Romney and Obama are running lots of ads — but not in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

There's the idea that they're leaving us alone to give us "respite" while we get over our "recall hangover."

Quite the photo op.

Removing the statue of Joe Paterno.

A good one.

ADDED: "The 14 Most Unintentionally Terrifying Statues in the World." Just something I ran across while trying to satisfy my curiosity about the exact line in the category of sculpture between what is a statue and what is not a statue. Obviously, the Joe Paterno sculpture is a statue, but what's right on the line, where we could have a debate about whether this sculpture is a statue?

The OED defines statue as "A representation in the round of a living being, sculptured, moulded or cast in marble, metal, plaster or the like materials; esp. a figure of a deity, allegorical personage, or eminent person, usually of life-size proportions."

So it can be an animal. It's usually life-size, but I think that when it gets too small, we stop saying statue (and start saying "figure" or "figurine"), but it can get as large as you can make it and we'll still say "statue" — as with the Statue of Liberty — even though there is an alternate word: "colossus." (Note that the poem displayed at the Statue of Liberty is "The New Colossus.")

I note that if there is more than one figure, we don't say "statue." For example, "Burghers of Calais" isn't called a "statue." Also, it needs to be the entire body, so we don't call that Chicago Picasso a "statue."

"Three young men are being hailed as heroes for their old-fashioned chivalry and courage under fire in saving the lives of their girlfriends."

Matt McQuinn, 27, Jonathan Blunk, 26, and Alex Teves, 24 — each died protecting a woman in the Aurora theater massacre. That is, out of 12 individuals who died, 3 were men instinctively performing the traditional, masculine protective role.

If the liberal media go big on gun control, will it help elect liberals this fall?

Post-Aurora, the Daily News comes out with "Blood on hands of Obama, Mitt and NRA!" That's the most extreme outburst I'm seeing right now, but there's plenty of outraged/earnest/passionate talk about gun control. I presume these liberal media outlets imagine they are bolstering the case for electing Democrats this fall, but I don't see that working out very well. Should liberals want to forefront gun rights?

Pinterest — where you display pictures of stuff you like — fosters "the feeling of being addicted to longing for something..."

"... specifically being addicted to the feeling that something is missing or incomplete. The point is not the thing that is being longed for, but the feeling of longing for the thing."

The site’s name combines the words “interest” and “pin,” in reference to “pin boards,” which are also known in various creative professions as inspiration boards or mood boards — basically a large board onto which appropriated images... are juxtaposed to evoke in the viewer a certain feeling, atmosphere or mood. Once the exclusive province of advertising art directors, designers and teenage girls in boarding-school dormitories, mood boards and their electronic equivalents have exploded online. Not just on Pinterest, but also in the form of dopamine-boosting street-fashion blogs and cryptically named Tumblr blogs devoted to the wordless and explanation-free juxtaposition of, say, cupcakes and teapots and shoes with shots of starched shirts and J.F.K.

Mood boards used to be an "exclusive province," something for the "creative professions," and now ordinary people are doing them too. Reminds me of the relationship between journalism and blogging. There's something disconcerting about everybody getting into the act. And the riff-raff who do what was once exclusive must be disparaged. Something missing with these people.

The author of the linked piece Carina Chocano (writing in the NYT Magazine) makes a big point of distinguishing Pinterest picture-posting as different from "curating" and more like advertising, because a curating makes us "more conscious" (like the creative professionals in their exclusive provinces), while advertising makes us less conscious (you peons!).

Why less conscious? Chocano seems to think that operating in the dimension of intuitive desire is lowly — a notion that spikes me to a higher level of consciousness where I observe that Chocano is dealing in elitism and snobbery. (In the New York Times!) She even refers to these pictures as "lifestyle pornography," calling to mind the old feminist argument that pornography shouldn't get First Amendment protection because it doesn't express any ideas. It merely stimulates feelings.

Here's Pinterest if you want a taste of the feeling of being addicted to longing.

ADDED: I just happened upon an aphorism that seems relevant: "In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing."

Fighting for reelection, Obama spent $58 million — $38 million on TV ads alone.

According to this L.A. Times article, which is illustrated, for some reason, with a photograph of Sheldon Adelson — a Romney donor — gesturing at some lit-up models of what are presumably models of casinos. (He's identified as a "casino mogul.")

A "mogul," which originally referred to "the successive heads of the Muslim dynasty founded by Zahīr-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur (1483–1530), which ruled an empire covering a large part of South Asia from the 16th to the 19th centuries," now denotes "An important, influential, or dominant person; an autocrat," according to the OED, which gives the early example "I am the Sultan of this place: Mr. Limberham is the Mogol of the next Mansion" — a line spoken by a character named Brainsick, in the play "Limberham (or The Kind Keeper)," by John Dryden.

The photo of Adelson in the L.A. Times makes him seem capable of moving skyscrapers like big chess pieces. What a manipulative fellow! He gave $10 million in June to a Romney super PAC called Restore Our Future. ("Restore" means to bring back. Back to the future.) Restore Our Future raised $20.6 million in June. Meanwhile, Obama's super PAC, Priorities USA Action took in only $6 million.

Romney's campaign raised much more money than did Obama — $106 million to $70 million (in June). So Obama is lagging in the fundraising and also spending much more.

Heading into July, Romney and his party allies were left with nearly $170 million on hand, while Obama and the Democrats had $147 million.

That's not that huge of a difference, but Obama is such a big spender. And what did he get for all that spending? I think the idea was to frame Romney as an evil capitalist, and it hasn't worked out that well. 1. Despite the heavy attack on Romney, Obama hasn't moved up in the polls, and 2. The attack on capitalism went too far and touched off an effective counterattack. Not only has Obama depleted his funds, he's depleted his argument against Romney.

The Obama campaign’s attempt to portray Mitt Romney as the villainous Bane from “The Dark Knight Rises” appears to be a big flop. And the problem for Obama is, he really doesn’t have a Plan B.

 ADDED: The Obama campaign spent more than $2.6 on polling alone, just in June. What are they finding out? Why isn't that information giving them more useful ideas about how to win? Reminds me of the stimulus program, dumping huge amounts of money on things that done even pan out.

"Tony Robbins event ends in disaster as 21 people are treated for burns after walking on 2,000-degree hot coals."

"Robbins was hosting a four-day gathering called 'Unleash the Power Within.'"

Unleash the stupidity within.

Witnesses say on Thursday, a crowd went to a park where 12 lanes of hot coals were on the grass....

Witness Jonathan Correll says he heard "wails of pain and screams of agony"...

"First one person, then a couple minutes later another one, and there was just a line of people walking on that fire. It was just bizarre, man."

I only have one question: Do you have what it takes to be a regional manager?

And let's go back to 1995:

[I]t should come as no surprise that even President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton invited a trio of self-help gurus to Camp David just before the new year.

Anthony Robbins, the best-selling, self-described "peak performance coach," Marianne Williamson, the prophet of love whose devotees include Oprah Winfrey and Elizabeth Taylor, and Dr. Steven R. Covey, author of one of the most successful books on management ever — "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" — all refuse to divulge the substance of their meeting with the Clintons. Mr. Covey said only that it was "marvelous."

Did the Clintons scamper over hot coals? I agree that would be marvelous.

Pundits quickly speculated about a White House so bereft of ideas it had to seek them in the transcendent. Mrs. Clinton downplayed the meeting, and later complained in a letter to the editor of Esquire, to be published in April, that she was not "tight" with Ms. Williamson, who was merely one of many religious and spiritual advisers invited to meet the Clintons.

Merely one of many purveyors of bullshit that the Clintons consorted with. Noted. Also noted: Steven R. Covey was buried today.

At the Lakefront Café...

... you can talk about whatever you like.

"A Crimson-faced Harvard Alumni Assn. says it regrets allowing [Ted] Kaczynski to use its so-called Red Book to update his profile."

"There, Kaczynski lists his occupation as 'prisoner' and includes the following as among his awards: 'Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998.' He blithely gave his address as the federal prison in Florence, Colo."

ADDED: I don't see what's blithe or even inappropriate about this. It's grimly factual. Harvard should not censor the flow of information about its alumni. Take responsibility for it all. 

"Norway is today more imbued with democracy and diversity than it was on July 22, 2011..."

Said Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Democracy is "the most important weapon in the fight against violence," he added.

A suggestion for those of you who are tempted to devote time to understanding the psyche of the Aurora massacre madman.

Contemplate the psyche of someone you know and can speak to and relate to in your immediate life.

What if you had known James Eagen Holmes, and you could have interacted with him at a time when you were, in fact, preoccupied reading on-line articles about Anders Behring Breivik, or if you had known Anders Behring Breivik, and you might have spoken with him, reasoned with him, but you were distracted by some intriguing articles about Jared Loughner....

Are you really interested in psychology?

"I think they knew they messed with the wrong girl."

"... Priscilla Dang was jogging in her Vancouver neighborhood last Friday when she was approached by two teenagers on their bikes. One pulled in front of her as the other groped her from behind...."

An interesting contrast to Liz Gorman, who was also groped by a passing bicyclist. She got a column in the Washington Post written about her:

Liz Gorman did what the others didn’t.

After she was sexually assaulted on a D.C. street in the middle of the day, she not only called police, she also wrote a blog post about the way she was violated. The response was incredible....

Priscilla Dang did not blog about it.

"Both as Wayne and as super-Wayne he seems indifferent, as the films themselves are, to the activities of little people..."

"... and to the claims of the everyday, preferring to semi-purse his lips, as if preparing to whistle for an errant dog, and stare pensively into the distance. Caped or uncaped, the guy is a bore. He should have kids; that would pull him out of himself. Or else he should hang out with Iron Man and get wasted. He should have fun."

"Batman's Bane," by Anthony Lane. (No Aurora massacre content.)

That link is worth clicking on just to get to the cartoon — a guy in a bar looking into his highball glass says: "I don't know anything about global warming, but these ice cubes are melting like crazy."

By the way, I read a plot summary of "The Dark Knight Rises," because I'm not going to see it — I rarely go to the movies anymore and I experienced the last Batman movie an unpleasant chore (not out of fear of massacre) — and because I wanted to understand the connection to "Occupy Wall Street" politics. Anthony Lane pooh-poohs the connection:

True, we see a handful of rich white men being ejected from fancy apartments, but then the film coughs politely and moves on, as if recalling that nobody is richer or whiter than Bruce Wayne, and that his apartment is, in fact, a castle. Also, the outcome is positively Victorian, in that its dread of disorder far outweighs its relish of liberty uncaged; the throng is faced down and tamed by ranks of growling police officers.

Lane fails to contemplate the possibility that the movie is against the Occupy side. Here's Rush Limbaugh working that theme — Batman is Romney! Batman/Romney is "the rich guy, milquetoast, boring, dull," but if he "puts the uniform back on," he "saves the day."

In fact, the producer -- or the creator, Chuck Dixon -- says that the villain in this movie is almost... I forget his exact words, but he links the villain in this movie to Occupy Wall Street. And yet the Democrats are out there trying to say Bane is Bain. I think this exposes the frailty of their position.

So, as I said, I read the plot summary. It looks incredibly dull and over-complicated when distilled into forthright sentences, but it was all quite meaningless to me. If the film says anything about politics, I'm not going to be the one to figure out what.

***

That's not meant to say anything about the murders, which I don't think should be inflated with political imagination. Let's resist the temptation to say things that might entice delusional people to make the decision to act out. You could suddenly one day be the most famous person on earth, whose face everyone will gaze upon, whose mind everyone will contemplate. You could make the presidential candidates suspend their campaigns and command everyone to pray and pray over the dramatic changes you have made in their puny little world. Let's resist the temptation to create that temptation.

"Mr. Wizard's a Dick."

Here's an interview with the compilers of "Mr. Wizard's a Dick," Mike Schuster and Diane Bullock:

This idea was about 25 years in the making. We both watched the show as kids, but I was a bit more obsessed. I would watch it religiously before school and had running jokes with my parents about how casually cruel and condescending Mr. Wizard could be to the kids.

About a year ago, Diane and I started re-watching the old episodes and would die laughing at some of the things he would say and do... be it a snarky tone or how he'd just cut off a kid's answer even if they were on the right track....

"The prairie vole is a notable animal model for its monogamous sexual fidelity, since the male is usually faithful to the female, and shares in the raising of pups."

"Another species from the same genus, the meadow vole, has promiscuously mating males, and scientists have changed adult male meadow voles' behavior to resemble that of prairie voles in experiments in which a single gene was introduced into the brain via a virus."

Okay, mad scientists and sensible-policy imaginationists, spin out your proposals and fantasies. Give me some long views of the landscape.

"No one pretends that better laws would prevent all tragedies, but if that were the standard, then we wouldn't pass any laws at all."

On NPR last evening, the topic was the Aurora movie-theater murders, and the NPR host, Robert Siegel, invited WaPo's E.J. Dionne to comment on "mass shootings, guns and politics." Siegel quoted something Dionne had written, that events like this cause "our whole public reasoning process [to go] haywire." That is, other people go crazy and can't think straight, so let's check out the quality of Dionne's thinking.

What I mean by that is that the NRA and the rest of the gun lobby have such a firm hold on our political system that no one can bring up the notion, which we bring up with every other kind of tragedy, that maybe we can do better. Maybe there are laws we could pass that would prevent something like this.

No one pretends that better laws would prevent all tragedies, but if that were the standard, then we wouldn't pass any laws at all. We have the most permissive gun laws pretty much in the industrialized world. And I hope, but I have no confidence, that we won't make the same mistake again.

I'd like to think that one time, we could say: Oh, let's open this up. Let's talk about the assault weapons ban. Let's talk about ways in which we might reduce the chances that someone with mental problems might get a gun. And I'm just worried that we're going to revert right back to our usual sort of giving and saying, well, the gun lobby controls Washington, so we can never do anything about things like this.

Maybe we can do better.... laws can't solve everything... but if that were the standard, then we wouldn't pass any laws at all... so... so, what? Since we do sometimes pass laws, we must think that laws can sometimes help when there's a problem. And there's a problem, so... so... what?  Let's open this up. Let's talk about it.  E.J. Dionne is afraid we'll just knee-jerk do nothing, instead of knee-jerk propose gun control... I mean think and think with thoughtful contemplation and talk about and around and through and through and arrive at the solution that immediately popped into E.J. Dionne's mind.

I'm fascinated by this notion that we do sometimes pass laws and therefore that means that we should pass laws. The resistance to passing laws is some nasty dysfunction caused by a nefarious interest group — here, the NRA — but good people want to do something. This do something orientation is characteristic of the modern liberal mind. I heard Dionne saying that on the radio yesterday evening, but it came back to me as I was reading about rabies and marveling at the crazy — desperate — ideas for a cure: "you burn a hair from the dog that bit you and insert the ashes into the wound... [a] maggot from a dead dog's body... a linen cloth soaked with menstrual blood of a female dog... [c]hicken excrement, 'if it is of a red color'... [a]shes from the tail of a shrew-mouse...."

When is it that reasoning goes haywire? After Dionne presented his patchwork of liberal logic, the host called upon David Brooks. (Don't say NPR doesn't balance liberals and conservatives!) He said...

Well, I'm no fan of the NRA, I'm not really an opponent of gun control or an assault weapon ban...

That sounds like a necessary preface for the NPR listeners, but I'm going to give Brooks credit for subtly deactivating the bogeyman Dionne inserted into his call to action, because Brooks continues with:

... but, you know, public policy is based on evidence and data and whether it would work. 

Brooks is displaying the pin with which he is about to puncture the liberal's inflated self-image.

This is one of the most studied things in criminology. And the weight of the evidence is pretty clear that there's no relationship between gun control and violent crime. Areas with higher gun control do not have less violent crime. Over the last few years, the number of new guns entering the country has been about four million a year. 

So you've got to look at evidence, not your instinctive notions about what just might work. Put down that shrew mouse's tail now, E.J.

At the same time, violent crime has plummeted by about 41 percent a year.

Brooks's "evidence and data" dump seemed really powerful until he got to that implausible percentage. What is it, 41% a decade, I don't know what to make of this point-counterpoint style radio presentation. There are no links to click on, so I'm just forced to be suspicious of Brooks's I've-got-the-facts posturing. [ADDED: Meade suggests that the percentage of decline has increased by 41% a year.]

Brooks concludes:

So I'm not necessarily opposed to the policy, I don't really think it would matter in violent crime generally, and I really don't think it would matter too much in the case of lunatics or whatever who are committed to this sort of pre-planned massacre.

So Brooks retreats to reassuring the NPR audience: He's not opposed to gun control, he just doesn't think it would work.  He began with the assertion that "public policy is based on evidence and data and whether it would work," explained why he didn't think it would work, but nevertheless won't oppose the policy. Brooks isn't a conservative by my standard. I think to be conservative, you should have the instinctive orientation: do nothing. You have to convince us what you've got there is better than nothing. And what have you got there? A bucket of red chickenshit? A dog's tampon?!!

Now, how will the very very thoughtful E.J. Dionne deal with Brooks's argument from evidence! and data! He's got to demonstrate that he's one of the smart people, the non-haywire people, your betters who proposed open and thorough debate about solutions to problems (after the bogeymen are kicked out of the room):

DIONNE: If we had better background checks, yes we'll miss some lunatics, but with real background checks, we could reduce the number of lunatics who get guns. And there's also a spillover. If you have permissive laws in one state - as Mayor Bloomberg has shown, Mayor Bloomberg of New York, who has proposed a lot of very practical remedies, not sweeping remedies but practical remedies - he's shown how loose laws in one state can send guns into a state that may have stricter laws. So I don't think we should throw up our hands and say it's impossible...

BROOKS: Yeah, one area of agreement, I do think people who have history of mental health issues, and this came up with the Loughner case, that...

SIEGEL: The shooting of Gabby Giffords...

BROOKS: That should show up when you're trying to buy a gun. And legally, that's supposed to happen, but it doesn't always happen.

SIEGEL: We don't know all that much about the suspect. So far no indication that any such record would have shown up. We just don't know yet.

DIONNE: Right, and my argument is not that you can prevent every one of these things, but when I heard this this morning, like everybody else, I was, you know, sick about it. And I just thought that every time this happens, people say, well, there are very particular factors in this case, so let's not talk about gun control, gun control wouldn't solve it. Well, maybe it would, or maybe it wouldn't in a particular case, but it would prevent some of these things in the future.

And there you have it, the liberal mind at work, in real time.

"The first symptom is... this tingling sensation at the site of the wound."

"Like, you didn't have it before, all that time that rabies was crawling up to the brain. Usually the wound has even healed at this point. But once your brain is infected, you'll often start to feel something odd at the site: a tingling, an itch, a stabbing pain. It sounds almost supernatural, but apparently it's true."

Rabies. Much more at the link, including the origin of the phrase "the hair of the dog."

Pliny the Elder... suggested that you burn a hair from the dog that bit you and insert the ashes into the wound... But he also rattled off this mindblowing series of other possible remedies. A maggot from a dead dog's body, or a linen cloth soaked with menstrual blood of a female dog. Chicken excrement, "if it is of a red color." Ashes from the tail of a shrew-mouse!

Something strong is needed. What do we have around here that's strong? (Reminds me of the way some people today think about politics!)

Here's the book: "Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus." I just bought it myself.

Waterfalls.

Despite the drought in southern Wisconsin, there's been plenty of rainfall up north, and, as a consequence, the waterfalls are looking quite beautiful.

2 of the falls mentioned in the article are places we visited a couple summers ago — Copper Falls and Morgan Falls.

The "Dull Men's Club."

"Dull-men's groups—and the sentiment behind them—have been around for some time."

No topic is too small or large. ...

"I have a question," piped up Scott MacInness, a 75-year-old retired machinist. "We have a person living up near where I am who apparently isn't carrying a full sea bag. How do we get this person to stop throwing all their trash in the recycling tub?"

Suggestions ranged from "stand out there sometime" to "get inside the thing and when he opens it, go 'aha!' "

Mr. MacInness hopped up to refill his coffee.

"Can I ask you a question?" another man shouted to him. "Why do you carry a spoon?"

Mr. MacInness tapped his pocket and confirmed that he does indeed faithfully carry a spoon. "Because you can't stir a cup of coffee with that little brown plastic straw! It will not make the sugar mix!"

"What the hell you need sugar for?" shouted another member, igniting a conversation about the taste of black coffee.

"Colorado theater shooting suspect was neuroscience Ph.D student."

At the University of Colorado-Denver.

[James] Holmes is suspected of walking into an Aurora theater's midnight showing of "Dark Knight Rises" wearing a gas mask and bullet proof vest and shooting at least 54 people. Twelve are reported dead.

There's a photo of the 24-year-old man at the link. He looks ordinary. Smirking... but it's the kind of smirk I associate with the character Jim on "The Office."

ADDED: Breitbart reports:

According to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, James Holmes, 24, the alleged perpetrator of the mass murder at the Aurora, Colorado theater showing of The Dark Knight Rises, claimed he was “The Joker” during the shooting. “We have some information, most of it is public,” said Kelly. “It clearly looks like a deranged individual. He had his hair painted red, he said he was ‘The Joker,’ obviously the ‘enemy’ of Batman.”...

Health Ledger’s portrayal of Batman arch-nemesis The Joker in the last installment of the Batman saga, The Dark Knight, won him a posthumous Oscar. The Joker was focused in that film on destroying Gotham City through chaos and mass murder; he also rigged buildings with booby traps in order to achieve that end.