box, which is considerably easier now that I’m no longer freelancing. So yay me.

Instead, I’m thinking about naked Lena Dunham.

I’ve become a reluctant fan of “Girls,” the HBO series about 20something New Yorkers learning about life and love, at least that tiny slice of life and love as its experienced in hipster Brooklyn. All four of the titular cast members are the privileged daughters of wealthy artists and/or media figures, although I’m not sure you can call the former drummer for Bad Company, father of cast member Jemima Kirke, an artist. But what the hell, let’s go along with it.

Because these girls (the actors) were born into money and fabulousness and now have achieved the next level of money and fabulousness with cable-TV success, and because the show is a pretty accurate reflection of a certain sort of demographic (theirs), only they’re pretending to be poor and salad days-y, it can be a challenge to watch, much as it may have bugged the servants to watch Marie Antoinette pretend to be a peasant at Versailles. Everyone is hyperarticulate and crazy and impulsive and does stupid self-sabotaging shit, and it took me a long time to admit that what’s discomfiting about it is, it’s true.

And Dunham is naked in this thing. A LOT. The sex scenes are excruciating, in the way that watching actual sex is discomfiting and movie sex isn’t. The clothes come off with considerable trouble,
one party frequently looks to be having a terrible time, and Dunham cares not a whit that she’s overweight, pear-shaped, small-breasted and pretty much the polar opposite of what we consider suitable for public nudity. This is a little weird at first, but you get used to it, much as you got used to the idea that three of the “Sex and the City” quartet routinely had sex with their bras on.

She’s naked so often, in fact, that it borders on gratuitous, and that’s a word I don’t use lightly. Last week, the show petered out on Dunham’s character lounging in her tub, singing “Wonderwall” to herself, when Kirke’s character shows up. These girls love to bathe together, and it’s pretty clear Kirke is going to climb in, but not before Dunham rises to her knees, so we can get a shot of her breasts again. Alan, who likes boobs as much as the next guy, actually said, “Noooooo!”

Dunham’s wardrobe is also terrible. I’d love to see T-Lo take it on — beyond the red-carpet stuff they’ve already done, that is.

More on naked Lena.

Hope y’all had a good weekend, and if you were snowed upon, that it was pretty and not too awful. Some bloggage:

Tonight is the Grammy awards. I’ve always hated the Grammies, for reasons explained here. A sample:

1989’s Record and Song of the Year went to Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” a T-shirt slogan of a song that has aged as well as a beer koozie that says, “Is that your final answer?” It beat Anita Baker’s “Giving You The Best That I Got,” Steve Winwood’s “Roll With It, ” Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” and Michael Jackson’s “Man In The Mirror.”

The Michigan GOP gets on Wayne LaPierre’s train. I’m totally sure an armed, 110-pound female teacher will somehow never be surprised and disarmed by, say, a 220-pound high school linebacker who needs a weapon, quick.

Another homeowners’ association horror story, featuring two equally loathsome parties bent on mutual assured destruction. Enjoy, Jeff!

And let’s all have a good week.

Potpourri today, folks. I took a hot yoga class during today’s blogging time, and my chakras are too aligned to work up much of a head of steam over anything. Besides, we have some good stuff here, starting with…

Jim Nabors, out of the closet at 82. Well, good for him. It’s not like the whole world hasn’t known this for a while. It reminded me of when I first heard the rumor that Gomer Pyle was a ‘mo, as the nomenclature went among grade-schoolers, which I believe I was. The rumor mill said that Gomer had married Rock Hudson in a weekend ceremony.

How would that rumor have traveled in 1968 or so? It was before the internet. A long-distance call required a parental ruling, and certainly wasn’t so you could discuss Hollywood gossip with a distant cousin. There were showbiz scandal sheets, to be sure, but even then they stuck to language like “confirmed bachelor,” which would have flown over the heads of kids. No, it just arrived one day, entire, at the city pool: Gomer Pyle had married Rock Hudson.

Nearly half a century later, he married someone named Stan Cadwallader, in Seattle. Well, congratulations, gentlemen. Better to live in truth, however late in the game it comes.

And speaking of living in truth, may I just say I am growing quite weary of Downton Abbey? I can tolerate a whole damn lot from a TV show, but these soap-opera personality transplants are getting on my last nerve. In the first season, one reasonable criticism of the show was that Lord Grantham was too nice; a man of his station wouldn’t have had personal conversations with his footmen, any more than he would chat with his bedroom furniture. But it was tolerable, because otherwise? Not much of a show. So you can take that liberty, but you can’t decide, in season three, that the lord of the manner has to be a prick, so that we can set into motion plots 7 through 12. Stories flow from character. When the characters aren’t real? Lousy stories.

Also, either shank Mr. Bates in prison or spring him. This Nancy Drew stuff is the worst.

Two stories with a religious angle, one better than the other. The inferior one: Brooklyn and Saudi Arabia have something in common. Modesty police, only these are Jewish.

In the close-knit world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism, community members know the modesty rules as well as Wall Street bankers who show up for work in a Brooks Brothers suit. Women wear long skirts and long-sleeved, high-necked blouses on the street; men do not wear Bermuda shorts in summer. Schools prescribe the color and thickness of girls’ stockings.

The rules are spoken and unspoken, enforced by social pressure but also, in ways that some find increasingly disturbing, by the modesty committees. Their power is evident in the fact that of the half dozen women’s clothing stores along Lee Avenue, only one features mannequins, and those are relatively shapeless, fully clothed torsos.

I really don’t like this sort of thing. Really. The other story is far more interesting, and you may have seen it making the rounds: How in 1978, a Soviet scientific party stumbled upon a family living in squalid conditions, deep in Siberia, in full retreat from the world. Why? To protect their faith from Commies and Peter the Great, among other things. A great, fascinating read.

Enough potpourri for one day? It better be, because I’m about out of gas for the night.

Jeez, what a long day. Out of the house at 6:30 a.m., back up the driveway at 6 p.m. It would have been 5:40, but two wrecks on the freeway necessitated a detour. A quick break to water the drooping plants, change clothes, throw together an entirely improvised pasta — fresh mooz, cherry tomatoes, basil and garlic — then back out the door for a town hall in my very own.

There’s a tax increase on the fall ballot, split into two parts. I was undecided going into the meeting, but the city made a pretty good case. As you might imagine, there is fierce opposition, not all of which is hysterical and tea party-ish. So this is how the meeting ran: The city manager stood up and gave a little welcome, then introduced the comptroller, who ran through the PowerPoint. Then he introduced all the city department heads, the mayor and council, directing them to seats at tables that ran along the perimeter of the room.

“Feel free to ask any questions of these people, and we’ll stay until we’re all done. Just approach whoever you like,” he said.

An old man sitting in front of me stood up and bellowed, WE WANT OUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED!

“Ask whatever questions you like,” the manager said. “That’s what these people are here for — the mayor, the council. Go ahead.”

But of course the old man — and many others — didn’t want questions answered, they wanted to stand behind a microphone and yell. One passed out a flyer demanding CUT THE FAT in all caps. A woman walked to the front of the room and started screeching about duplicate services and so forth. The more she screeched, the more people left.

As crowd control goes, it was a stroke of genius. You can tell the city manager has a background in law enforcement.

The thing is, the opposition has a point: There is a certain amount of fat in the budget, if you consider $150 to buy pizza for poll workers on election days fat. But even if you make them brown-bag it, and sweep up a few thousand more here and there, it’s not going to be enough to make the nut. I walked in undecided, left decided. The yelling didn’t help.

So, on the verge of collapse, I will say this: I watched “Treme,” and lo, it was good. For more, I’m sure Back of Town can catch you up. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, Prospero, read this. (Link is fixed.)

Bridge has been running occasional stories about public servants — or workers, or tax-sucking leeches, depending on your political frame of mind — who aren’t elected. Yesterday’s was about a prison guard, and I learned that as bad as all of the jobs I’ve had in my life have been, at times? They haven’t been as bad as this:

A prisoner goes on “stool watch” when he’s suspected of smuggling in drugs by swallowing a balloon containing a controlled substance. The inmate is forced to sit on a special stool that has a bag below it to catch the inmate’s feces so it can be checked for the drugs.

Repulsive mental picture to the contrary, I’m pleased to learn this, as it gives me a new term for something that will almost certainly be unpleasant:

“No, I can’t go to dinner tonight. Waiting to hear back from the client on that thing last week. You know, stool watch.”

“Getting a test back today in Chem. Total stool watch.”

You can tell it’s almost the end of the week, can’t you? Feelin’ a little hit-the-wall here. All things considered, I’d like to watch a little of “Full Metal Jacket” and drift off to sleep. Love that Lee Ermey.

So, a little bloggage:

Charles Pierce on the new season of “Treme.” (He likes it.)

OID: Stay away from this place, Mr. Funny Car. Just keeeeep driving.

A friend of mine had severe performance anxiety while trying to produce a sperm sample for in vitro fertilization. Tells a funny story about it. Kinda like this one.

And now if you’ll excuse me? I’m going to go pass out.

One of the things we did last weekend was go to the Titanic exhibition at the Henry Ford. It’s exactly the sort of exhibit I despise — timed entrance (NO EXCEPTIONS), gimmicky (your “boarding pass” contains an Actual Passenger Name), ultimately sort of meh. Its official name is “Titanic: The Artifact Exhibit,” and unfortunately, I’m not an artifact person. I’ve been ruined by CGI and, frankly, my own imagination — nothing about a 100-year-old piece of china does it for me.

But this is a modern exhibit, which means it is “interactive,” and in this case, it meant there was a giant iceberg — presumably refreshed every night — you could put your hands on. And that was marred for Ms. Grammar and Usage Nitpicker by the legend on the wall nearby:

“Iceberg Right Ahead!”

I don’t care how loud he yelled it, those words shouldn’t be capitalized. They knew that sort of thing in 1912.

It could have been the fact the whole space was elbow-to-elbow that got on my nerves. We saw “Woman Holding a Balance” by none other than Johannes Vermeer two weeks ago at the DIA, walking right in and standing in front of it as long as we liked, occasionally stepping aside to let others peer at it.

And yes, I am Mrs. Nose-in-the-Air. Because, y’know, Vermeer and James Cameron’s mythology.

Would we have cared so much about the Titanic if it weren’t, as we’re told over and over, the height of luxury? Or was it the fact several of the richest people in the world we among those who went down, and all their money couldn’t save them? Ultimately, I just don’t care all that much. And I thought the “stand on the bow” photo-op gimmick was silly — and a gouge. The person on my boarding pass died, by the way. Kate was Madeline Astor, and lived.

So: Change of subject.

You all know how much I love a good montage scene on the TV box. There was a nice one in Sunday’s “Breaking Bad,” and here it is:

Some of the imagery may be confusing, if you’re not a BB fan, but trust me — it all works. Or maybe I just love that song. Tommy James? Shondells? You were among the good ones.

I agree with Neil Steinberg: We shouldn’t mock Romney’s religion. Believe it, don’t believe it, but keep your mouth shut. We’re supposed to be better than that.

Think I’ll watch the First Lady’s speech. Is it Hump Day already? How’d that happen?

(Tried to write something last night, found myself plumb out of gas after a day of bothering people on the phone, researching tax policy and exchanging emails about the election. Wouldn’t you? Now 6:47 a.m. Let’s see how this goes.)

Early morning, hoping for rain. The radar is encouraging, but it’s been a lying bitch for weeks now. The lawn is still green(ish), but that’s due to the sheltering effects of the front-yard oak, not sprinkling. Honey Boo Boo chile don’t sprinkle, and look, look! It’s taken only hours for me to internalize Honey Boo Boo and, in essence, justify whatever dollars were spent on producing that carnival of American entertainment. And I didn’t even watch much of it. Alan vetoed it after a few minutes, but I caught a bit here and there — the family ultrasound of HBB’s older sister, who is pregnant. HBB’s mother, June, revealed she’d been 15 when she’d first become a mother, which was presumably before she married her husband, Sugar Bear, and certainly before she started attending auctions to buy outdated or fell-off-the-truck packages of Chips Ahoy, another little snippet I caught. After the ultrasound, we learned that the family refers to a woman’s genitals as her biscuit.

“Because when you get a biscuit — a good biscuit, like at Hardee’s — you can kind of pull ’em apart…” — June throws her head back and laughs, and thanks! Thanks, June and Honey Boo Boo! Now I can never eat a biscuit again. Although I had a neighbor once who called that same thing a muffin, and I still eat those.

In time, it will pass. The American freak show. I bet they don’t so anything like this in Turkey.

I desperately need coffee. I should have exercised this morning. Maybe a bike ride later? I’m hungry. This is my brain in the early morning — Travis Bickle without the guns: I tried several times to call her, but after the first call, she wouldn’t come to the phone any longer. I also sent flowers but with no luck. The smell of the flowers only made me sicker. The headaches got worse. I think I got stomach cancer. I shouldn’t complain though. You’re only as healthy, you’re only as healthy as you feel. You’re only as…healthy…as…you…feel.

It takes three to make a trend, but I think we have a good start on making naked DUI into a Thing.

First, the Rev. Peter Petroske, Catholic priest, arrested and suspended for driving through Dearborn naked and drunk, and I really wish I knew more, but I don’t. There’s a lot about Fr. Petroske’s background in the story. Commenters who say they knew him say he’s a great guy. The priesthood is stressful. I hope he gets the help he needs.

And then, today, Randy Travis, upon whom I once had a 10-minute crush, before the gaydar kicked in, now reduced to raving in the back seat of the squad car, naked and drunk and threatening to kill the cops.

I do not mean to make light of what is obviously a couple of miserable human beings, but it’s odd how these things come in clusters. I’ve been naked and I’ve been drunk, sometimes at the same time, but I’ve never considered going for a drive while in that condition. And for that, the world can be grateful.

I sense we’re already lowering the tone.

So here’s this: Gawker had a little exchange with Henrik Rummel, aka Boner Rower. He is one hell of a good sport:

What was your initial reaction when the story of your boner hit the internet? Have you gotten a lot of feedback? New fans?

I laughed very hard! I woke up my girlfriend and told her the story. Then I told everyone else I knew, except my parents.

Wise choice, kiddo. Now your mom will never find out.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that gymnastics is over. I don’t know how many more plucky brats I can handle. These track athletes are much more my speed, although I don’t really get the obsession with makeup some of these women have. When I’m sweating, false eyelashes are the last things I want to worry about, but then, it is worldwide television and there’s a lot of money lying on the ground for a fetching athlete to pick up, whether or not she’s a winner. So: Plucky brats bad, lanky brats with false eyelashes good.

Failing that, you can always go for a reality-TV show. What do you call a vagina?

Coffee. Cooooffffeeeee…..

Because I care about my readers so very very much, and because Alan went fishing last Friday and Kate was off doing something, and it was hot and I was at loose ends and had an hour to kill, I did something I normally wouldn’t do, even for you.

I watched Bristol Palin’s reality show via my on-demand service.

I wish I could tell you it was a fine bit of bad television, worthy of an extra beer and a bowl of popcorn. Alas, I cannot.

Part of the problem is reality TV. I had a colleague who was always promising that reality TV was done, done, dunzo, and soon we’d have no more of it. This was more than a decade ago. Not only is it not dunzo, it seems stronger than ever, even as every last trope is as tired and clichéd as a CPAC flag salute for the mama grizzlies. There’s the mission (Bristol is restless, and wants to “give back” to a charity in Los Angeles) the staged think-it-over scene (Mama Sarah Grizzly sings a little of the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme song, screwing up the lyrics), the packing, the move, the reveal of the ridiculous mansion (“owned by a friend of my mom’s”), etc.

Ostensibly, Bristol is working for a charity called Help the Children, and isn’t that a great name for a charity? Guess what their mission is? Helping children! They have branded polo shirts, and Bristol gamely puts hers on and goes for a driving tour of Skid Row. Not a lot of children-helping can be observed, mainly because we have to endure long confessional interviews with Bristol and her sister, Willow, dragged along to be a babysitter to little Tripp, her 2-year-old son with Levi Johnston. Willow’s not very enthusiastic about being there, and whines on the phone to a friend back in Alaska. Tripp, we’re told, is the very reason for this excursion, because Bristol “wants him to see there’s a whole world out there,” something anyone who’s ever taken care of a 2-year-old for long knows is not exactly at the top of their bucket list.

Even this synopsis is boring, isn’t it?

Anyway, it all leads up to the big money scene, where Bristol is out frolicking with friends and an angry gay man yells YOUR MOTHER’S A WHORE. There’s some shakycam of the two of them squabbling, then a big meltdown in which she has the nerve to say, “And there are cameras everywhere!” and we end the episode on some note of sadder-but-wiser.

I feel sorry for Bristol. I feel sorry for Willow (although I think she has a chance). I feel sorry for Tripp. And I am reminded of a conversation I had with a woman from People magazine, who was applying for a Knight Wallace Fellowship the year after mine. She wanted to spend her year working on a book about what happens to people when they become famous overnight, not for something they did, but for something that happened to them. They go a little crazy, she said, mentioning Elizabeth Smart, whom I believe had just asked to play herself in the TV movie about her abduction, rape and captivity.

And then, because my self-loathing apparently knows no bounds, I did something I haven’t done in five years. I listened to a Mitch Albom show, or part of it, on the way home from Lansing Monday. I last tuned in during the Terry Schiavo affair, on a similar boring drive, and I was left with the impression that of all his media personae, radio Mitch was the least offensive. Maybe because so much of talk radio is so deliberately offensive, his aw-shucks regular-guy act was almost likable.

I’ve really, really lost my taste for that sort of commercial radio. There’s allegedly a conversation going on between Mitch and his co-host, but the whole show’s on ADD, what with stock-market closing numbers, traffic on the fives, weather and all the rest of it. But at one point they briefly chatted about “The Newsroom,” the new Aaron Sorkin series on HBO. It’s not being kindly reviewed, and having watched one episode, I’m agreeing with the critics — it’s preachy and speechy and rat-a-tat-tatty, and it left me pretty cold.

The co-host/sidekick said, “It’s not getting good reviews.”

“That’s because people are jealous of Aaron Sorkin’s success,” Mitch said, airily. “That’s what we do in this country. If someone is successful, we have to tear them down.”

Scratch the regular guy. The monsterfication of Mitch is fully complete.

And now, I know we all want to talk about whatever the Supremes had to say today, so I turn it over to you. Only one bit of bloggage, via Dexter: A numismatic ORGY!!!!!

I’m writing this Wednesday night. I can only imagine what tomorrow will be like — 100 degrees here, and I have two interviews and a meeting, with out 150 miles to drive. Oh, joy.

Day one of a threatened three-day heat wave is behind us. Huzzah, because it was a little like being an ant under a magnifying glass. The older I get, the more interesting I find the weather, and judging from the Weather Channel demographics, it’s a thing; we all know old people can watch the radar all day. Yesterday, a big bruise of a storm marched across the Mitten, right down I-96. It was already pretty hot, but the storm brought a little relief, but not for long; it had a hot comet’s tail behind it. Driving home from Lansing Monday, the storm having cleared the east coast of the state (but not for long), I heard the temperatures — Detroit 76, Lansing 80, Holland, over there in West Dutchistan, 90.

Ninety-five or so today, so I got my workout in early, riding for an hour at 5:30 a.m. The things you see at that hour: Newspaper delivery people, insomniacs, impossibly early risers, lots of bunnies. It didn’t seem very hot until I got home, when, robbed of the cooling breeze, my head went off like a sprinkler.

Eh, all I had to do is take out the trash — it’s not like I needed opera gloves.

So, let’s go to the bloggage, because I’m t’ard:

I found even the trailer excruciating. Imagine what it was like to actually watch, and review, “That’s My Boy.” Eric Zorn found out — about the reviewing, anyway:

Eric D. Snider, Film.com: I exited the theater …. my spirit broken, my optimism shattered, my soul reborn under a thick, cynical shell. (It’s a) putrid comedy (featuring many examples of its) rancid screenplay’s festering laziness….Somehow stretched to an excruciating 116 minutes in length, the film offers seven or eight genuinely clever lines, but they are drowned out by the braying, pointless stupidity that surrounds them.

More at the link. Funny.

But when it comes to excruciating entertainment, can you really beat “Stars Earn Stripes?” It features Todd Palin. Gotta see the picture at the link; it’s like an asshole Avengers.

Man, I’m whipped. Let’s get through Hump Day, and cruise on into the back half of things.

Catching up on the second viewing of the last episode of “Mad Men.” I seem to be swimming against much of the critical tide here, but I thought it was great. A great season, and while the final chapter didn’t include any severed feet or fistfights or “Zou Bisou Bisou,” it was a fitting end to the run. Truth be told, the show is starting to make me nervous, as we’re up to mid-1967 now, and I remember a great deal of this stuff.

Not that I didn’t recall the Kennedy assassination and the rest of the various collisions between history and this particular fiction, but this stuff I remember — my sister bringing home “Revolver,” the Richard Speck murders, when hemlines suddenly climbed past the knee. In the dramatis personae of the show, I’m Bobby Draper, and sometimes I feel as though just as many actors have played me through the years.

And while Matt Weiner is younger, he has a good eye for this sort of thing, or at least the sense to hire the right writers. I was 10 years old and living in suburban Columbus, but he captured the pivotal nature of the era, how everything was one way and the next, another. The episode ends in May 1967 and in two months, Detroit will be in flames. The summer of love is about to begin and next year, all hell will really break loose — student revolts in Europe, Chicago, more riots. Next year will be the final season, and it’s a fitting year to end it.

Although Weiner might not. He might flash forward to 1974. Or die of petulance over the summer. You never know. And that, my friends, was three paragraphs of pretty much nothing. But if you’re a “Mad Men” fan, you’ve already read 10 recaps by noon on Monday, so why bother?

I heard a report about day one in the Jerry Sandusky trial on the way home today. Yeesh, did I ever need a shower after that one. Did you know that in Sandusky’s “culture,” it’s common for men and boys to shower together? The culture, I gather, is “athletics,” and to some extent, I agree — one of the very puzzling things about jocks, to me, is their willingness to shower together and make don’t-drop-the-soap jokes. As to whether men shower with boys, late at night, after everyone’s gone home, just you and me kid, and Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked? — I guess more will be revealed on that score. I can hardly wait.

But do not despair! Some fine bloggage today, courtesy of Hank, who unearthed a 1992 essay by Martha Sherrill, written on the 20th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, and asking, What if Watergate had never happened? Well….

Elizabeth Taylor is dead. She was never saved from drugs and booze and overeating by the Betty Ford Center, because the Betty Ford Center does not exist, because Betty Ford remained a perfectly happy golf widow in Grand Rapids, Mich., who sometimes acted a little silly at Christmas parties. …Edmund Morris was able to finish the second installment of his Theodore Roosevelt biography because he never got tied up doing Ronald Reagan, since Ronald Reagan, after an unsuccessful run at the presidency in 1976, quit politics. He was wholly satisfied that a good conservative — Spiro T. Agnew — had finally made it into the White House. Reagan resumed a successful career in television, and in 1980 accepted the part of Blake Carrington on “Dynasty.” He dyed his hair gray.

It was a wonderful life after all.