Rock paper scissors.

McCain beats Clinton.

Clinton beats Romney.

Romney beats Obama.

Obama beats McCain.

I've caught this viral video and must convey it to you.

YouTube is doing something to us. I'm not endorsing any candidate, but I've got to say this production is some amazing, low-key brilliance. It's lovely in so many ways, one of which is that it makes Barack Obama seem to be a man whose mere speech is singing.

ADDED: I've rewatched this video and am just stunned by it — especially the way will.i.am sings along with Obama's speechifying. I've never seen speech and singing combined like that. It's very cool. I love the way it is so grand, yet simultaneously seems perfectly casual and offhanded. And they've packed a tremendous amount of feminine beauty into it without it seeming forced — like Scarlett Johannson just happened to drop by and some unplanned thing made her smile like that.

Some folks in the comments are saying "yes we can... what?" And this, of course, is the usual criticism of Obama, which is not undeserved. But the video doesn't try to do everything. It creates a mood and reaches us emotionally. Now, the most evil political movement in the world could operate that way too, so it's our responsibility to put some analysis into our choices. But that doesn't take anything away from this historically great video.

By the way, I heard a bit of a Hillary rally today on the car radio. She seemed to be rousing the crowd rather well, talking about health care for everyone, to be achieved by fighting the drug companies and insurance companies. (Why must they be fought?) Then the crowd began chanting. The chant: "Yes we can."

"Can a psychotropic jungle potion cure the existential angst of the McMansion set?"

You remember hoasca (or ayahuasca), the psychedelic plant at issue in the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal. Here's the post I wrote at the time about this most ironic case. The Supreme Court had narrowed the Free Exercise of Religion clause of the Constitution, saying generally applicable laws are fine even if they substantially burden religion. Congress reacted with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act forcing judges back into the task of giving religion-practitioners exceptions from general laws. And that ended up meaning that the Controlled Substances Act didn't apply to the importation of a powerful psychedelic drug when it is used for religious purposes.

So can anybody join this religion and use the otherwise-illegal drug?

For ayahuasqueros such as [the young medicine man named Lobo Siete] Truenos and the eclectic mix of button-down professionals and New Age acolytes joining him on this night, the potion may be a conduit to higher consciousness. Who exactly are these psychotropic explorers? Truenos won’t reveal much about them, except to say that the owners of the home in which they are meeting are retirees (young ones, it appears) and that participants typically include doctors, lawyers, celebrities, New Age healers and academics....

Truenos took the court decision as a green light. He and his wife, Gabriella, have been leading ceremonies for several years. They haven’t consulted attorneys; instead they take their orders from the “Creator,” he says....

Truenos mentions a recent private ayahuasca session in which a participant experienced “a trust crisis,” refusing to believe Truenos could heal him. Mother Ayahuasca admonished the man for such self-delusion, leaving him writhing on the floor, wracked with emotion.

Despite this harrowing episode, Truenos believes ayahuasca’s dark reputation is exaggerated. It is transformative and healing, he says, a cure for the “cancer of indifference,” a remedy for our “failures in integrity.” But it’s even more than that. “Some people,” he says, “need to be frightened by the way they live their lives.”

Faces seen last weekend in Austin.

From 2 shops on South Congress.

"I don't think there is a person of color in this country that doesn't struggle with what it means to be a part of your race..."

"... versus what the majority thinks is right."

Michelle Obama, commenting on what she calls the "silly" question of whether her husband is "black enough."

So you've paid $6 million for a vanity license plate, and there's one you'd pay $20 million for?

There's one? Which one?

Yes, right, there's one.

Which one?

There's one. I'm trying to tell you.

Well, go ahead and tell me.

Not chopsticks.

Bread sticks:



Mmmm. That's just the first plateload at last Sunday's brunch at the Four Seasons in Austin, Texas. I'm concentrating on the raw fish here but there is much, much more at this all-you-can-eat extravaganza. The waiters will whisk away plates of uneaten food without the slightest trace of disapproval. Personally, I think if you take it, you'd better eat it, but you get the impression they want you to be wasteful. Go get something else. Take one bite and move on. Waste away. You won't waste away.

Is the "Angry Left" dying?

Dan Gerstein says so:

The Kossacks and their activist allies -- who skew toward the Boomers -- believe that Republicans are venal bordering on evil, and that the way Democrats will win elections and hold power is to one-up Karl Rove's divisive, bare-knuckled tactics. Their opponents within the party -- who skew younger and freer of culture war wounds -- believe that the way to win is offer voters a break from this poisonous tribal warfare and a compelling, inclusive vision for where we want to take the country.

You mean "Kos kids" aren't kids? They are Boomers?

Gerstein worked on Joe Lieberman's last Senate campaign, so he's definitely got a point of view on all this. Kos worked on getting Ned Lamont to beat Lieberman for the Democratic Party nomination. As Gerstein puts it now, the "hope" candidate — Lieberman — won. You can see how this idea applies to the 2008 race for President:

Mr. Edwards, after running as the sunny son of a mill worker in 2004, returned last year as the angry spear carrier of the hard-line left, running on a dark, conspiratorial form of populism and swapping in corporations for Republicans as the villain in his us-versus-them construct. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, has not just been selling possibilities and opportunities, but reconciliation and unity -- and, god forbid, promising to work with Republicans to meet the country's challenges. (Not surprisingly, throughout 2007, Mr. Edwards was the runaway favorite in the regular Kos reader straw poll -- besting Mr. Obama by 21 points as late as Jan. 2, 2008.)

Now that Mr. Edwards has formally dropped out of the race, we can say it's official -- hope and unity crushed resentment and division.

Gerstein is pleased, not just because hope is good, but because his enemy Kos is crushed:

The best evidence that Kos-ism is about kaput, though, comes from Kos's mouth himself. Yes, the most delicious irony of this campaign is that the supposed hatemonger is supporting the hopemonger.

Markos Moulitsas will — after "a process of elimination" — have to vote for Barack Obama.

You know, I missed the part where Gerstein established that Kos is a "hatemonger." I don't like Kos too much, but calling him a "hatemonger" sounds at little... hatemongerish.

"Congratulations to all same-sex couples validly married outside of New York State: You are now husband and husband, wife and wife."

It's not the highest court in New York but:

Even though gay couples may not legally marry in New York, the appellate court in Rochester held that a gay couple’s 2004 marriage in Canada must be respected under the state’s longstanding “marriage recognition rule,” and that an employer’s denial of health benefits had discriminated against the couple on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“The Legislature may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad,” a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled unanimously in rejecting a 2006 lower court decision. “Until it does so, however, such marriages are entitled to recognition in New York.”

For more than a century, the court noted, New York State has recognized valid out-of-state marriages. Moreover, it said that the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest judicial body, has said the Legislature may enact laws recognizing same-sex marriages. “In our view, the Court of Appeals thereby indicated that the recognition of plaintiff’s marriage is not against the public policy of New York,” the court held.

"Trying to wake up a teenager before 7 o’clock is like trying to awake an adult before 4 a.m."

Studies show that "youngsters — beginning around age 12 until they reach their mid-20s — only start producing melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone, around 11 p.m. and that production peaks until about 7 a.m. In adults, melatonin peaks until around 4 a.m." So shouldn't middle and high school start much later than they do?

Obviously, yes, but the adults don't want to change things. You'd have to let the parents go to work later too — because even if those teens can sleep until 9, you can't trust them to get up on their own even at 9, can you? If you let teenagers sleep on their natural schedule — perhaps you do in the summer — they may sleep into the afternoon. Left to my own devices as a teenager in the summertime, I would sleep until 5 p.m. — and then stay up until dawn. (Admittedly, that had something to do with avoiding my parents.)

But why not help teens by changing the school schedules and promote flex-time for adults at their places of employment? Maybe not enough adults want to work from 10 to 6 or 11 to 7. We start winding down in the afternoon. As an adult, I've long found 4 p.m. to be the rock-bottom energy point of the day. (This academic year, I accepted the offered class time of 4 p.m. and found that I like it very much. If I have to do something at 4, I'm up for it. If I'm reading and writing at 4, I'm not too efficient. So, I've learned something new about scheduling.)

So, will adults rearrange their lives and subordinate their preferences to help teenagers? Unlikely! No one really wants to help teenagers. We already think they have it too easy. They look like adults, but they aren't self-supporting. Meanwhile, we adults struggle. Are we to struggle more so they can stay up past midnight and sleep late? Say what you will about melatonin, as long as adults are making the decisions,the answer is obvious.

"Two Amtrak trains carrying 400 people got stuck in the mountains of Northern California near Donner Pass..."

"No injuries were reported."

Oh, my! What did they eat?

ADDED: Pop culture bonus. Cannibalism, the comedy topic:

Hunger will make people do amazing things. I mean, the proof of that is cannibalism. Cannibalism, what do they say, I mean, they're eating and, you know, "This is good, who is this? I like this person." You know, I mean, I would think the hardest thing about being a cannibal is trying to get some very deep sleep, you know what I mean? I would think, you'd be like, (pretending to wake up) "Who is that? Who's there? Who's there? Is somebody there? What do you want? What do you want? You look hungry, are you hungry? Get out of here!"

Cannibalism, the horror topic:

Wendy: Hey! Wasn't it around here that the Donner Party got snowbound?

Jack: I think that was farther west in the Sierras.

Wendy: Oh.

Danny: What was the Donner Party?

Jack: They were a party of settlers in covered-wagon times. They got snowbound one winter in the mountains. They had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.

Danny: You mean they ate each other up?

Jack: They had to, in order to survive.

Wendy: Jack...

Danny: Don't worry, Mom. I know all about cannibalism. I saw it on TV.

Jack: See, it's OK. He saw it on the television.

"Miss Spears, who reportedly had not slept for five days before being committed...."

I feel sorry for Britney Spears, and don't want to set up a post to talk about her. But this news of not sleeping upsets me. News reports had talk of Heath Ledger not sleeping for days before his untimely death. Have you ever gone even 2 days without sleeping? I haven't. I can't imagine having this problem. Some drug is involved, no?

IN THE COMMENTS: Gary Carson writes:

I've gone for weeks with no more than 2 hours sleep per day (mania) and was constantly drinking beer during my waking hours.

I probably would have really gone nuts without the beer to keep me calmed down.

I don't think it's at all weird that two entertainers have recently died [sic] after a period of sleep disorder.

It would be my guess that bipolar disorder has a higher incidence among entertainers than among the general population and it's certianly the case that risky behavior tends to go hand in hand with manic episodes.

"I'm not down with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party."

"I represent the Gangsta Party."

Ice quake!

Does anybody know about the quake? We do!

Thursday afternoon the staff from the University of Wisconsin-Madison near Lake Mendota felt a shake and heard a noise like a boom which was triggered by an ice quake.

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison geologists, even though they didn’t feel the quake on West Dayton Street the tremor was recorded around 12:50 p.m. and lasted two or three seconds. At the time quake the temperature in Madison was of 16 degrees.

Patrick Brenzel, from the department of sociology situated at the eighth-floor, 1180 Observatory Drive, said: “It actually sounded like a bus drove into the building. The whole building shook.”

The ice quakes are triggered by large shifts in lake ice when temperature changes dramatically thus making a loud noise when it cracks, according to Cliff Thurber, a professor of geophysics....

Several people called police when they’ve heard the noise....

[P]eople coming out of the offices were looking at each other almost like saying “Do you think it was a bomb?”

ADDED: "The Pond in Winter."

Do you think maybe the problem people are having with Mitt Romney is that he's too...

Massachusettsy?

Think about it: John Kerry, Michael Dukakis.... Is there a Massachusetts demeanor that just doesn't feel natural and normal to Americans in other regions? Something that seems cold or haughty or insubstantial? I mean no disrespect to Massachusettans — what the hell is the word for people from Massachusetts? — I'm quite serious. Massachusetts seems to produce a lot of candidates or near-candidates, and then when Americans take a closer look at them, they experience a strange revulsion.

IN THE COMMENTS: Theo Boehm writes:

I'm originally from California, but I've lived most of my adult life in Massachusetts. I can tell you categorically that the problem with Mitt Romney is NOT that he is "from" Massachusetts. I've been here about as long as he has, and, believe me, you're never "from" Massachusetts until your people have been here...oh...five or six generations. The kittens may have been born in the oven; that doesn't make them muffins.

Mitt Romney doesn't sound like he's from anywhere in Massachusetts; he doesn't have the body language or manner of someone from Eastern Massachusetts; and his religion and Western origins are seriously weird around here.

No, if you find Mitt Romney offputting, it's not because of Massachusetts. It's because he's an uninspiring, stiff bore. They grow those anywhere.

Michael Dukakis was an echt Massachusetts type: a well-tamed little nerdy Brookline doctor's son. Dukakis is, to Massachusetts connoisseurs, from Central Casting. Romney is from Not Around Here. The differences may be subtle to outsiders, but to Massachustts people, they're glaring.

John Kerry is a special case. He's not so much distinctly from Massachusetts, as he is a generic New England preppie. Those types range all over the Northeast landscape, but tend to have been fledged in places like Andover, Exeter, Yale, Dartmouth, and Harvard. They may wind up in New York or Massachusetts, but they usually have little local affinity. Bill Weld was another one of this type—a vastly more amusing and decent human being than Kerry, but very much of Kerry's class.

Of course the Kennedys are from Massachusetts, but they are a weird and nearly extinct breed: Irish who aped the accents and manners of the old Yankee codfish aristocracy. There are no old Yankee aristocrats to ape any more, and the Kennedy accent is dead as a doornail. You'll notice the younger Kennedy generation doesn't sound at all like Uncle Ted or the late, sainted JFK.

Massachusetts is halfway to England: You can tell where someone is from within a small area, what their socioeconomic status is, and what their ethnicity is as soon as they open their mouths. It's fading a bit, but it's still here. And, believe me, if you're from anywhere else in the country, you'll never figure it out.

I remember being at a dinner party soon after I got here, where someone pointed to another guest and said, "Lynn!" The other guest reacted in mock horror and said, "Oh no! WEST Lynn!" All the other guests were laughing their heads off. If you don't know what that was about, well, you're not from around here, are you?

No, neither Mitt nor I are From Here, and we never will be. You can blame Massachusetts for a lot, but please, don't blame it for Mitt Romney.

This is a nice shiny happy picture of Hillary 'n' Barack.

Blogged by Andrew Sullivan.



But for people like me with an eye for negative space in a photograph, we're looking at that strange haloed shape on their merged shoulder. I think it's Pokemon!



ADDED: I mean Pikachu. I stand corrected. Pokemon, I'm told is the generic category, and the particular yellow guy who — in phantom form — came to rest on the Hillobama shoulder is a Pikachu:

They are said to store electricity in their cheeks, and by simply squeezing them they can discharge sparks, bolts or other forms of electricity.... Pikachu gather in areas with high amounts of thunderstorm activity such as power stations. When threatened, a group of Pikachu can generate an intense electrical offensive, and the electro-magnetic forces exerted by the resulting field can even produce a short-lived, localized thunderstorm.