NOISE POLLITION:

Tom Daschle Contracts Dowd-Dementia (Mugger, NY Press)

I can't resist passing along this nugget from Katha Pollitt's Dec. 9 Nation column. Pollitt, in despair over the elections and lack of "progressive" turnout, has a dandy idea. She writes: "So which is it: People don't vote because there's no one to vote for (except when there is)? People don't vote because it's too much trouble (except when it isn't)? Let's find out. Let's move Martin Luther King Day to the first Tuesday in November, so that Election Day is a paid national holiday and King's memory is honored with something more real than uplifting bromides. Or maybe, it will turn out, not more real."

Jeez, Pollitt doesn't go far enough. Why not move Election Day to the birthday of an American patriot like Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky or Alger Hiss?

If you don't read Russ "Mugger" Smith regularly, this is a particularly good column to start with. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 26, 2002 4:34 PM