https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYJaUJun4uw

We’ve lived our entire life within an hour of the Pacific Ocean. So have our parents. And so, substantially, did our grandparents. Border to border, all our relatives are scattered along I-5.

The West Coast is all we know. Sure, we’ve visited Back East, but hey, we’ve also visited England and Japan. All are equally foreign to us.

And yet, for those of us of the European Persuasion, the West Coast remains virgin territory. Everybody came here from somewhere else, for whatever reason. There’s little history here; Southern California is fascinatingly rootless. Which means, even more than the rest of the country, we make things up as we go.

There’s no tradition to smother you growing up, nothing to rebel against when you come of age. Some things could be better — some things could always be better — but you don’t have to fight an entrenched power structure to get it.

The West is no longer the Frontier, but it’s where the frontier closed. It’s the America we are forever reviving — nobody cares about the Colonials, but everybody’s up for a good Western, classic or postmodern. The Midwestern isn’t a genre, unless you count Coen Brothers movies.

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“[Michele] Bachmann (R-Minn.) recently became a citizen of Switzerland, making her eligible to run for office in the tiny European nation… Bachmann’s three youngest children are also now Swiss citizens, and her two older children are eligible to apply for a fast-track citizenship process.” [Politico, via @BuzzFeedAndrew]

Maurice Sendak, Children’s Author Who Upended Tradition, Dies at 83 [NYT]

During our time inhabiting This Mortal Coil, we have seen the election — okay, election, ascension, and coup — of ten Preznidents.

Here are their ages upon election/ascension/coup, in order: 43, 55, 55, 61, 52, 69, 64, 46, 54, 47.

But let’s throw out Ford (61) because he wasn’t elected. And let’s throw out Reagan (69) because he’s an outlier, and Bush I (64) because he was drafting on Reagan, and couldn’t get elected on his own eight years earlier.

Result? America prefers its Preznidents between 45 and 55, to make a nice soundbite range out of it. Old enough to know a thing or two, young enough to still do something about it. 65 may not mean what it used to, but it’s still Retirement Age. Even Ike was only a spry 62 in 1952, and he beat the Nazis, so cut him some slack.

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We were wondering about that Mad Men track last night: “Between licensing the publishing rights from Sony ATV Publishing and the rights to the master held by EMI, sources estimate Lionsgate spent somewhere in the six-figure range. One knowledgeable source puts the combined sum at around $250,000.” [Forbes, via @pourmecoffee]

Our guest columnist has forgotten more about Disneyland than you’ll ever know.

Why is the Secret Restroom better than other Disneyland restrooms?

For a variety of reasons. For example, it is the only restroom in the entire park that is entirely handicapped accessible, full of cutting-edge technology, and against park policy for discussion by any cast member.

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Title: “The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas”

Author: Jonah Goldberg

Rank: 65

Blurb: “With humor and passion, Goldberg dismantles these and many other Trojan Horses that liberals use to cheat in the war of ideas. He shows that the grand Progressive tradition of denying an ideological agenda while pursuing it vigorously under the false-flag of reasonableness is alive and well. And he reveals how this dangerous game may lead us further down the path of self-destruction.”

Review: “I found it cathartic when Goldberg declares, ‘The Marxists who claimed to be ending the masses’ addiction to religion then proceeded to slaughter those same masses at a rate unprecedented in the history of human life.'”

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