1 ROMNEY’S DEATH RATTLE So, the fantastic San Francisco-based magazine Mother Jones published some hellaciously damaging footage of Mitt Romney pooh-poohing 47% of the American electorate – disingenuous at best, a hilarious potential self-reference at worst, but either way not really a great way to reach out to potential voters. And then, at a press conference where he looked more haggard than I’ve seen a politician look for a very long time, he called for the release of the full video, for some reason, presumably because he figured Mother Jones were bluffing or something. Well, they weren’t. It’s not a good time to be Mitt Romney right now.
2 BURIED UNDER GARBAGE Yes, okay, stadium referendum. People want it, people aren’t happy with council. All good stuff. But the lede there – a $92 annual fee for recycling pickup – uhhhh, that’s sorta buried, isn’t it? (I know where my nearest Big Blue Bin is; it’s over at the Broadway Extra Foods. Better find out where yours is.)
3 A DIPLOMAT NAMED “VILERAT” I actually should have blogged about this the night it happened, but it’s still sort of fascinating: one of the U.S. diplomats killed in Libya last week was also a serious player in the economy-based massively-multiplayer online game EVE Online, as well as a forum moderator for weird Internet comedy hub Something Awful. Fascinating and tragic. It says something really weird about our intelligent people coming of age at a time when the Internet dominates most of our lives, but I haven’t figured out what exactly that is, yet. (It also says something that, well, the mob that killed him and three others, including ambassador Chris Stevens, maybe wasn’t the solid block of rage they’ve been portrayed as for the last week.)
4 PRO ATHLETES ARE CLASSY PEOPLE Blue Jays player Yunel Escobar wrote some dumb, ugly things in his eye black. The Jays are “investigating.” [UPDATE: And, as Barb points out below, their investigation has turned into a suspension.]
