< Reflection Pause / >

• Footnoting information sources is a pain. With radio, internet, TV, papers and magazines surrounding me up to 14 hours a day, facts pile up quickly, getting stored to brain space and processed there, but rarely with their sources connected. And what happens when the same story comes at you from ten directions? Does the first source of the day get the credit? Do you mention the one most deserving a bit of free advertising - as if anyone actually reads footnotes?

• My wife, who goes by the nickname "Pollyanna," is insisting that there's a sea change of optimism taking place around Barack Obama's presidential bid, and that young voters are newly excited about the political process because of it. I'm willing to cede the point, for now, but with John McCain clearly the Republican Party's boy and Hillary Clinton sliding sideways against Obama, I suspect things will get ugly - and empty - pretty quickly. Style matters more than substance, and already Obama's been attacked for being too skillful in public oration. He's got the style, but that's the substance of his opponents' criticisms. McCain is a "true hero" because he spent five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese during the American War there, but he's really old in contrast to Obama and even Clinton. And Clinton cries, which means she's either faking it or being a woman.

All of this is utter bullshit. Anyone want to talk about getting the United States to revisit its bonehead do-nothing position at the Bali global warming conference? Retracting the mandate to crank out ethanol at a maniacal pace, regardless of the environmental harm? Stopping the lunatics who've decided to build a water park in the middle of the Arizona desert?*

Oops, I said I was taking a break here. I guess the point is, maybe I'll have to revise chapter one... but probably not. And my wife will still be Pollyanna, which is a good thing, because I'm Arthur Schopenhauer and Diogenes rolled into a frowning, sneering ball of skepticism.

• Dammit, a footnote in the break!

*Chris Kahn, "Huge Water Park Planned for Arizona Desert." Associated Press, Nov. 19, 2007.