Madtown revelry — after the victory.

Guys exiting the stadium after the Badgers crush the erstwhile #1 team:



Female fans exult:



They try to congratulate every passerby...



... for the delightful victory.

Out and around in Madison, Wisconsin on the day of the big football game...

... which maybe you're watching right now.

It was a perfect day for biking, clear, low 60s. We biked around the Capital City Trail and turned right instead of left as we came across Monona Bay, under Monona Terrace, where we locked up our bikes so we could scarf down some burgers and frites at Sardine:



Well-fed and well-rested, we pedaled over to the square and then down State Street and over to the Memorial Union Terrace, where we got some Babcock Hall ice cream and went to sit outside and soak up the pre-game atmosphere:



It was a bit of a wreck. I blame the Buckeyes!



What the hell! Did they bring their own beer — in bottles! — Miller Lite and Coors Lite?! Come on! It's pitchers and plastic cups on the Terrace. And what's this?



Look closely! They drink beer and guzzle 5-Hour Energy in berry and grape flavors. Run yourself down with alcohol and then pep yourself up again with that awful glop?

That was more than an hour before game time. I hope whatever energy is left is on the Badger side. So far, it looks good, but we're not there yet.

UPDATE: YAY!!!!!!!!!!! We won!

"They're All Bullies and Whores!"

Ha! Emily Bazelon and I talk about the election, the gay rights cases, the gender card, what you can say about women, Christian fundamentalism and anti-gay harassment, and all the complexity that doesn't fit into your ideological templates. Feast your eyes and ears on 28 minutes of bullies and whores:

"Great Expectations, the Miss Havisham Cake" — banned from the Melbourne Cake Show.

In bad taste?



But it's literary!

A reading, from Charles Dickens:

The most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest public importance had just transpired in the spider community.

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not on terms with one another.

These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place.

"This," said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, "is where I will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here."

With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and there and die at once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork at the Fair, I shrank under her touch.

"What do you think that is?" she asked me, again pointing with her stick; "that, where those cobwebs are?"

"I can't guess what it is, ma'am."

"It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!"

"Barbara Billingsley, TV’s June Cleaver, Dies at 94."

Ah!

I was 6 years old when the show "Leave It to Beaver" began in 1957 and 12 when it ended in 1963. I watched an unbelievable amount of television in those years, but, without question, the TV family that impressed me most deeply was the Cleavers. June and Ward were, for me, the perfect parents. From this long distance, it now seems that were not really that different from June and Ward, but back then, how I longed for a family like the Cleavers. I can still make the theme music play in my head and open a flood of memories of childhood feelings of what a family should be. How profoundly affecting were the gender differences between the 2 parents! Ward and June were a beautiful team, and they were not even all that dissimilar. Both were tough and principled and at the same time caring and sensitive. But I can hear June in my head, echoing for all the ages, urging Ward not to be too severe with the boys. And Ward always listened and hesitated before he proceeded with his fatherly role.

Here's some video.

At the Bright Orange Café...

... you're here with the folks who choose not to plunge into the orange that blazes everywhere out there in the 3-dimensional world.

"One never truly knows what a lousy job the blogosphere is capable of until one is at the center of a story."

"NPR experienced the dark side of the blogosphere this week after management sent a memo to staff reminding them that journalists may not participate in political activities of any kind... NPR is not restricting its staff’s freedom. It’s protecting its credibility as a news organization that tries to give its audience fair, non-partisan coverage."

Carl Paladino's "Cuomo Land" ads.

There's this spoof of the children's game:



What is he accusing Cuomo of there? The Daily News says:

Paladino, who staunchly opposes gay nuptials, accused Cuomo of being a hypocrite for touting his support for same-sex weddings now - but being "all but invisible" when the issue was before the Legislature last year.

"He was asked by those pushing for the measure to call three wavering senators," the Paladino campaign said in the first of what it promises will be daily "Cuomo Land" attacks.

Political pros were puzzled that Paladino would attack Cuomo on gays, given that the Tea Party darling's campaign unraveled this week after he delivered an anti-gay diatribe.

Veteran Democratic operative Hank Sheinkopf called it a "bad choice of a first issue" for the "Cuomo Land" attacks.

Well, look at the illustration. The whole "Cuomo Land" idea seems to be some crazy fantasy about luring children into homosexuality.

Christine O'Donnell drives the liberals nuts.

Bill Maher has put together a video montage — intended, of course, as an attack...



1. Does this really work as an attack? I mean, as an attack on O'Donnell? Is it not instead or also an attack on the gaggle of liberals who gang up on and mock her? Maher brings on one woman — undoubtedly partly because she's pretty — and makes a punching bag out of her. They are so cocksure of themselves — both of their politics and of their funniness. It's really rather creepy and embarrassing for them.

2. O'Donnell is charming and game and she's stirring them up, that is, doing what she was brought on the show to do.  She holds up bravely, while they have each other, and they knew when they went on that they'd have each other to make things easy for them. They'd even have the fun of bashing a pretty woman. Look at all these guys — ugly guys — getting ugly on her. That was the entertainment model, a turnaround from normal social life. She had her reasons for doing the show, but I want to give her credit for doing it bravely and well. The courage of the comedian-liberals was not tested. And the show was structured to guarantee that.

3. We should take note of who drives people on the other side nuts. That person has a special power. It's not witchcraft, but it is power that they are afraid of. The more they deride her, the more those who agree with her politics should notice how desperately they want you to reject her. Think about what that means. (As Rush Limbaugh loves to say: They will tell you who they are afraid of.)

4. Remember when it was oh-so-terrible to take a person's statements out of context? In particular, in the montage, we hear the author Clive Barker say "You have to tell me about the ex-homosexuals." But what does she say? Obviously, the notion of curing homosexuals is highly inflammatory, but why are we hearing Barker's words and not hers? Did she say sexual orientation can be changed by some sort of therapy or did she refer to the religious belief that homosexual behavior is sinful and say that it is possible to refrain from conduct? (I'm not suggesting that the idea that gay people should refrain from engaging in sexual activities isn't also a problem, but it is a belief widely shared by many people, especially religious people, and if they are not hypocrites, they will also reject all sexual conduct outside of a marriage.)

5. As Bill Maher admits, introducing this montage, he has no more clips that will be "earthshaking." He's reached the end of the treasure trove archive he bragged about a few weeks ago. So, he got a lot of publicity for himself, but in the end, pretty much all he had was her assertion that she "dabbled into" witchcraft when she was a kid. Ha. He made us look.

How the downward spiral begins.

"I was too timid to buy a 'DiGiorno for One' at the store because I didn't want the cashier to think I was a dork so I bought full sized one and now I'm stuffing my face."

ADDED: Here's what to do next time. Chat up the cashier, saying: "These things are great, but you know, they say 'for one' and it's actually plenty for me and my wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend." And if the cashier is attractive to you, say: "They say 'for one,' but which 'one' are they talking about? I only want to eat like half of this." If she/he smiles, say: "You want half?" Etc. etc.

"Her Majesty. Brenda."

How Keith Richards referred to Mick Jagger, who, he writes, became "unbearable," beginning in the early 80s.

In other celebrity tidbits... Richards was in the presence of Johnny Depp — a friend of his son's — for 2 years before he recognized that the guy was Johnny Depp. One night, he looked across the dinner table and suddenly thought "Whoa! Scissorhands!"

Fall color...

... reflected in the devil's lake.

(Enlarge for better color.)

Talk about whatever you wan in the comments.

UPDATE: Woke up Saturday morning and saw the typo. Was going to correct it but it seems like a pun in a post about color.

"The modern life is a danger that we feel is against the siesta."

"When you sleep la siesta everyone has the image that your life is calm, you have a good life. And then, the modern life is a direct attack."

"What will the web do to content, in terms of high-cost, expensive, time-consuming content?"

Charlie Rose descends into an existential void...



ADDED: Judging from most of the comments to this post the answer to the question above is that time-consuming content will be ignored or assumed to be whatever it appears to be at first glance. In case you're using a device that won't play embedded video: here's the link to the YouTube page. Now, please. Take the time to watch.

This evening on the lake...

"Attorney General Eric Holder... said that legalizing recreational marijuana in California would be a 'significant impediment' to the government's joint efforts with state and local law enforcement..."

I'm picturing the Washington Post editors high and dorkily giggling.