Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Louise Wener, 47. I saw Sleeper opening for Elvis in Berkeley, I guess right at the top of their brief run...they were quite good! I had no idea what happened to her; turns out she's a successful novelist, apparently. How many rock star/novelists are there, anyway? The guy who is John Wesley Harding, I know; also Dr. Frank from Mr. T. I'm probably missing an obvious one.

Some good stuff:

1. Boris Shor on state legislature polarization.

2. Joan Walsh on Ralph Nader. One of the hallmarks of US politics is that democracy is the stated universal preference; support for any other form of government is a strong taboo, one of the strongest there is. In a lot of ways that's probably good; even those who really have no use for democracy not only are forced to declare their belief in it, but in most cases "believe in" democracy, even if they don't actually have any patience for real rule of the people. But those same declarations also make for a lot of confusion, since there's sort of a basic assumption that whatever political system we think is best must, by definition almost, be what "real" democracy is.

3. Julian Sanchez on the Ashcroft hospital showdown.

4. And Rick Hasen's Election Law Blog conquers the world, becomes more of a must-read than ever.