Sunday Screening

Elizabeth Edwards has an excellent op-ed in the NYT today, arguing quite correctly that the media has totally shirked its responsibility to focus the 2008 race on, you know, things that matter. It's the same kind of criticism that the political blogosphere (which Mrs. Edwards frequents) has been putting forward for years. I have no quarrel with her argument; I do, however take issue with the title. "Bowling 1, Health Care 0" this column is called. And that, friends, is a grave injustice to the great and noble American pastime we call bowling.

You heard the chorus: don't know anyone who doesn't love bowling. Everyone loves bowling! It's even fascinating to watch:

(If you actually had the patience to sit through all four minutes of that without skipping any, let me know and I'll send you a prize.)

Even robots love bowling:

OK, now, I admit that an enormous 20-foot robot that can bowl with perfect accuracy is pretty cool. However: who paid for this? What purpose does it serve? WHY?

I am going to go ponder that. Everyone else, enjoy the rest of your weekend and the upcoming LAST WEEK OF CLASSES; this is an open thread.

Roundup -- So Very Alone

Campus is eerie this evening; deserted, less than a day into spring break. Walked through Leverett and Mather Courtyards without a soul in sight. I thought maybe the world had ended and I'd missed it. (Typical; I'm late for everything these days.) But no, HARVARD LIVES, if only on the Internets; so here's yet another Roundup for you. Since those of us who aren't going to Cancun need something to do, after all.

To begin with, check out this graph to the right -- it's from the huge Pew poll released this week, which contains a gold mine of interesting data. The most heartening one for us is, as indicated to the right, Democrats have a bigger advantage over Republicans in generic support than we've seen in decades; dig further into the numbers and you see slow but certain gains for the liberal position in every single category, from gay rights to military interventionism. The country is moving our way.

--On the Harvard blogfront: Hooray for the return of Immigration Orange! Also, glad to hear Ryan's recovered -- I was very worried after reading he'd shoved a contact lens behind his eye. (Eww.) And once again I'll plug Planet 02138, which is mind-bogglingly useful. (Speaking of which, can we get a blogroll update sometime soon? Anyone? Bueller?)

--I'm sure everyone heard Elizabeth Edwards' sad news, and I don't think there's any need to rehash the subject. However, it's troubling that so many people seem to think that this calls for Edwards' withdrawal from the race, to the point of suggesting he's callously ignoring her needs out of ambition; most of these concerns are genuine. Nevertheless they're invalid. Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher, battling breast cancer herself, has the best description of them: "condescending bullshit".

--Depending whose poll you check, Iraqis are either completely hopeless or trembling with hopeful joy. It's science!

--Well-established among progressives, I think, is the idea that "you can't win a 'war on terror'". War on an abstract concept is impossible from the get-go. But this Wonkette satire brought to mind an interesting corollary: you can't really lose a war on terror, either...

--John McCain owns a ferret, three parakeets, and over a dozen fish. For his part, Sam Brownback has a dachshund and a fish named "Marvin Three". Meanwhile all we can counter with is Bill Richardson's cat Squeaky and maybe Barack Obama's as-yet-hypothetical dog. One thing I'll say for the Republicans, they have us beat when it comes to awesome pets.

--Speaking of Sam Brownback, I gave him guff in a thread last month for his amateurish web design; if I recall, I compared it to a white-supremacist site from 1996. Well, the Senator's updated his website and has a sweet new logo:
Now, why does this font and color scheme seem so familiar... oh yes:

Zing! Mike Huckabee, you just got very very subtly served!

--Quote of the week is from Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, with a message for the types who are constantly pushing for "unity," and opposing "rancor" and "division":

“If you take a principled point of view and people fall down on one side or the other, you can either be characterized as being principled or being tough,” he said. “Or you can be dismissed as being divisive, and I think if that’s the definition of divisive, we need more people in politics who are divisive.”

Hear hear. (h/t Hit & Run; and I die a little inside every time I approvingly cite libertarians, but what can you do.)

--Tom DeLay has not read his own book. Why doesn't this suprise me at all? (Here's the video, btw.)

--WHY do pundits insist on calling Jim Webb a "centrist"? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HE'S A SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY. Jim Webb is in my wing of the Democratic Party, with Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders and most of Minnesota and the smiling ghost of Eugene Debs. Just because Webb's macho and Southern and straightforward doesn't automatically make him "centrist", you pricks.

...I'll leave you with a thought, found via Band Madness (a fascinating March Madness-style voting competition between every major band of all time. Music fans owe it to themselves to check this one out). Seems commercial hip-hop can sometimes lead to deep existential quandaries, and it falls to the Village Voice to sort them out:

Mims is hot because he's fly. But it raises the question: Does being hot guarantee one's being fly? You ain't 'cause you not" would seem to clear that up: it would appear that fly and hot are interchangable. If you are one, you are both; if you aren't at least one, you are neither.

Deep, man. (...What is the sound of one hand rapping?)

This is an open thread, but only for the fly and/or hot. Happy Spring Break, everybody.