A tasteful cage. Adaptation! There’s hope for us yet.

In honor of Hell Week, more three-dot linkaliciousness:

First came the earthquakes, great heavings of the earth the made a mockery of all man’s works. Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for wearing a blonde wig and sporting the worst southern accent since community theater. But mankind didn’t know it was doomed, that this truly was the first rumblings of that rough beast, its hour come round at last, until sunspots drove all the Toyotas crazy.

Roy Edroso is leaving New York for love. Best of luck, Roy. That must be some love to trade Brooklyn for Bryan (Texas). He’ll still be blogging, at least until he gets shot in a bar for being a filthy hippie.

The New York Times business section takes a look at the sticky topic of feminine hygiene advertising. Hmm. Well. OK:

Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT, said that after being informed that it could not use the word vagina in advertising by three broadcast networks, it shot the ad cited above with the actress instead saying “down there,” which was rejected by two of the three networks. (Both Ms. Harris and representatives from the brand declined to specify the networks.)

“It’s very funny because the whole spot is about censorship,” Ms. Harris said. “The whole category has been very euphemistic, or paternalistic even, and we’re saying, enough with the euphemisms, and get over it. Tampon is not a dirty word, and neither is vagina.”

I’d like to see the script that uses that word before I pass judgment. Vagina may not be a dirty word, but it’s certainly an overused one. I’ve carried one around every day of my life, but it only took about 18 months from the day you started hearing it on broadcast television to get thoroughly sick of it, especially at an all-star event like a Joan Rivers roast. I’m with the screenwriter of “The Opposite of Sex” on that one:

Lucia: Vagina, vagina, vagina. Does that word do anything for you?
Bill Truitt: I don’t think it does much for anyone, gay or straight.

The ad executive complains you can’t say “vagina” in a tampon ad, but I’m not sure I want to see it there. “Buy Tampax tampons! Your vagina will thank you!” (That could work, actually.)

J.C. was cleaning out his video archive and sent this. Always nice to remember the good times.

I’m still amazed at how little coverage the Mexican drug wars are getting north of the border, but maybe this latest story will goose something along. An American consulate worker — pregnant, no less — and her husband, gunned down in their car while their infant wailed from the back seat. From what I’ve read of the killers, I’m amazed they left the baby alone. The numbers are astonishing: Ciudad Juarez had 2,000 murders last year, the highest in the world. The weekend’s death toll alone was 20.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this isn’t our next stupid military excursion — south of the border. How fun that will be.

Elsewhere in the Bad News for the Forseeable Future front is a story we’ve been seeing in fits and starts for a while — call it Our Crumbling Infrastructure, Water Division. A few months before New Year’s Day, 2000, a 23-inch water main broke in Fort Wayne, and drained a big chunk of the city for a few hours before they could get it fixed. This was during the great Y2K scare. Remember, apocalyptic fantasies are never a hard sell in Indiana, and rather than doing what they might have done — cope with a little hardship for half a day, or use it as an excuse to go out to dinner in another part of the city — instead residents fell out for their local groceries to strip the shelves of bottled water. Shoving matches broke out in store aisles; it was all a little unsettling.

That story points out what our paper did back then — these pipes are old. The main in Fort Wayne was made of cast iron, for cryin’ out loud. The one in the opening anecdote of the story dates from the invention of the light bulb. And while cast iron is sturdy and our water infrastructure has certainly done its service, well, nothing lasts forever:

Today, a significant water line bursts on average every two minutes somewhere in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

Falling freeway bridges, crumbling infrastructure (much of it effectively ignored for a century), crazed murderous drug lords — have I brought you down enough on this dreary Monday? Yes? Well, maybe we need a kitten picture:

See you folks — with my red, glowing eyes — later.

This story is being spun as a monumental case of micromanagement. It is. However, it is nothing new. Every media outlet in the world has a boss who hands down these edicts; it’s one of the perks of the top job — creating a world unto yourself in which no one ever, ever uses the word butt. The only thing that makes this case different is the fact it’s the CEO doing it. In most companies, especially one like the Tribune Co., inevitably referred to as “troubled,” the CEO is — should be — the big-picture guy standing on the bridge looking at the seas ahead, scanning for icebergs, not going below to instruct the coal-shovelers on the proper angle to wear their sailor caps. Not in Chicago, evidently. Ah, well.

Here’s the other thing: Michaels kind of has the right idea, or seems to have backed into the right idea. A big chunk of the entries on the list are the sort of trite journalese that anyone with a sensitive ear hates — clash with police, say, or went terribly wrong, or one of my personal pet peeves, diva. (I prefer the simpler bitch.) Looking at the rest of the list, though, I’m going to assume the smart part of it is simply a case of a monkey banging out the first act of “Hamlet.” Remember, this is Lee Abrams’ other half.

I’m going to further assume that many of these words never made it onto WGN’s air to begin with. Fatal death for instance. An intern might write that, but presumably it wasn’t a routine usage. Ditto bare naked and medical hospital. I looked in vain for controversial, and didn’t find it. He got famed in there, but not all its variations; generally, I follow the rule that if something is famous, you don’t need to remind people.

The list also bans certain words journalists rely on to protect ourselves — alleged, for one. Laypeople hate that one. I think Eric Zorn tackled it after the Flight 253 near-disaster, when a reader complained that we shouldn’t be calling Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab the “alleged terrorist.” Zorn said yes we should, because that’s what we do — it’s not the news media’s job to decide when you’re guilty, but a court of law’s. If you don’t like it, you can always move to Afghanistan. Or tune your radio to WGN.

Zorn looked at the list, and the fallout, on his blog yesterday. In his defense, Michaels and his underling point out there’s nothing wrong with striving for clear writing, from the CEO all the way down. Agreed. But please explain, gents: What’s your problem with pedestrian? Is there a better word for a person walking across a street? Or officials? Don’t forget that news writing evolved the way it did because those sentences have to carry a lot of freight. It’s easier for listeners for a broadcaster to say “city officials said” rather than “street department, police and fire and parks and recreation supervisors said.”

With that, I go behind closed doors. I seem to have turned a corner, health-wise, but not work-wise. So you all enjoy Friday, and I’ll see you in the wake of the weekend.

They never answer the obvious follow-up question: Why would anyone want to read nice stories about brave Boy Scouts when you can watch the video of the bridal shop brawl — a story that comes with a great, made-for-tabloid name — on YouTube? I don’t know much, but I do know this: Right now, a producer from “Bridezillas” is speed-dialing that family and praying someone else didn’t get to her first.

Why would you want to read about upright public servants, when you can read about disgraced former Detroit city council president Monica Conyers, who went to court to be sentenced yesterday and unleashed the furies. To be sure, you could wonder if this even counts as news, as Monica’s furies are rarely leashed at all; she can’t even check into a hotel without the police being called. After trying to withdraw the guilty plea she negotiated and signed eight months ago, she threw this into the mix: “My husband is an older man,” and presumably incapable of caring for two teenagers (although he retains chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee). John Conyers didn’t show, by the way, although he was said to be in his office in the same building when the hearing was taking place. Yet another strange marriage in a world full of them.

Speaking of which, I wonder what Mrs. Massa is thinking these days. I met a gay veteran in a bar in Key West once. Which branch? I asked. “The Navy, of course,” he replied. “Of course?” Weeks at sea on a floating tub full of men. Draw your own conclusions.

Well, pals o’ mine, I wish I could tell you the Buckley’s did the trick, but it didn’t. I feel as awful today as I did yesterday, but now I have twice as much work to do, so I must away. A little bloggage:

I’m wondering if Kate is going to want to see “The Runaways.” My guess is, not if it means sitting next to her mother while Dakota Fanning sings “Cherry Bomb.” The whole movie looks a little, uh, mature.

This is very obscure, but I had no idea: Lynda Barry went out with him? Really? Really.

God, I feel like crap. Please to forgive. We’ll try again tomorrow.

She spent the first week or so beating the crap out of all the stuffies, butting and nibbling and doing her bunny-punch (a surprisingly effective move, not to be confused with the rabbit punch). Now that she’s established herself as the dominant doe of the warren, she can rest in regal peace, which is what she does up there for hours on end. She will accept your tributes now. Make them leafy and green.

Overnight, my illness has taken a turn, and I’m off to find something called Buckley’s. It’s on the recommendation of one of our student journalists, who says, “You will curse me when you take it and bless me later.” Hmm. Well, I’m out of Nyquil and Dayquil now, anyway. I’ll try anything.

If I don’t find it in the first three U.S. pharmacies I try, I’ll head downtown and cross the border. (It’s Canadian, and you will not be surprised to learn that one of the first businesses you see when you emerge from the tunnel is a pharmacy. Gee, I wonder why?) If nothing else, adding eight bucks in tolls and an international excursion will guarantee that I feel better tomorrow, on the same theory that says the food comes right after you light a cigarette, the funny sound disappears when the mechanic is listening, etc.

A little bloggage to start the discussion:

The double-chinned doughboy behind this story — Marc Thiessen — was on the Daily Show last night. You know someone is a bastard when even my mild-mannered husband starts jeering at the TV.

While we’re on the subject, no doubt Jihad Jane will be today’s talking point at Fox News. She is said to have made her al-Q connections through that covert website, YouTube. I haven’t seen a mugshot that screams CRAZY this loud since, um, Amy Bishop.

(By the way, has “I am Dr. Amy Bishop!” become a catch phrase in your household, too? It just seems to work for so many domestic situations.)

OK, then. Exit, coughing weakly.

(This makes our conservative friends very happy, of course. But let’s leave that argument for another day. Actually, let’s not have that argument at all. BO-ring.)

Here in Michigan, where blood and red ink and dysfunction and all sorts of malevolent forces collide on a daily basis, they’re talking about cutting the Pure Michigan campaign. Which is? Glad you asked:

I know some of you have video blocked, so just so you know, Pure Michigan is the state’s tourism campaign. Narrated by native Tim Allen, these are 30-second spots touting the state’s beauty to potential vacationers around the country. But it’s more than that — the ads air on local TV as well. Full of swooping helicopter shots of blue lakes and white sand and green forests, it’s not just a lure to spend your dollars in-state, but a form of therapy for a state that’s beaten down, but still has an Upper Peninsula. I always watch them when they come on, and not because one featured the channel in front of my friends’ summer cottage. (The one whose depths contain the crude rubber toy exclusively employed for humiliating photographs of those who fell asleep before the others at the nightly parties? you’re wondering. Why yes. And who hurled it there, after starring in a particularly rancid series? You’ll have to see if he ‘fesses up in the comments.)

The total budget for the campaign is $30 million. The Senate-approved budget bill whacks that by half, led by a senator from Novi who is also behind the move to slash or eliminate the filmmaking tax credit that’s led to so much lights-camera-action around here of late. She’s what Cool Hand Luke would call a hard case. The discussion, as you can imagine, is about whether the ads are cost-effective, and various resort-country businesspeople are stepping up to tell the media yes, it boosted business. My question is, but are they effective as therapy? Is there ever a justification for feel-good spending by a governmental body? Especially in a time when we could use a little good feeling?

The “I Love New York” campaign, you might recall, was launched in some dark hours for that state, during its largest city’s Travis Bickle period. Times Square was all porn palaces, the subways smeared with graffiti. I’m sure some public servant there said proclaiming love for this place in ads running in Cleveland and Atlanta was a waste of taxpayer dollars. Who remembers them now? And yet the logo — designed by Milton Glaser, pro bono — endures today and is among the most successful brands in advertising history. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr. and Mrs. Bean Counter.

Michigan’s a pretty beaten-down place at the moment, but we still have our looks. And our Upper Peninsula. It would be nice if our legislators would remember that once in a while.

OK, bloggage:

While we’re talking video, the Butt Drugs commercial. Which shows the best of Indiana. Snicker.

Lindsay Lohan makes a desperate plea for attention. It’ll probably work. It’s working now.

And now, off to work.

It was set up as a day in the life of a childless woman, let’s call her Betty Barren, as she navigates her hostile world. Terrible things happen to her. She has to cover for a co-worker who left early to watch her kid’s soccer game. Another one is out on maternity leave and it was recently announced that when she returns, she’ll be working reduced hours, which equals more work for Betty. Betty finally is able to get away from this horrible place — nearly suffocated by all the featherbeds lying around — and stops at a drugstore for headache relief. She pulls into a space, only to see the sign: Reserved for expectant mothers. Not that she has much money to spend on Tylenol, anyway, the parents having sucked up all the tax credits.

It went on at some length like this. Poor Betty! Is she the unluckiest childless woman in the world? No, just typical.

As an introduction to the nascent social movement sometimes known as the Child-Free, it was an eye-opener. I did a little internet research, the internet being where a lot of them hung out, bitching on Usenet boards about all those things Betty endured, and about a million more. They had their own vocabulary. Children were spawn, sprogs or crotchfruit. Parents are breeders, of course. There were long, long threads on whether this or that celebrity or supermodel had lost hotness since she sprogged. (The consensus, inevitably, was that she had.) There were self-righteous rants about not taxing the fragile earth with more destructive humans, interspersed with whining about why they can’t stay home from work when their pets are sick. (They all had pets. They called them “fur children.”) There were even a few beefs I could absolutely get with, about misbehaving toddlers at symphony orchestras and the like. But the overwhelming impression was of a group of people carrying a double load of resentment and free time. Yes, even with all those unpaid extra hours at work, covering for the parents.

“The Baby Boon” excerpt was of a piece with this, with the same tone of hectoring indignation.

(I should pause at this point and say that I don’t want to make this a debate over the choice of whether or not to have a child, which is about as personal as it gets and, ultimately, not very interesting. There are rewards and costs for both choices. I enjoy many friends and acquaintances in both camps, and love them all. And in case you’re wondering, every anecdote about Betty Barren can be matched with one from the other side, about Patty Party and her tendency to show up for work late after a night on the town, etc. The tax policy, etc. I’ll leave for another day, although the late journalist Marjorie Williams took the book apart rather ably here.)

Anyway, after reading Betty’s sad story and a gloss over the terribly unfair culture and government policies that support this state of affairs, I scrolled back up to see who had written this screed. Elinor Burkett. The name stayed with me.

So when the lady in purple hip-checked her partner away from the microphone last night at the Oscars, surely the rudest display in some time, I knew there was a reason her name sounded familiar. Her speech was mush, by the way, but I love the look on his face. You will not be surprised to learn they’re not speaking. Salon has a backgrounder.

And if you’re still interested, John Scalzi’s “Trolling the Childfree” is sort of magnificent. Oh, and I always park in those “reserved for expectant mothers” spaces. They’re not enforced by law, and my sore knee frequently bothers me more than a late-term pregnancy ever did. If anyone ever challenges me, I plan to say, “The doctor just called. It’s twins! I’m so happy!”

So how was your weekend? Mine was OK, except for getting sick with some sort of chesty/bronchial thing. I swing between 100-degree fevers and soaking sweats, which isn’t pleasant. But I’ll survive.

I think.

Nineteen ninety-nine. What a year. Our girl was out of diapers, the economy was strong, a Democrat was president and hardly anyone had heard of al-Qaeda.

And look at that face. (Whichever face you like.)

Not much this morning, but maybe later. Talk amongst yourselves, eh?

Thanks! Noted.

The president of the Detroit school board, Otis Mathis, is waging a legal battle to steer the academic future of 90,000 children, in the nation’s lowest-achieving big city district.

He also acknowledges he has difficulty composing a coherent English sentence. Here’s a sample from an e-mail he sent to friends and supporters on Sunday night, uncorrected for errors of spelling, grammar, punctuation and usage. It begins:

If you saw Sunday’s Free Press that shown Robert Bobb the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools, move Mark Twain to Boynton which have three times the number seats then students and was one of the reason’s he gave for closing school to many empty seats.

The column goes on to describe Mathis’ epic battles with the written word, asking whether his ability to succeed in spite of it (he has a bachelor’s degree from Wayne State, but it took more than a decade to get, because he couldn’t pass the English proficiency exam) is good news or bad. There’s no clear answer, but it made me think about writing and what it takes to do it a) well and/or b) competently. You can imagine my feelings about it; looking back on my romantic history, I don’t think I ever had a serious relationship with a man who couldn’t turn a phrase. They varied widely in formal education, but they could all write a decent letter or inscribe a book with style. It’s not like I went looking for them; it just worked out that way. I doubt a math PhD would marry someone who couldn’t balance the family checkbook.

Over many years, I’ve managed to overcome my belief that bad spelling is a character flaw, and friends, that has taken some doing. I’ve known enough very smart people who could barely spell cat and dog that I’ve grown into the belief it’s a form of learning disorder. (First, I have to believe you actually tried to learn, however.) One of my college boyfriends handed me a grocery list once: chese, pasto (penny), letus. I still get an occasional e-mail from him — funny but atrociously spelled. I don’t think he even sees the mistakes, and has the sense to rely on proofreaders for his business correspondence.

Others would feel the same way about me, and my mathematic illiteracy. I can do the big four — add, subtract, multiply and divide — but Kate, in seventh grade, knows better than to ask me for help on her math homework; she outran me with numbers a year or two ago.

But at least I’m not in charge of anyone else’s money, or doing calculations of load-bearing pillars. Mathis is on a school board, its president. And he’s a living embodiment of that contemporary nightmare — the diploma-holding (degree-holding!) graduate who’s functionally illiterate.

Of course, Detroit is a special case:

“We picked him (to be president) because we thought he has the intelligence for it and the tolerance for disruptive behavior,” says Reverend David Murray. “He has that type of calm.”

This is a district where board meetings often feature “disruptive behavior” — a citizen’s group organized a grape-throwing incident on one memorable occasion — so maybe this is a special case. But I doubt it. Grosse Pointe’s most recent board president has a blog that he not only writes himself, it contains his own complex but understandable analyses of financial documents. You could hardly pick a better example of how far apart two adjacent districts can be in this strange land of southeast Michigan.

OK, folks. Back to the grind. I’m a word-churning machine for the next fortnight, and the warmup has lasted long enough.