Al Franken helped write last night's opening "SNL" skit, bashing McCain.

Quite good!

IN THE COMMENTS: Fen said:

"Hi. I'm NBC and I approved this ad."

"The 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums (of all time)."

From Out.com. I have no idea how gay these choices are, but they do seem pretty great.

To create our list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums of All Time, we polled more than 100 actors, comedians, musicians, writers, critics, performance artists, label reps, and DJs, asking each to list the 10 albums that left the most indelible impressions on their lives. After receiving responses from Boy George, Rufus Wainwright, Cyndi Lauper, the Indigo Girls’ Amy Ray, Candis Cayne, Perez Hilton, Nate Berkus, Jake Shears, John Cameron Mitchell, Wilson Cruz, Justin Bond, Darren Hayes, Junior Vasquez, Bruce Vilanch, Janis Ian, the Cliks, Ari Gold, Holly Johnson, and a slew of others, we tallied the results to determine our top-100 list.

So this was about indelible impressions on real people, not any abstract conception of what kind of music is somehow gay. It produced a nice list... and a real tribute to David Bowie.

Which of these albums do I have? 7, 8, 12, 17, 26, 38, 39, 43, 49, 50, 54, 57, 60, 62, 64, 68, 100.

Democrazy.

A typo I just made while trying to IM the line "this shows we don't really have a democracy." The topic was how impossible it is for almost anyone to understand the current financial crisis, how disembodied it is from the presidential candidates we've been so focused on, and how we are forced by the complexity of the system to rely on experts whose reliability we cannot judge.

Blacks vs. gays.

According to the NYT, opponents of the gay marriage ban in California are worried that black people, enthused about Barack Obama, will show up at the polls in unusually high numbers and vote the way people think black people think about homosexuality.

Well, Obama has a lock on California, so, ironically, it will be liberals who perceive an interest in suppressing the black vote.

ADDED: I am expressing no view about the generalization that black people are homophobic. I am only noting the way people of all political stripes will use black people when they find them useful. But I should note that Barack Obama has opined on the reputed homophobia of black people:

America's "literary flowering" was "a rebellion against what was thought of as academic, effete and indoors-y in English writing."

So how can a real, American literary artist take a job as a creative writing professor? Asks David Gessner.

[I]t’s hard to imagine [Thoreau] taking a break from one of his marathon strolls to waste three hours teaching a graduate workshop. Equally difficult is picturing Melville asking a group of undergrads, “What’s at stake in this story?” or Dickinson clapping a colleague on the back after a faculty meeting.

Yes, but did Henry and Herman and Emily have health care insurance and a retirement plan?

Gessner struggles with his cushy life and its obligations:

[C]reation of literature requires a degree of monomania, and that it is, at least in part, an irrational enterprise. It’s hard to throw your whole self into something when that self has another job.

But surely there are some jobs that provide substance and raw material for the writer. (Whaling, for example.) The problem with writers having jobs other than writing occurs when those jobs consume their time and attention, turn them into boring, conventional people, and give back nothing worth writing about.

But Gessner worries that the ideal of just writing is too irrational:

[Y]ou are sitting by yourself trying to make something out of nothing, and you rarely know where you’re going next. Creating your own world is an invitation to solipsism, if not narcissism, and as well as being alone when we work, we are left, for the most part, to judge by ourselves if we have succeeded or failed in our tasks. (Three guesses in which direction we most often lean.) My father succinctly summarized his feelings about my choice to dedicate my 20s to writing fiction. “You’re not living in the real world,” he said. I reacted with a young man’s defensiveness, but in retrospect his assessment seems less critical than a matter of fact.

Which is where teaching comes in. It provides all the practical things that can help prop us up above the morass of our insane callings, not to mention something we can wave at the world like a badge. And don’t forget this bonus: other people. How delightful to work on this thing called a hallway, populated not just by colleagues but by students, all committed to, or at the very least interested in, writing. And this is all without even mentioning the teaching itself. I love teaching.

Ah, yes, academia is lovely. I love teaching. All teachers must say that. But there are other, richer jobs for the writer. And I'm not convinced that a literary writer does well to spend so much time reading and correcting the writing of other people who are not very good. If you're going to teach and write, wouldn't it be better to teach some substantial subject that will have you thinking about something about that real world your father wanted you to live in? History, science, law....

Gessner ends his reverie thusly:

[A] part of me worries that my work has become too professional, too small, and worries that I don’t spend as much time as I should reading or brooding or even fretting. Yes, my lifestyle is more healthful, but is health always the most important thing? The part that answers no to that question is now lying in wait, looking for ways to undermine my so-far-successful teaching career. In fact you could argue that that part of me had a hand in writing this essay, which I am finishing now, a few weeks before going up for tenure. After all, what would that part, my inner monomaniac, like more than to tear off his collar and sabotage the job that keeps him from running wild?

Oh, is that what this essay is all about? Conquering the fear of being denied tenure? What do you think, would tenure denial be a blessing for Mr. Gessner? Do you want him back in his room, brooding and fretting year 'round?

Obama "does not believe it is necessary or fair to hardworking seniors to raise the retirement age."

A sentence that was just deleted from Barack Obama's website page about Social Security. Noted by Peter Bray, who asks: "Is he trying to stoke anxiety about his position on Social Security?"

My thoughts:

1. Raising the retirement age makes a lot of sense and should at least be considered. People are healthier these days and live a lot longer, and the age ought to be adjusted to account for that. It's at least arguable and belongs on the table.

2. To say that you don't currently "believe it is necessary or fair" to do something doesn't mean you aren't planning to consider it. I know what the meaning of is is. What you believe is necessary now many not be what you believe later after further study, and what is necessary now may not be what is necessary after the situation develops a while longer.

3. Must politicians always butter us up by telling us we're "hardworking"? I suspect that many voters hear that and think about how they actually don't work that hard. I don't like the insinuation that people who aren't nose-to-the-grindstone are written out of all the policy. Slackers vote too you know!

4. What's with the "seniors" talk? Right now, you can start collecting Social Security when you are 62! So it's people under 62 that have to worry about raising the retirement age. Do these people call themselves "seniors"? I'm 5 years away from age 62 myself, and while I often -- being the straight-talker that I am -- call myself "old," it would never occur to me to say I'm a "senior." Euphemisms have a way of becoming more offensive the the original plain English.

Would you have labor induced to deliver a 20-week-old fetus that had already died?

David Hlavsa's wife, given the choice between childbirth and a D&C, chose to go through labor -- painful, induced labor in a maternity ward-- so that she could see and hold the dead child. She keeps the baby's ashes -- a teaspoonful -- in the drawer at her bedside.

We each assumed there was only one possible decision, so when we talked, we talked logistics: appointments to reschedule, job responsibilities to manage. We asked questions we might have asked the midwife, about recovery time.

Then we realized we weren’t in agreement. I was talking about the D and C, while Lisa had decided to give birth. Incredulous, I asked why she would want to go through all that pain. She said she couldn’t imagine just getting rid of our child by a surgical procedure; she wanted to see him....

Resting on my outstretched hand, he was thin, nearly weightless, his skin pinkish-gray and translucent. He seemed to me less like a small baby than a scale model of a stripling child. I cradled his head between the ends of my middle and ring fingers, his features peaceful, perfect, blank.

When we got back from the hospital, the epidural had not quite worn off, so Lisa did not have full use of her legs and clung to me as we staggered up the front steps. Thinking of ourselves as a public spectacle (How must we look to the neighbors? Drunk again!), we burst out laughing. Once inside, the bleak humor continued: Anacephalic? All right, so he won’t go to Harvard.

It wasn’t until I had settled Lisa onto the couch that my own legs quit working. I was in midsentence — something about an errand — teakettle in hand, halfway between the tap and the stove. A spasm went through me, I doubled over and I heard my own voice howling from far off, the full-throated cry of a child.

This story is published in the "Modern Love" section of the NYT. I know it will make some people talk about abortion and the right to life, and I know what both sides will say about the story to appropriate it. It's inevitable, but maybe it's wrong.

Let's think about the man America rejected because he was Mormon or seemed plastic or whatever.

We Americans will get the leader we deserve, one or the other of two men who have absolutely no background in economics. We'll have to rely on whatever judgment they manage to apply to the advice their faceless advisers hand them.

We enjoyed the tasty new blood that was Sarah Palin's, but now her blood is just as vile as the old blood we were drinking.

Everybody at Arianna Huffington's blood-swilling party is sick of Sarah Palin now, says the hostess, reapplying her lipstick.


Photo by 96dpi.

"When things are serious enough, people want their leaders to be serious."

Obama and McCain try to get serious. Or at least look serious.

That quote is from an unnamed Obama adviser. I love the implication that things could actually be rather serious, and we the people would still want our leaders putting on the usual comedy show.

Sunday Morning Café.

I'll be joining you soon, but please start the early morning talk without me.

Biden "is a distinctive blend of pit bull and odd duck whose weak filters make him capable of blurting out pretty much anything."

I was making fun of that muddle of images from a NYT article. In the comments, Reader_iam exclaimed:

OH THE VISUALS, OH THE VISUALS!
OH MY [MIND'S] EYES!
OH MY [MIND'S] EYES!

What an onslaught of imagery! An assault, really.

Freeman Hunt was all:

You mean the duck with the pit bull head dancing on a vaudeville stage with some kind of engine that requires filters coming out of its back and puffing smoke??

And Palladian made this:

Fragrance.

I absolutely love this stuff! (And a certain highly favored commenter helped me discover that I did.)

***

As long as I'm recommending products -- and providing links which, if used, support this blog -- I just bought this expensive stool today, a Swopper. I'm expecting this thing to save me from my bad habit of getting locked into one position while working at the computer for hours on end. Also, I read that fidgeting burns a lot of calories over the course of the day, and I'm thinking the Swopper will promote fidgeting. You can bounce and wobble on it. And of course, with no back, it forces you to use some muscles to sit upright.

Now, one more thing, which I'd like to buy, but haven't bought yet, is a Jesper sit/stand desk. I've seen it in the store. It looks great, and it's motorized with a simple button to raise and lower the desk, so you can make it a standing desk to vary your position. I mentioned this thing the other day in the comments to that post about treadmills in front of desks, and somebody said they wanted more info. So this is the info.

Just some cool stuff that I recommend.

ADDED: I had to get out the receipt to check the name of the stool. I had guessed it was "swobble," but Googling turned up this Urban Dictionary entry. Oops. And here's a very interesting book about the history of the chair. You know, chairs seem so obvious to us, but it's not that natural to sit in chairs. And I'd like to say that I have that last chair pictured on the book cover. You can buy it here. Pic.

"Terrorism is a cancer in Pakistan, we are determined, God willing, we will rid the country of this cancer."

Said the new Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, after today's horrific bombing.

In America, we like to quote Lincoln:

No nobler reply ever fell from the lips of a ruler, than that uttered by President Lincoln in response to the clergyman who ventured to say, in his presence, that he hoped "the Lord was on our side."

"I am not at all concerned about that," replied Mr. Lincoln, "for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."

The frightening thing is that the terrorists -- some of them, anyway -- imagine that they are on God's side.

Zardari says "God willing," but surely there are those who hear that and think that it is God's will that the other side win. It's the custom to say "God willing," I understand, but if you say "God willing, we will rid the country of this cancer," you are saying that if you do not win, God must be on the other side.

Does it help to bring God into the discussion? It must fire up the enemy to fight harder, because to win will be to prove that God is on their side.

I understand that it is intended as a prayer for God's support, but still...

***

The Lincoln link goes to a discussion of Sarah Palin's invocation of Lincoln to explain a remark of hers. And here's a good post by Ray Fowler asking: "Was Sarah Palin out of line with her prayer or simply following presidential precedent?"

"Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close..."

That's the way the AP presents the results of its poll.

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents — voters Obama can't win the White House without — agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

Let's be careful. A poll asks whether you agree or disagree with various adjectives applied to black people in general. You give your responses. Do those responses really reveal your ordinary thought patterns? Do they tell us much about whether you apply these generalizations to specific individuals that you know a lot about, like Barack Obama?

That said, the poll does seem to have been carefully done. Some results:

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

There's no getting around it. If Obama loses, some people will believe that racial prejudice made the difference. Don't many people already think it's important that he win in order to prevent that harmful belief from arising? Even if he does win, some people will think he would have won more decisively if it were not for racial prejudice, but it won't matter so much without the disappointment of losing.

Issues-o-Meter.

I like this graphic.