went into our ears as

I’ve spent my first two and past 12 years in Wisconsin, but my mother was raised in New Jersey, and I still return (not as often as I’d like) to visit my cousins and friends who live there. I’ve enjoyed a few summer weeks on the Jersey Shore, as well as on Wisconsin’s middle-coast cheddarized version thereof. Perhaps that’s why I want to point out one or two more deep connections between what appear on the surface to be culturally distant states. Or a third:

This week, the entire country had a chance to learn “The lessons of Jersey Shore“ (courtesy of Fourfour‘s precision brand of hilaro-snark).

Next week, I hope New Jersey will teach us in Wisconsin one more lesson. New Jersey Peeps: Contact your legislators today!

There’s no harm in making fun of either state. But this time I hope New Jersey gets the last laugh.

Update (12/7/8) : via Joe. My. God. “Victory In New Jersey! Marriage Vote In Full Senate Slated For Thursday”

And so began my political activism, and relative indifference toward chocolate.

I don’t feel like dignifying the non-issue-based attacks on Obama with a response. Frankly, it saddens more than disgusts me to watch the Clintons so quickly embrace the tactics of their former political rivals as they’ve assumed their prime placement on the establishment’s mantle. Josh Marshall (TPM) puts it well:

And seeing Hillary go on about how Obama has contempt for folks in small town America, how he’s elitist, well … no, it’s not because I think she’s either. I never have. But after seeing her hit unfairly with just the same stuff for years, it just encapsulates the last three-plus months of her campaign which I can only describe as a furious descent into nonsense and self-parody. Part of it makes me want to cry. But at this point all I can really do is laugh.

I don’t really want to speculate how this will be spun on the morning “news” shows. I will, however, leave you with a post-debate linkroll.

• Hillary regrettably followed this advice.

• Obama takes the high road on cookie baking.

• Hillary lied because she was tired? Let’s hope she’s not tired at 3am.

• The Weather Underground? Really? Please.

• “Editor & Publisher” sums up the ABC/Disney moderators’ performance here, mentioning the debate audience’s booing of Charles Gibson. Let’s hope the voters outside the auditorium do the same. Hey, I’m a Packer fan. We don’t boo the refs when we lose a round. We only boo them when they stand in the way of a good, fair, spirited game.

• From Sam Boyd at The American Prospect’s “Tapped”:

“THESE QUESTIONS ARE A DISGRACE.

A woman asks if Obama “believes in the American flag” because he doesn’t wear a flag pin.

Charlie Gibson says that questions about the flag are “all over the internet” — along with Pamela Anderson’s sex tape, cats with bad grammar, and Rick Astley. Journalism at it’s finest.”

Update: 4/17/08:

• Althouse, this morning, sees no reason to remove her tongue from its usual position in her cheek: summarizing the largest strand of complaints about the debate in the overnight blogosphere:

“It was bad of ABC to trouble Obama with questions about his attitudes and character instead of offering him opportunities to expound policy.”

I get her implied point. Politics can indeed be brutal. Still, “questions about his attitudes and character” are one thing, but questioning his patriotism? and name-dropping to imply guilt? In a follow-up question, Hillary herself all but admitted there was no substance to these attacks, but that she intended to play Swiftboat style, if only because that’s how the Republicans roll:

“I know Senator Obama’s a good man and I respect him greatly, but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.”

Well, fine. We’ll beat back their politics of character assassination after we triumph over hers. Her desperation can hardly be missed. She wasn’t like this when she was ahead:

“I’m not interested in attacking my opponents, I’m interested in attacking the problems of America,” Clinton said. “And I believe we should be turning up the heat on the Republicans. They deserve all the heat we can give them.”

That was then. Now she wants to serve them the Democratic party’s head on a platter. I can’t stop her if she wants to drag her own name into the gutter. Let’s just hope she doesn’t take the rest of us with her.

Finally, from TPMtv: “If you were spared watching it in real time, relive the awfulness of last night’s ABC debate in today’s episode of TPMtv … “

Home from college at the end of my first year, I was hanging out in my parents’ yard with a small group of close friends who still lived full-time in the town where I grew up. I’d just come outside after a long shower. Fumbling for a cigarette, I asked Nat for a lighter. Sometimes a gentleman, Nat lit my cigarette for me. Sometimes not a gentleman, he also commented on my “gnarley” fingernails and cuticles, whose long soak in the shower exaggerated the damage done by my teeth.

“Dude,” he asked, “Why chew your nails if you’re gonna smoke cigs?”

I couldn’t answer him. I shrugged, hoping the conversation would quickly turn to making fun of someone else in the group or, just as likely, someone’s mother.

I quit biting my nails that summer. It took me another dozen to quit smoking.

Part II

I stayed home tonight to write; and I’ve successfully alternated between blogging and dissing. I just took a break to heat up some split-pea soup on the stove, which I intended to eat in front of a 10-minute TV news broadcast at the top of the hour. I sat down to eat, discovering only then that the cable was out.

“Dude,” I asked myself, “Why watch cable TV if you’re gonna surf the ‘net?”