“The rugged individualist Harold Ford-who inherited his father’s Congressional seat at the age of 26-is a self-proclaimed ‘capitalist’ who believes that people ‘should lose’ if they don’t do well: unless, that is, the people who ‘don’t do well’ are his funders and controllers on Wall Street, in which case they should be propped up by the U.S. Government with bailouts and loans and Federal Reserve tricks until such time that they can pay themselves tens of millions of dollars in bonuses, at which point they should be left alone in the name of ‘free market capitalism’ and keeping the Government out of the affairs of industry and away from their ‘rewards.’”
–Glenn Greenwald describes New York State Senator wannabe Harold Ford as “incomparably horrific” and “particularly unskilled in hiding his soullessness.” This puts Ford in almost as bad a light as Ford’s own words in an interview with the Times published today, but not quite!

A survey of 1753 college students by Texas Tech’s “Body Art Team” reveals that young people with multiple tattoos or body piercings are more likely to be promiscuous binge-drinking drug users than less decorated peers. An unrelated study shows that “five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era.” Both of these reports come with a couple of caveats, but I think if there were some way we could correlate them to each other we might solve the whole “kids today” issue.

“’It’s a lot of kids in skinny jeans, black Keds and gauzy scarves. Big fucking deal!’ said [Bruce] Hackney. ‘You can go on the L train and see the same people!’”
-Former art dealer Bruce Hackney explaining what will be missed when Jeffrey Deitch closes up his downtown gallery to move to Los Angeles to be the chief honcho of MOCA.

“Poll: Blacks optimistic about future.” Let’s look at CNN’s exciting new poll numbers!

CNN: “Thirty-nine percent of African-Americans said the ‘situation of black people in this country’ is better than it was five years ago, nearly twice the 20 percent who said the same in 2007.”

Shall we rephrase? “A great majority-sixty-one percent of African-Americans-did not agree that the ‘situation of black people in this country’ is better than it was five years ago. In 2007, a whopping 80 percent said that the ‘situation of black people in this country’ is not better than it was five years ago.”

And?

CNN: “A majority of African-Americans polled, 53 percent, said that life for blacks in the future will be better than it is now.”

Which, let’s try…. “Nearly half of African-Americans polled, 47 percent, said that they did not agree that life for blacks in the future will be better than it is now.”

CNN: “Even with the upbeat findings, more than eight in 10 African-Americans said the country needs to make more changes before blacks have equal rights with whites.”

So, you mean: “Eight in 10 African-Americans said the country needs to make more changes before blacks have equal rights with whites.”

“For dessert, sticky toffee pudding and a marvelous version of Eton mess, meringue slathered in lemon ricotta cream. There is also eggnog as interpreted by someone interested in the intersection of hallucinogens and psychotherapy, all folded egg whites and sugar: liquid velvet, ecstasy in a cup. A shot of Sailor Jerry overproof spiced rum is down at the bottom of it, a base of caramel beneath the cloud of white. It is either an antidote or a force multiplier. It may be both.”
-Detractors can suck it: Sam Sifton is doing some bracing work in his new gig as Times restaurant critic. See also: “The Breslin is the sort of restaurant you end up thinking about a lot, not always pleasantly, staring up at the ceiling at 3 in the morning in cold sweat and mild panic. Yes, the food is good. But it is monochromatically good: it is 10 colors of fat.”

I had no idea that a shortage of Angostura bitters was threatening our city’s Manhattans, but apparently this is the case! Until the crisis eases, I suggest Peychaud’s as an alternative.

“Obviously, it’s not about me, it’s not about me, personally. They don’t like the message. They don’t like the commonsense conservative solution that I think that I represent and you articulate. They don’t like to hear it.”
-Sarah Palin, making her debut as a Fox News contributor, explains to Bill O’Reilly why her opponents feel so “threatened” by her. Yeah, that’s probably it.

I guess if you’re curious, go ahead, but really, I’m surprised he’s not always surrounded by pie.

So did you also get the sense last night that basically no English-language news organization has people in Haiti? Of course it is going to be difficult getting news and information out of something terrible like this in the first 48 hours; totally understandable. Most on-scene reporting I would pretty much expect to be like “THIS IS HORRIBLE, GOTTA GO HELP SOME PEOPLE.” But we’re not getting that. And the second-hand news-the aggregation, if you will? Really weird.

The Times last night was bizarre! The Lede blog has taken over chief “referring readers to news” duties and this is what comes out.

Update | 11:59 p.m. My colleague Jennifer Preston has compiled this Twitter list of users of the social network who are in Haiti or providing useful information on the aftermath of the earthquake there.

Update | 11:02 p.m. Tequila Minsky, a New York-based photographer who is staying at the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince — which was the model for the Haitian hotel in Graham Greene’s novel “The Comedians” — told my colleague Patrick Witty, a photo editor on the New York Times foreign desk, what she saw immediately after the earthquake. She had arrived at the hotel just two hours before the quake struck, shaking the walls of her room shook and knocking things off it…..

Update | 10:25 p.m. Thanks to a reader who pointed us to this partial list of Twitter users who say they are in Haiti compiled by the Los Angeles Times.

I mean, this could be worse! They could be telling me nothing. I mean, I’m not even going to turn CNN on, because, no. And, yes, I kinda prefer all that stuff above to this.

Referrals totally appreciated, by the way!

Trying Not To Look At More Pictures from Haiti And Having Some Truly Idle Thoughts About James Spader’s Dog

Aww, James Spader has a dog named Mr. Meagles? Maybe I’ve spent my entire life misjudging him. (The entire part of my life that I spent thinking about him, I mean-brief incidences of which occurred in 1989 and 1994 and 2002.) I hope it’s a beagle!