"Exactly two years ago, Farhad Manjoo ranted against people who still type two spaces after a period."

"To this day, people are still talking about the article. And some of them make a point to leave two spaces after all of their periods. In honor of the piece's anniversary, we are reprinting the piece below."

I linked to it then, and I'm linking to it again.

Now, could everyone please stop?

"Listen, I like stopping by Althouse, but let's get real. Althouse and Meade are living a high-income, privileged life that many of us can only dream about."

Rants Jeffrey in my "time to stop talking about the election and have our lives be about love and beauty" post.

It takes a day like today to put all of that into focus. Cultivate your garden?! I've seen the photos of where she and Meade live. C'mon. Many of us would love to live surrounded by all those expensive toys and have the summer off to order a pile of books for the Kindle and take a few leisurely vacations.

The class (and income) issue rarely comes up here. I think it's about time we hashed this out.

As others have pointed out above, Ann's cavalier, gather-ye-rosebuds response is predicated on being financially stable for the rest of her life. She has the good life NOW and will have it till the day she dies (or almost).

Let me repeat, though. I generally enjoy Ann's blog, but today seems like a good time for people to discuss this issue.

I'd said "cultivate your garden" in a comment in that thread. It's a reference to Voltaire's advice in "Candide" — damn, I typo'd "candidate"! — where it's not just advice for the comfortably affluent. Here, you can put it in your Kindle — in English — for $0.00 — absolutely free. You can read the greatest books ever written and never run out of reading material — all free. 

And I have the summer off because I choose not to teach during the summer. I choose not to make more money. As for Meade's economic choices, you don't know what they are, and I choose not to invade our privacy by explaining the structure of the economic unit that is our household. But we do, in many ways, choose noncommercial activities over moneymaking things, and we take advantage of the wealth that we have built up in our lives by enjoying our home and the natural beauty of our state and our country. We buy a state park sticker for our car every year and county ski and bike trail passes, and we never run out of incredibly cheap things to do.

If Meade and I were starting our lives together and in our 20s — a topic we've discussed many times — we would put a premium on love and beauty and on maximizing our free time... and our freedom generally. But that isn't where we happened to meet. You may be somewhere else, and if you are, use your brain. Figure out what your values really are and what you should be doing with your life. You are not your job. You are not a slave. Think! Pay attention! Do something with what you have. Don't pester your mind with envy. It's perfectly idiotic to wait for the world to change into a form you like.

That's what Voltaire was talking about when he had his long-suffering character Candide say:

"I know... that we must cultivate our garden."

"You are right," said Pangloss, "for when man was first placed in the Garden of Eden, he was put there ut operaretur eum, that he might cultivate it; which shows that man was not born to be idle."

"Let us work," said Martin, "without disputing; it is the only way to render life tolerable."

The whole little society entered into this laudable design, according to their different abilities. Their little plot of land produced plentiful crops. Cunegonde was, indeed, very ugly, but she became an excellent pastry cook; Paquette worked at embroidery; the old woman looked after the linen. They were all, not excepting Friar Giroflée, of some service or other; for he made a good joiner, and became a very honest man.

Pangloss sometimes said to Candide: "There is a concatenation of events in this best of all possible worlds: for if you had not been kicked out of a magnificent castle for love of Miss Cunegonde: if you had not been put into the Inquisition: if you had not walked over America: if you had not stabbed the Baron: if you had not lost all your sheep from the fine country of El Dorado: you would not be here eating preserved citrons and pistachio-nuts."

"All that is very well," answered Candide, "but let us cultivate our garden."

46% say Clinton [I mean Obama!] won the debate, 39% say Romney.

The CNN poll:

The president's edge on the question of who won the debate appears to be the result of his much better than expected performance and his advantage on likeability. But the poll also indicates that debate watchers said Romney would do a better job on economic issues. And the two candidates were tied on an important measure - whether the showdown would affect how the debate watchers will vote. Nearly half said the debate did not make them more likely to vote for either candidate, with the other half evenly divided between both men.

The return of likeability! I'd say the first point there is the most important one. Obama, having done badly in the first debate, faced a specific need to do better than he had in the first. In that view, he could win by beating his first-debate self, and the comparison to Romney is secondary. Romney's goal was only to be good again. He actually did have a difficult project: being the same while facing an opponent who was sure to be different. But different in what way?

The poll shows that 70% thought Romney did better (37%) or the same (33%) as they expected, so Romney met what I imagine was his real goal. Obama also clearly met his goal, as 90% thought he did better (73%) or the same (16%) as they expected. Everyone's a winner.

But, good lord, it was nasty! What a strange world we live in where men of the highest stature make the center of a town hall meeting feel like like a boxing ring. They paced around each other, poking pointy fingers. Were you listening to what they said or wondering aloud whether they'd come to blows?

By a 49%-35% margin, debate watchers thought that Obama spent more time attacking his opponent.  

Is attacking bad or good? I think it hurts you with people who don't like tension and unpleasantness, but Obama's supporters beat him over the head with the demand that he fight. I thought Romney did a great job of maintaining a calm but dominant presence in that fight, at least until he got rattled by that "act of terror" confusion.

ADDED: Wow! What a Freudian slip in the title! I had just posted about Chelsea Clinton, but jeez!

IN THE COMMENTS: Bob Ellison said: "It could be argued, though, that Clinton won the debate...."

That reminds me of a crazy old game I used to play with my sons when they were kids. It was called "What if you had to argue?" I'd come up with some strange statement and the challenge was to come up with the arguments they'd make if they had to argue that. What if you had to argue that Bill Clinton won the debate?

Democrat sends out a mailer saying crime has gone up "over 50% in our negrohood so far this year."

Supposedly a typo, but how does a typo like that happen?

Imagine if a Republican had done that. People would be saying the mask has slipped and this shows what all the Republicans are really like.

Fish politics, insect politics.

You may know I'm a longtime fan of the 1986 movie "The Fly," especially the part where the main character, the scientist-turned-fly, has his rant about "insect politics." ("Have you heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects don't have politics.... they're very brutal. No compassion.... no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first insect politician. I'd like to, but.... I'm an insect.... who dreamed he was a man, and loved it. But now the dream is over, and the insect is awake.")

I'm always alert to stories that can take my blog tag "insect politics."

And I love lawprof/public intellectual Stanley Fish, who's written many cool books and in recent years has been doing a column on the NYT website. I was already delighted to see that Fish had put up a new column on the Dinesh D'Souza movie "2016: Obama's America," but my delight bubbled over into ecstasy when I arrived at the insect politics:

Unlike the once glorious but fallen empires [D'Souza] recalls reading about as a child in India, America, he declares, is an “empire of ideals” — individual rights, freedom of choice, upward mobility limited only by your willingness to work hard; and the fact that the nation has not always lived up to its ideals is a testament to the power they exert even as they are being breached.

In contrast, Obama, first at Columbia and later at Harvard, is influenced by leftist teachers like Edward Said and Roberto Unger, immerses himself in texts by Marxist, feminist and ant-colonialist authors, and thus fleshes out the lineaments of “his father’s third world collectivism.”

Ant-colonialist authors! This sounds very brutal! I thought Obama was the "empathy" guy, that he was 22 points out ahead of Romney when people were asked who cares about you. But now... No compassion. Whatever happened to the dream?

[D'Souza] rejects birtherism, the contention that Obama was born in Kenya and is hence not an American citizen; but he replaces it with a back-door, or metaphorical, birtherism when he characterizes Obama as an alien being, as a fifth-column party of one who has pretended to be an American, and technically is one, but really is something else.

You mean... the ant-colonialist?

Now, let's get serious. Fish says D'Souza "founders on the fallacy of assuming that the adjective 'American' has a fixed meaning with which everyone, or everyone who is right-thinking and patriotic, agrees." Here we go! No fixed meaning... Fish himself is was part of the intellectual stew in which  young Obama was immersed in college and law school.

But the meaning of America is continually contested in essays, books, backyard conversations, talk shows and, most of all, in elections. It is often said, and it is true, that the opposing parties in an election have “different visions for America.” There are many ways of describing the alternative visions offered to us in a year like this; but describing one of them as un-American and its proponent as a foreign intruder is not to further discussion but to foreclose it and to replace the contest of ideas with the rhetoric of demonization. 

Let's assume Fish is right and "the meaning of America is continually contested." D'Souza is simply fighting hard in that contest. He's got a powerful argument. And Fish wants D'Souza to disarm. You can't make that argument. It doesn't "further discussion." It "foreclose[s] it." Another way to put that is: D'Souza is winning the argument! It's too good of an argument. It doesn't give the other side enough of a chance to win. Hey, if it's a contest, both sides get to fight.

Fish says D'Souza's ideas are not ideas. Is that an idea? Fish says D'Souza is doing "demonization." Is Fish demonizing D'Souza? Who gets to say what can be said in this contest over the meaning of America? Must one side don boxing gloves while the other side punches back — "twice as hard" — bare-fisted?

"Butt cracks eventually appeared in Lamb's public persona..."

A typo for the ages.

50 Shades of Gary.

Typo I just made, observed the comic potential of, and, after Googling, discovered had already been deployed.

Speaking of typos and "Shades of Grey," there was some discussion of the 2 spellings of "grey/gray" in the first "Shades of Grey" post of the day. (This is the 3d.) I said I meant to do that:

"Gray" is the long-term spelling on this blog and the normal spelling used by Americans.

"Grey" is the title of the book, the name of the character -- Christian Grey -- the British spelling, and the spelling used by Americans who have been over influenced by the British and that damned book.

You know how you know "gray" is the right spelling for Americans? You look at your Crayolas!

Freudian slip of the day.

In the previous post, I was writing about women who need to be "continually push[ed] to value their insights," and it came out as one of those near-homophone typos: "continually push[ed] to value their insides."

Didn't mean to wander over into "Vagina Monologues" territory.

"Nearly a dozen of high school journalists walked out of a lecture by Dan Savage, the prominent ant-bullying advocate..."

Sorry... I just love the typo: ant-bullying. Is that something done with a magnifying glass?

But... okay... let's talk about the underlying story. Dan Savage was doing his thing....

'People often say that they can’t help with the anti-gay bullying acts because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans, that being gay is wrong,' Mr Savage said.

'We can learn to ignore the bullsh*t in the Bible and what it says about gay people.'

He compared dogmatic acceptance of anti-gay teachings equivalent to adhering to verses about slavery and eating shellfish, two issues that have been reinterpreted in modern day.

My question is whether the school engages in viewpoint discrimination. Does it bring in other speakers who present other interpretations of the Bible? I doubt it.

"Typo Leads To Wrong Candidate’s Election In Connecticut."

“I understand that mistakes are made, but this one is especially unfortunate,” said Republican Town Committee Chairman Tom Szewczyk.

He added that if the younger Butler was to be sworn in and resign to let his father take the post, it would serve as a violation of Connecticut State’s election law. “This would also be a huge disservice to our voters.”

"Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?"

Asks Paul Krugman.

Is it odd to be subdued?

Having observed that we are subdued and that it is odd, Krugman applies the label: shame. We are ashamed of ourselves for what we did after the attacks.

Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue.

Te atrocity. Fix the typo, Mr. Krugman. People will think you haven't given enough weight to the atrocity. As long as we're looking for symptoms and making diagnoses, I might as well do it too.

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

You don't want to see what you don't want to see, which is oddly at odds with your belief that Americans have a shameful way of blinding ourselves to the full range of what is happening and what we are doing.

"For the people who believe that readjusting the Snuggie when you move from the Barcolounger to the mobility scooter is too much work..."

"... comes the Forever Lazy, described as : 'the one piece, lie around, lounge around, full body lazy wear!'"... observes Manolo, adding:

Many thanks to the Manolo’s internet friend Anne for altering him to this.

That's not a reference to me. Anne with an e would be a misspelling, referring to me. But he does have have a typo there. He's thanking Anne "for altering him." I'm sure he means "alerting," but it's a nice Freudian slip, since those giant fleece onesies will destroy your manhood.

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.

Hey, kids, come play in the “neutering fun and safe environment.”

From the L.A. Parks Department, where they're into "achieving gender equality through a continuous commitment to girls and women in sports."

A typo — in a year-old comments thread — amuses me.

"The real problem is that he became enamored of that Kabbalah horeshit that Madonna's into."

ADDED: And then there are the comments of my future husband, which I just noticed.

"The engine of unbridled capitalism, with its unfair system of thought, has reached the end of the road and is unable to move."

"Selfishiness and insatiable greed have taken the place of such human concepts as love, sacrifice, dignity and justice. The belief in the one god has been replaced with self-belief."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the U.N. — as reported in the NYT.

Hey, I hope he really did say "selfishiness"? It's a cool coinage. Like there's something really suspicious about the selfishness of capitalism. And it stinks after 3 days.

AND: Elsewhere in today's U.N. speeches, Gaddafy said: "Perhaps tomorrow we will have a fish flu." Think about it.

"Mr. Obama directly addressed one of the most delicate topics confronting black leaders..."

"... how much responsibility absent fathers bear for some of the intractable problems afflicting black American. He noted that more than half of all black children lie in single-parent households."

Well, the kids should take some responsibility, if half of them are lying.

So everyone hated Rosie O'Donnell's attempt at bringing back the old-fashioned variety show.

I can tell from all the links about it on Drudge. Is it that people just don't like Rosie anymore, that no one wants variety shows anymore, or is it just the combination of Rosie and variety that's poison? Writing the headline to this post, I typo'd "old-fashioned variety sow," which seemed like a clue from my not-very-nice subconscious.

Only 5 million tuned in at all, so the problem can't have been the actual content of the show:

Segments included Kathy Griffin impersonating Nancy Grace, Alec Baldwin hitting Conan O'Brian with a pie, O'Donnell singing "City Lights" with Liza Minnelli and Jane Krakowski doing a product-placement-themed striptease for White Castle burgers and Crest Whitestrips.

Critics were not kind. The NY Times described it as "hokey comedy with an enemies list." TV Guide called it a "ghastly ego trip." And the LA Times asked, "Rosie, what on earth were you thinking?"

That NYT review -- from Alessandra Stanley -- came after the show aired. So it seems the concept was off-putting enough to people, but if hadn't been, they'd have found the execution deadly. Per Stanley:

In between skits, celebrity cameos and hokey novelty acts, the legendarily thin-skinned Ms. O'Donnell found time to take potshots at some of her favorite targets, including Donald Trump, Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly....

Ms. O'Donnell's self-referential swats at detractors were light, but they clashed with the context, lending a hard, contemporary edge to what was intended to be a corny, heartfelt homage to variety shows of yesteryear, like "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour" and "The Carol Burnett Show."...

It's not easy to be the brilliant Ms. Burnett, and you should never, never underestimate what constitutes the greatness that is Cher.

From the L.A. Times:

For weeks now NBC has seduced and tantalized with the promise of a cross between Carol Burnett and “Sonny and Cher.” And this is what we get? Rosie in a glitter top having Baldwin speak into her cleavage and making jokes about her weight? Someone get a hold of Tim Conaway, stat.

Tim Conaway? I guess the L.A. Times doesn't really spend much time reminiscing about the old Carol Burnett show.

Joe Gandelman blogs:

If you’re a student of show biz history, there are books that detail the careers of Burnett, Sullivan, and Martin that chronicle the thought and care that went into the preparation of their shows and what they were trying to do on them....

But what you don’t read as much about are the many variety shows that hideously flopped over the past 50 years and the performers who either hit a dead end and didn’t do as well on weekly TV series as they did in other venues: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. Jerry Lewis and a host of other. Every attempt at a variety show didn’t click: a huge number of shows noisily bombed....

So the variety show format isn’t dead. It could still be revived– with the right performer who isn’t controversial, with careful thought, and with packaging and production values more akin to a Vegas or cruise style variety show than a celebrity vanity production with a bunch of celebrities instead of high-powered talent of its era.

Any ideas as to who could fit that role? Celebrities are so awful these days. Who wants to see how they behave presenting other celebrities?

We'd rather watch another season of "American Idol," with third-rate music and annoying youngsters who only want to become the celebrities who have become too loathsome to watch. At least we get to see "American Idol" contestants judged and insulted for thinking they are much good. Maybe the old variety format could live again with a panel of judges or some sort of on-screen vote tally as we phone in and tell them they're nowhere near as good as they think they are.

"Maybe a period of heartless liberalism is a needed corrective after eight years of compassionate conservatism."

"But here's the big question: Would Obama be as brutal in defending America's interests as he is in pandering to xenophobes and global warmists?"

Asks James Taranto, kindly linking to me, in a Best of the Web entitled "Beloved Aunt." ("Curb Your Enthusiasm" fans will remember the famous obituary typo.)

***

NSFW:

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.