Tuesday on the Report, we explored the question of whether or not the debates actually matter. I agreed that they mean more for Romney. I applauded California's ban on gay conversion therapy for teenagers, and we found a way to make New York women nod in unison. Kingsley Amis's legacy is all too often dominated by talk of his various eccentricities, and even being indie rock royalty doesn't pay that well. Smoking segregation is an ongoing battle and there are more invisible things than you think. The critics of reason return; so do the critics of American air travel. Soldiers in modern warfare need less muscle and more brains, so why do we continue to recruit eighteen year-old males? The recruiters have it all wrong.
On Wednesday, we found that ditching helmet rules encourages people to cycle, especially in cities like London, where the city sponsors "Boris" bikes for public use, and that the housewives of Japan are giving their husbands less pocket money. Pastors all across America protested an amendment that some on the Right have called a "muzzle on religion" by giving explicitly partisan sermons, a liberal found an unlikely pen pal in a conservative blogger named Esther, and a presidential candidate failed to start a chant. The unbearable debate about grammar rules continued, and we agreed that maybe we should give up on the rules about "whom" and "who." We looked at the Kael answer to the question of why we enjoy movies, and whether or not it matters that we enjoy them.
David Rothkopf called the election for Obama, perhaps prematurely, whose daughter is expected to show good judgement in music and like Motown. No, correlation may not imply causation, but this is no way to deflect a possibly legitimate point. We continued to ask why Americans believed in Muslim Rage, and concluded that the issue was neither political nor religious. Speaking of beliefs, how malleable are your political ones? It turns out that website pagination is evil, and male decline may not be strictly true. Counter to the prevailing logic, it just might be that the best way to help Iran in their efforts to build a nuclear bomb would be to bomb them. The specifics surrounding Paul Ryan's tax plan remain opaque, as does the reasoning behind bans on books like Alice Walker's The Colour Purple (did you know there was such a thing as Banned Books Week?). Finally, let's remind ourselves that this is not the most important election we've ever seen.
Thursday was the day of the first debate. Liveblog here. Reaction round-ups here and here. The verdict? "There was a singular commanding force on stage tonight (or this afternoon, if you're here) and it was Mitt Romney. Obama was tired, lethargic, and even appeared indifferent to the proceedings. And where Romney engaged in the fight, Obama merely endured it." Also that day, are presidential debates too civil, and has another ritual, the TED Talk, lost its spark? The mind of the libertarian is a cold and unfeeling place. Book blogs, however, are brilliant.
On Friday, debate analysis continued with the return of Multiple-Choice Mitt, this time the Moderate from Massachusetts, and a run-down of some of the opportunities Obama missed. Big Bird is liked by Mitt Romney, but firing him is apparently a good way to cut the deficit. We made the link between Jane Austen and the self-help genre. The cinema has a numbing effect. Henry Kissinger doesn't like the constant China bashing by GOP candidates.
Saturday, we found that Fran Lebowitz's thirty year bout of writer's block hasn't stopped her being engaging in interviews, and that long lectures are ineffective due to short attention spans. The sense of entitlement and victimhood among the super-rich in the U.S. is due to some misconceptions about meritocracy. Baathism is coming to an end, and its last bastion is Damascus. Here's this touching, but mawkish music video. The Weather Channel is causing a debate over who gets to name storms in winter, and science is hard. The idea of multiple-choice Mitt is not entirely bought into, we have to remember. Some get it, others don't. Facebook is a lot like a chair, says Facebook. Here's a rundown of everything that's wrong with photography in the age of Instagram. More problems at the Boy Scouts, whose gay rights abuses are well documented.
Today on the Report, Michelle Malkin added her support for Romney's anti-Big Bird stance. The job numbers were so good, some found it easier not to believe them. We still wanted to know which Mitt Romney would turn up on the first day in the Oval Office, should he win. Will it be heartless conservative Mitt or Mitt the Moderate? One year on, after a year of living Steve-lessly, it's safe to say we'll never stop talking about him. Blogs are like gravestones, and Ulysses S. Grant is like the worst president ever. Tragedy has had a decline and fall of its own, but tabloid newspapers are here to fill the void. American democracy, if it exists at all, is certainly up for sale. Maybe Slavoj Zizek's lighter kind of communism can fill that void once it's gone. Noam Chomsky is wondering if, maybe, the candidates are ignoring climate change, and Paul Krugman thinks one of them isn't being entirely up front with his healthcare policy.
RL from last week here.
(Image via the Washington Post)