https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2O_j6CfSNo

One unexpected benefit of cutting the cable cord last spring is that we can’t wallow in gloomy election-night coverage. We can, however, wallow in YouTube disaster-movie montages, so here’s New York getting repeatedly blasted off the face of the Earth to accompany your apocalyptic musings.

Jacob Adler, the great tragedian, performed in many European capitals. Of them all he declared the slums of London to be the worst he had ever seen. Worse than Russia or Paris, and worse than anything he would encounter in New York.

Dickens’s friend and colleague Henry Mayhew invented the oral history when he walked the streets of London asking its poor what work they did and how they managed to survive. He talked to children as young as four who lived off the farthings earned by scraping together small nosegays from the broken flowers dropped from the trays of older flower sellers, perhaps nine or eleven, in Covent Garden. In its uncut form his masterwork chronicles in infinite detail the lives of those considered not worth the reckoning. As Pax Britannica made a small coterie unimaginably wealthy their fellow citizens died in the street. But perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps the idea of of Empire that has infected certain societies at certain times demands the sacrifice of many so that some can believe themselves to be great. Ignoring the poor isn’t enough. They must be kicked aside. They must pay the price. The young must die in war.

Which brings me to This American Life.

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Budgeting!

It’s time once again for our national celebration of Civic Calisthenics! Having endured dozens of them by now, that’s all we really remember about any of them — Aisle Hogs, Common Man Cameos, and Bouncy-Bouncy. (Well, plus the occasional Accusative from a Backbencher.) The ritual is so established, we swear you could set it to music.

Whoever wins tonight (or late December, pending recounts), you can bet the losing side will claim Nefarious Irregularities that undermine the result. And so, as we commence the grueling journey of our Election Night Open Thread/Heist Movie, just remember that it ain’t over until the Supreme Court sings.

Image: Zombie Head Cookie Jar [ThinkGeek]

America has spoken: Rowdy debates are a lot more fun than Dignified Discourse On the Pressing Issues of the Day. And as we nuke our popcorn in preparation for tonight’s Preznidential Debate Open Thread/Closed Fists, we have just one thought: An empty chair is no good unless thrown.

If you could go back a month — heck, let’s make it two weeks — and do things the right way, you could forget the troubling thoughts of the train plane wreck that disrupted everybody’s lives without warning. So just imagine tonight’s Preznidential Debate Open Thread/Do Over as the first such event of the season, and everything will be fine. Oh, and ignore the Demon Rabbit. We have no idea how it got there.