Current Affairs

Stating the obvious:

The connection between political fortunes and material concerns is not exactly a revelation. A sour economy is what torpedoed Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992. It's also the primary reason that the Republicans lost in 2008 to Obama—not his eloquence or policy positions.

Those of us who get excited over evidence of rightwing populist anger bubbling up in places like New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts should remember that there is still such a thing as good, old-fashioned, class-envious, rich-hating,  leftwing populist anger:

Amid recession, high unemployment and tight household budgets, voters in Oregon have agreed to raise taxes on people with higher incomes, to pay for public education and social services.

 [. . .]

This isn't exactly encouraging:

In late October, Newsday, the Long Island daily that the Dolans bought for $650 million, put its web site, newsday.com, behind a pay wall. The paper was one of the first non-business newspapers to take the plunge by putting up a pay wall, so in media circles it has been followed with interest. Could its fate be a sign of what others, including The New York Times, might expect?

The momentum keeps building for bans on texting while driving. A new federal rule went into effect yesterday that bans interstate commercial truckers and bus drivers from sending text messages while they are operating moving vehicles. And an Indiana House committee is considering a bill that would make it illegal for any driver to send text messages or e-mails while driving. The story about that also points out:

Sometimes I get lost in the dictionary, forgetting the word I am looking up and just browsing and stopping here and there at interesting words. But it's been a while since I went through it looking for the dirty parts:

The Menifee Union School District is forming a committee to review whether dictionaries containing the definitions for sexual terms should be permanently banned from the district's classrooms, a district official said Friday.

ERIC SEGAL DIED LAST WEEK.

Oh, yeah, and Probert B. Parker, too.

Does that convey typographically that I was annoyed by the coverage of their deaths? Well, I was peeved, anyway. In fact, I had a near Mother Teresa moment. She and Princess Diana, recall, died within days of each other in 1997, and the coverage seemed stunningly lopsided. Oh, dear God, Di has been taken from us! How can any of us cope with our grief? She can never be replaced! The world mourns! Oh, yeah, and some nun expired. Worked with the poor or something.

The times, they are a changin:

Eight in 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use and nearly half favor decriminalizing the drug more generally, both far higher than a decade ago.

I've know families that underwent severe stress, even to the point of breaking up, when one spouse became more religious than the other, especially if a "take no prisoners" fundamentalism was being embraced. This sounds a little like that:

Dang, of course a great bargain would show up while I'm still paying off the Christmas-gift purchases:

I love a good animal cliche:

Martha Coakley: A Democratic Canary in a Coalmine?