Thomas Friedman reads somebody else’s book about creeping commercialism in everyday life — “I had no idea”, he repeats each time he learns something like ShopRite “sponsoring” a public-school gym — and comes to this stunning conclusion:

Throughout our society, we are losing the places and institutions that used to bring people together from different walks of life. Sandel calls this the “skyboxification of American life,” and it is troubling. Unless the rich and poor encounter one another in everyday life, it is hard to think of ourselves as engaged in a common project.

This is where Thomas Friedman lives. We had no idea.

This Column Is Not Sponsored by Anyone [NYT]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urjn5CjVbak

It’s not news that Mitt Romney was a vicious asshole as an 18-year-old boarding-school student in 1965. It’s not even character-defining, although we’ll admit to amusement that Mitt was a pro-Establishment college protester the next year. The reason Mitt’s dog story has legs is that he was a thirtysomething adult when he strapped Seamus to the roof of the family station wagon. And Mitt was a fortysomething adult when he stuffed his suit with money for a celebratory Bain photo. The clock on Youthful Indiscretion starts running out after 25.

Mitt is 65 now. And you would think, when confronted by a story from the distant past vouched by multiple classmates, that he would have a better response than this:

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After Barack Obama historically announced his support for States’ Rights regarding gay marriage yesterday, we thought we’d take a fresh look at Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court case that struck down laws against interracial marriages. How, we wondered, did Earl Warren make a federal case out of it?

The Fourteenth Amendment, of course. Equal protection under the law. It was only ratified in 1868; we’ll get around to implementing it sooner or later.

But a couple of details from the decision caught our attention. The reason we were looking it up was obvious: The marriage of Obama’s parents would have been illegal in a third of the country. Hawaii was cool with it. And so was the District of Columbia, where Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were married in June 1958.

It’s only when the Happy Couple moved to Virginia a few months later that trouble arose. That October, a grand jury indicted them for violating the state ban.

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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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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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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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We’re not sure how we expected to react upon watching “The Scream” being auctioned for $119,922,500. Perhaps we were supposed to be Shocked! that someone could blow 119,922.5 large on a painting. Perhaps we would contemplate the Horror! that it would take us three millennia to earn that kind of scratch. Perhaps we would manifest a Comically Abject Expression of Fear Suitable for a Blockbuster Movie Poster! while listing the worthwhile things $119,922,500 could provide instead.

But you know what caught our attention? The rotating pedestal they used to display it, like something out of a game show. We’re a cheap date.

[via WaPo]