Stayin' Alive

1. Yes, I am alive.

2. The observation in Item 1 was prompted by the remark of one of my students (Hannah) that she had been wondering about my possible demise by the lack of blog posts of late. Now, this presents a bit of a curious puzzle. I knew I was alive. But, if the proof of my existence is in fact a blog post here, then is it possible for me to fake my own life in the event that my actual life were to summarily terminate? People have tried to fake their own death--there was a really interesting article about this in WIRED magazine a few months ago (I got some good tips)--but, is it possible to do the reverse, to die and fake one's own life? I think all I would need to do is write up a series of observations on life, book reviews and other such material. If I had a program that would post said musings on a semi-regular basis, for how long could I fake my own life before someone realized I was, in actual fact, dead?

3. Now that I have raised the possibility in Item 2, is there any evidence that this isn't simply my first post-mortem blog post?

4. On a less morbid note, the last couple weeks have been busy, and I am still trying to figure out when it is OK to indulge in the luxury of writing diverting ruminations and thereby avoiding work which is less diverting but probably more essential.

5. For example, one of the activities alluded to in item 4 was the Philadelphia Society meetings this last weekend in, mirabile dictu, Philadelphia. It was a pretty good conference--not great, just pretty good. Michael Barone was the most interesting speaker. Barone has been studying US elections forever, and writes the Almanac of American Politics. It is safe to say he knows as much about the 1st Iowa district and the 32nd California district and the 14th Texas district and so on, as anyone. His take on the current state: much to his surprise, the Democrats are in serious trouble, very serious trouble, this November. He thinks the Health care bill may turn out to be the biggest electoral disaster for Democrats since the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. He seemed genuinely surprised by this development--the country seems to have turned on the Democrats with a vengeance. He also seemed genuinely surprised by the Tea Party folks, which is really interesting--since he studies such things all the time, it is pretty amazing that a movement that large could emerge with no evidence of its Coming to Be being apparent before it thrust itself into the National Conscience.

6. It is really hard to believe that the song in the title of this post spent 4 weeks at the top of the Billboard charts.

7. And, yes, I owned the album. I don't think I owned the single, but I did own the album.